Re: [A-List] How "scientific" is science?

["tony black" <tal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

'Inquiry of what?' ....Of 'nature', of the world we live in..

As for religion being an open-ended inquiry...You've got to be kidding.
That's a tortured stretch that not even most theologians would accept.

Moreover, as Joseph Campbell once wrote,

"My favourite definition of religion is, 'a misinterpretation of mythology'.
And the misinterpretation consists precisely in attributing historical
references to symbols which are properly spiritual in their reference."

In this regard, it *is* interesting to note that an open-ended inquiry by
some theologians (analysing the Nag Hammadi gospels, doing extensive
philological analysis of the New Testament, the later vs earlier letters of
(St.) Paul, etc) have indeed opened up a true open-ended inquiry into the
nature (i.e. non-existence) of the historical personage of Jesus, placing
him, instead, in a long line of mythological incarnations of the old Pagan
and Gnostic spiritual traditions (emphasizing the symbolic meaning of
Christianity and its continuity with a whole host of previous mystery /
spiritual traditions that hinge on the divine / enlightenment potential of
each and every one of us).

Nevertheless, having pointed out these enquiring minds, I rush to note that
the vast majority of theologians are merely authoritarian purveyors of
rigid, orthodox, set-in-stone doctrine.

Finally, to address that old canard of the 'impossibililty of absolute
knowledge'...This is merely post-modernist relativist 'absolutism' gone
amuck.

[For brilliant deconstructions of the post-modernist philosophical
enterprise, I recommend Terry Eagleton's, "Ideology", and David Harvey's,
"The Condition of Post-Modernity"]

The fact that, yes, our knowledge is, and likely always will be limited and
approximate in nature, hardly rules out us making a claim to 'knowing'
within those parameters. If you don't believe it, then throw away your cell
phone, 'cause you should have no faith that the boys down at Tech. HQ know
anything at all.

And if you're talking about 'ultimate' knowledge of the true nature of the
universe...well, I suspect that that can possibly be approached ('in the
limit' as you rather dismissively remark) from both ends: the scientific and
the spiritual.

But to hold up this, "well, because the knowledge stemming from the
scientific process is limited, therefore it means nothing, says nothing, is
of no worth..or offers up merely a cold cup of total philosophical
impotence"...I say, balderdash. I believe such a critique is disingenuous in
the extreme.

We must be aware, naturally, of the limitations of our both our claims to
'absolute truth' and of the always present projection of collective fantasy
within the project of, often presumptively labelled, 'objective science'. It
is an enterprise, after all, pursured and developed by mere mortals, by very
fallible and motivationally complex human beings. What else does would one
expect?

But to dismiss the entire edifice on this account is simply a cavil.

Tony




----- Original Message -----
From: "Sabri Oncu" <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2005 3:13 AM
Subject: [A-List] How "scientific" is science?


Tony:

> 'Science' in the abstract is merely a process of open-ended
> inquiry guided by a 'prime directive' of self-correction.

Dear Tony,

Let us dissect the above a bit:

> 'Science' in the abstract is merely a process of open-ended
> inquiry

The first question I would like to ask is "an inquiry of what?" 'Religion'
in the abstract is merely a process of open-ended inquiry as well, is it
not?

> guided by a 'prime directive' of self-correction.

The second question I have is that if scientific process is self-correcting,
then does it not mean that in the limit as the number of corrections go to
infinity, we would get to the "truth", whatever "truth" means? But even we
may be able to reach a limit after infitinetely many corrections, how can we
know that that limit is the "truth" or not? All we can know is the limit of
these iterations, if there is a limit of course, is it not? Further,if as
someone once said there is no unique way to science and given that the
limits we reach depend on the ways we choose, how do we know which limit is
the "right" one?

There, I again side with Dale: "We know what makes living things tick, but
we
have no clue what life really is."

Best,

Sabri