I understand your unease many if not most people in the West are educated from day one that science is just right.
I don’t agree at all. Are there people that take science as an absolute truth or just plainly right? Really? I may be naïve in thinking this but most everyone knows that for the most part, science is just the best way discovered yet for weeding out the truth from human bias. Of course science is not immutable or absolute. The scientific method could be refined or completely reformed in the future. But right now: Is there a better way of systematically explain our reality? Maybe, I do know this though; all religions so far throughout history have failed miserably at this.
Absolutely, there are very many at the University level who view “science” in the way a traditional person views religion. Some people are so anti-religious that it drives their beliefs in science to the point of becoming religious in there absoluteness. Others are so pro-technological progress that science takes on an absolutist context for them. Most Westerners have simply been educated all their lives to believe science is best and has defeated and shamed all the “unsuccessful/outdated” (western) religions for a couple of reasons.
In the broadest sense these beliefs are an outgrowth of the schism between religion and academia. With sciences “triumph” over religion modern scientific academics have supplanted the previous “religious” academics as the purveyors “truth.“ The problem, however, is that while science is great in figuring out the workings of things, at least to certain small scale, it has no moral foundation to guide people on how to use this information. So almost from it’s modern inception science has been struggling to find “it’s way” so to speak in not just providing information but in telling people how “best” to use it.
This is where pure science quickly devolves into ideology which in the opinion of many is just another form of religious belief. The most pervasive of these ideologies in modern academics are the embodied in modern socialism. Secular Humanism, due largely to the stigma surrounding the history of socialism has gained some traction in becoming the ideological (religious) face of modern science.
However, all is not harmonious on the political left. There is also counter movement of lefties who view traditional science as so terribly biased by the culture of DWEM (Dead White European Males) to be counterproductive. Many alternatives to traditional science have been offered by feminists and various “third world” authors. But for now most of this is on the fringe.
As I mentioned above most Westerners view science as the best way of knowing our world which on the surface when looking at the modern technological boom would seem obvious. However, science didn’t bring us this technology. Both regulated markets and command directed economies (the U.S. space program was not based on free markets or capitalism) did. (Note: Most people confuse market based and command directed economies with capitalism and socialism respectively). Science itself can’t seem to prove which or what combination of these or other economic theories is best.
Another problem for modern science is it’s deconstructionist nature. In order to progress quickly and more “accurately” (at least at the small scale) science breaks things into parts. While this may hasten “progress” it often overlooks the consequences of such progress on the large scale. This whole discussion began because of man-made-global-warming and it’s potential dire consequences. Which science has brought upon us by providing limited knowledge without full understanding resulting in our rapid “progress” which may in also hasten our demise. My engineering friends are quite confident the science will work it all out as has apparently been the case for the last 150 and especially 50 years. However, narrowly focused scientifically based “solutions” invariably have knock-on effects which in turn may end up being worse than the problem being solved.
This is one of my biggest gripes about the we-must-reduce-carbon-emissions-to-stop-global warming/climate change crowed is that this “solution” itself is based once again on deconstructionist narrowly focused “scientific” study. Data suggests Methane could easily be a greater problem. Never mind if the sun has a bad day and we’re all toast. So the issue for me isn’t whether the globe is warming it’s whether we are applying our limited resources to mitigate it in the most productive way and even more importantly is this something we really want to do sense we have know way of knowing what the long term consequences of cooling the globe might be. In the headlong rush toward progress we once again are loosing sight of the forest for the trees.
Interestingly enough I remember once reading a story about humans gaining to much knowledge to fast because of someone eating an apple. Funny, how well over 2000 years ago some religious types seemed to have figured out what modern academics have forgotten. More generally if you strip way the trappings of the successful (by social evolutionary standards) world religions you get some pretty good messages about how people who want live together harmoniously should behave toward each other. However, since it’s sacrilege for a Western academic to adopt Judeo/Christian beliefs you see many turning to Eastern beliefs to find meaning since the meaning science provides usually doesn’t suffice.
So is “science” the best way of learning about our world? Clearly that depends on what one considers “best.” I spent a semester with a professor and about 10 other people discussing this exact topic. The engineers and business types where absolutely sure it was. The feminist felt science was so biased it should be reworked. The Hippy, professor and I all felt any answer was arbitrary and temporal (depending on how one defined a “best” outcome and over what timeframe). One thing I can say is that up to now no religion that I’m aware of has brough us the potential to destroy all of humanity. Will science turn out to be "best?"
Cheers,
Dean
P.S. Thanks for keeping the discussion civil.
