Is Scientific Endeavour a Doctrinal Theology?

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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Thomas123
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Is Scientific Endeavour a Doctrinal Theology?

Post #1

Post by Thomas123 »

People often refer to false Gods!

I consider that this is a matter of human abilities failing.

False:1.not according with truth or fact; incorrect

Scientific endeavour appears to me to have a theology.

It appears to want to make life better for its fellow humans.
It appears to want to sustain more humans.
It appears to want to make humans live longer.

Are these the aspirational goals of this religious worship?
Many people in the sciences are sincere and well intentioned and much of our modern convenience can be attributed to scientific endeavour.
Is it incorrect to call this worship?

Have these sciences anything to do with objective fact or truth?
Are the Sciences false?

A false God doesn't work!
Is science working?

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Post #21

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to post 19 by Thomas123]
This is an idol of science.


An airplane is certainly a marvel of modern science, but it is the result of a practical need rather than some sort of "idol" that was developed by science willy nilly. It has reduced travel times to distant locations dramatically, which is why it succeeded as a new means of transportation. The practical benefits of being able to move humans and cargo at 500 miles per hour routinely, over land and water, are tremendous. But like many modern conveniences it has environmental consequences that we have to choose to live with in order to realize the benefits.

The modern world could not function without airplanes, computers, cars, and many other inventions that science has contributed to, and humans have decided (so far) that having these things is better than not having them. But science is not the driving force behind adoption of these inventions into society ... that is driven by the benefits they provide and the choice by humans to utilize them and enjoy them rather than go back to the horse and buggy, heating with wood, etc. Whether that choice will kill us off in time due to eventual destruction of the planet remains to be seen, but science is just a tool in the tool box.

The more material that I load into this argument the stronger the resistance appears to become.


What, exactly, is your argument? Is it that science is like religious doctrine, or is it that you oppose how humans use scientific achievements and inventions? The airplane example appears to be the latter, but that is very different from the premise that science and the scientific method itself is a doctrine. Scientific endeavor may be guided by a process called the scientific method, but again that is just a process to logically arrive at answers to questions and to explain observations. There is no end goal of science in general ... other than to basically provide explanations for "how things work."
Somebody wants to use science to disprove a resurrection claim, what's next?
If that was prompted by my comment in post 18, I gave that example to contrast science vs. religion. Science would say that a resurrection is impossible under any circumstances, and therefore they do not happen. A religious person can accept an event like this because they believe in miracles and an all powerful god being who can literally do anything. So a resurrection is perfectly reasonable if you accept religious doctrine, but perfectly unreasonable if you accept modern science and biology. The two subjects could not be more different.
In human affairs the sources of success are ever to be found in the fountains of quick resolve and swift stroke; and it seems to be a law, inflexible and inexorable, that he who will not risk cannot win.
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Mark Twain

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Post #22

Post by Thomas123 »

[Replying to post 21 by DrNoGods]

Thank You, DrNoGods, for your consistently balanced submissions here. I have tried to be as temperate as possible too, not even mentioning the evil and corrupt nature of many of the modern scientific developments, until now. I have tried to keep things on an even keel.

Here is what I struggle with!

DrNoGods:. There is no end goal of science in general ... other than to basically provide explanations for "how things work."

Thomas123
To do that would require an unflinching comittment to the pursuit of fact and truth. Less than this produces the falsehood and lies referred to in the opening post.
You are responsible for your meddling! Or are you?
You are responsible if you mislead. Or are you?
You are responsible if you create harm Or are you?
Science masquerades as a street stall of elixirs for the masses.

Look at the brush that Theism is tarred with. God tells people to bash kids heads on rocks! Bad God! Science kills and is blameless or does it blame God as well. I am thinking of the never ending proliferation, and upgrading of scientific warfare. Is that explaining 'how things work' Surely not.

I just want the Sciences to stop pretending that they have a magic answer machine. I want science to be regulated and contained because it ignores it's own findings when creating its next catastrophe-solution spin cycle. I want Science to remember a hippocratic oath that it might once have adhered to. I want Science to admit,and repair, it's own calamities sooner rather than later.

Take my first example of the human DNA compatibility with chimpanzees 98%, and the inter race compatibility of 99.5%. Surely Science should consider the use of Chimps in research as genocide. If science was after 'cold truth' then the Chimp becomes the obvious test medium. Is Science to be without moral direction. If this was to be the scientific mandate then why are our scientific journals not concluding that mandatory population control is a truth.

Science runs with the hare and the hounds and it is as dangerous as a child with a box of matches.

Our evolution rate has been scientifically mapped but then ,we ignore all that and we proceed to meddle regardless. Icarus was just a guy without plastic. Surely , if for no other reason than intellectual honesty the sciences should rein themselves in. As if that would ever happen. Many of our scientists are mercenaries to any cause.
They crusade for hypocrisy.
Just because you can does not mean you should! Or does it!

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Post #23

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to post 22 by Thomas123]
I am thinking of the never ending proliferation, and upgrading of scientific warfare. Is that explaining 'how things work' Surely not.


I would agree. The science part of the first atomic bomb started decades before when people wanted to understand how atoms "worked." They wanted to know why spectral lines existed not as a continuum but as discrete spectral lines. This is what actually prompted a lot of the early work on quantum mechanics ... trying to explain why the hydrogen atom spectrum looked as it did. They wanted to understand radioactive decay from the physics standpoint, etc. There was no intention to build weapons from this knowledge. But once science had provided answers to these questions the knowledge was "out there" and both good actors and bad actors had access to it. Whether dropping the two fission bombs on Japan in 1945 net saved lives by ultimately ending the war is not a question for science, and the underpinnings of the knowledge needed to built atomic weapons has applications far beyond the building of bombs. So it is certainly true that scientific developments can be used for bad things, but that fault cannot be blamed on the scientific method or the desire to learn more about nature (ie. science in general), but to the human beings who decide to utilize the knowledge for potentially bad things.
I just want the Sciences to stop pretending that they have a magic answer machine.


I wouldn't call it a magic answer machine, but rather the arrival at answers through observation and experiment, and explanations of these using prior knowledge in the various scientific disciplines. In a huge number of cases science has come up with the correct answers, and things like airplanes and the GPS system, vaccines, computers, and countless other examples are the result. In other cases science has yet to work out the answers (origin of life, what is dark matter and dark energy, how did the universe began, if it did, etc.). People will continue to work on explanations for these things, and it is probably safe to say that when those answers do come there will be opportunities to use the new knowledge for nefarious things. But that is not the fault of science itself trying to get at the answers. If we blame science for seeking answers and stop it, that surely would not lead to a better world. And human nature probably eliminates the possibility that all science will be used for good. It is part of the never ending battle between the white hats and the black hats.
Just because you can does not mean you should! Or does it!


I'd argue that if science can find answers to problems it should try. People want to know how life originated on this planet, or if it exists on other planets. An atheist may want to know the answer to these questions for general scientific curiosity. If the atheist is a biologist he/she may want to know the mechanisms involved because it must contain interesting biology. A religious person may want to know to wrestle with what it may imply for the validity of a creation story, or if it supports the idea that humans are special animals rather than simply highly evolved apes. But the only way to get at the answer is scientific inquiry, and it people use any new science that may result for bad things, that is the fault of those humans, not the scientific method or science in general.
In human affairs the sources of success are ever to be found in the fountains of quick resolve and swift stroke; and it seems to be a law, inflexible and inexorable, that he who will not risk cannot win.
John Paul Jones, 1779

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.
Mark Twain

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Post #24

Post by Thomas123 »

[Replying to DrNoGods]

Again we probably just disagree, on these matters.

This statement of yours startled me.

DrNoGods:...but science is just a tool in the tool box.

Thomas123
That is a total rejection of critical thinking, of responsibility, of regard for consequence, ....of a pursuit of truth or sense or reason or fact.
What you regard as scientific enquiry, I regard as meddling and mischief.
A decision by science to keep probing is tantamount to a death sentence for humanity. We were fine before science started,.. .we have fallen through the curiosity of Eve.

It is with little hope that I advocate a halt to this Scientific Apocalypse . The science is contaminated with the subjectivity of human arrogance, the same as a bad religion.

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Post #25

Post by Aetixintro »

[Replying to post 24 by Thomas123]

Truly, science must be conducted ethically and plausibly so! Any science won't do it or we're no better than the Nazis at Dachau concentration camp of the Holocaust against the Jews. Note.

Dachau misconduct of science is widely cited. :study: 8-)
I'm cool! :) - Stronger Religion every day! Also by "mathematical Religion", the eternal forms, God closing the door on corrupt humanity, possibly!

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Post #26

Post by brunumb »

[Replying to post 22 by Thomas123]
God tells people to bash kids heads on rocks! Bad God! Science kills and is blameless or does it blame God as well. I am thinking of the never ending proliferation, and upgrading of scientific warfare.
That comparison is absurd. Science is not a sentient being. It doesn't tell anyone to do anything. Science is the study of the nature and behaviour of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about them. Science doesn't kill. People kill. God kills.

ETA: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.�
― Stephen Hawking
George Orwell:: “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”
Voltaire: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
Gender ideology is anti-science, anti truth.

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Post #27

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to post 24 by Thomas123]
That is a total rejection of critical thinking, of responsibility, of regard for consequence, ....of a pursuit of truth or sense or reason or fact.
The comment that science is just a tool in the toolbox? I think you are reading way too much into such a simple comment. Science IS a tool in terms of it being a method by which we study nature and find explanations of it. It is a process guided by the scientific method, and is not a rejection of the things you list but the very path towards them (ie. the pursuit of truth, sense, reason and fact).
A decision by science to keep probing is tantamount to a death sentence for humanity. We were fine before science started,.. .we have fallen through the curiosity of Eve.
What do you mean "before science started"? The first member of the genus Homo who wondered how some aspect of nature worked and tried to find an explanation was practicing science. Why is that in any way bad or wrong? Given that this was most likely very early in the development of humans, the "we were fine" period must comprise only a tiny period of time, a very long time ago.

Humans "probing" has resulted in a huge body of knowledge that is now so vast that no single person could possibly begin to know it comprehensively. Pick even one discipline and that is the case. How you can see human understanding of nature (and continuing efforts in that area) as a bad thing is very strange, or maybe you have a different definition of science than most people. There is no indication that we are headed for some sort of apocalypse because of scientific inquiry. Or do you know something the rest of us don't?
In human affairs the sources of success are ever to be found in the fountains of quick resolve and swift stroke; and it seems to be a law, inflexible and inexorable, that he who will not risk cannot win.
John Paul Jones, 1779

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.
Mark Twain

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Post #28

Post by Diagoras »

Thomas123 wrote: I just want the Sciences to stop pretending that they have a magic answer machine. I want science to be regulated and contained because it ignores it's own findings when creating its next catastrophe-solution spin cycle. I want Science to remember a hippocratic oath that it might once have adhered to. I want Science to admit,and repair, it's own calamities sooner rather than later.
Some specific examples here might be useful. The above is just coming across as a rant.

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Post #29

Post by Thomas123 »

brunumb wrote: [Replying to post 22 by Thomas123]
God tells people to bash kids heads on rocks! Bad God! Science kills and is blameless or does it blame God as well. I am thinking of the never ending proliferation, and upgrading of scientific warfare.
That comparison is absurd. Science is not a sentient being. It doesn't tell anyone to do anything. Science is the study of the nature and behaviour of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about them. Science doesn't kill. People kill. God kills.

ETA: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.�
― Stephen Hawking
...

Take the Hawkings quote,that squarely pits Science against religion. To have such unflinching zeal and belief in an imperfect ideal is religious in nature. Observation and reason are his go to doctrines. Ignore that you are a slowly evolving primate, ignore our human vulnerability to extreme forms of information and capability, ignore that the human ,with its skill set is infintizimally unlikely to accomplish 'factual answers' from it's bumbling methodology and then call that observation. Cool work ,Mr Hawkings! Then call it reason and the doctrine is complete.
This is the reincarnation of Christian Pauline thought ,in my view and that is not a rant. I am as cold as a fish, just dumb struck at how self indulgent brainy people can be.

Is Science just lining it's own pockets by selling guns to the Indians or is it intellectually being the unwitting sponsor of human revolution against our own rejected , and scientifically described , nature.?

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Post #30

Post by Diagoras »

Thomas123 wrote:Is Science just lining it's own pockets by selling guns to the Indians or is it intellectually being the unwitting sponsor of human revolution against our own rejected , and scientifically described , nature.?
Have you heard of the informal fallacy known as ‘false dilemma’? I feel that should apply.

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