clipka wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> And if you look closely enough, science has actually led to what is commonly
>>> considered one of the greatest cruelties in history: The Nazi-German Holocaust
>>> - driven by belief in the concept of a "Herrenrasse", which was nothing than
>>> Darwinism gone radical-fundamentalist.
>> That wasn't science.
> 
> Yeah, that hurts scientific people to hear.
> 
> It was founded on *pure* science (sharing the same rationale as euthanasia at
> that time) - Darwin's theories. The world at that time still had to learn that
> science without morals is barbaric and cold right to the core.

No. It was clothed in pseudo-science. You don't start with "the Aryan race 
is best" and then try to prove it, if you're doing science. You certainly 
don't kill millions of people in order to prove it.

> The whole world, by the way. "Survival of the fittest"-type of thinking was very
> popular back then all across the globe. Nazi-German excelled in it though.

Yep. It wasn't science, tho. "Survival of the fittest" isn't darwinism any 
more than breeding show dogs is darwinism. People were breeding plants and 
animals for specific traits thousands of years before Darwin was born.

> Leaving aside that science did develop the means for gassing an incredible lot
> of people, the *motivation* for these acts were firmly based on darwinism,

Uh, no? There was neither natural selection involved, nor change over 
several generations. Why was it based more on darwinism than invading Russia 
was? Darwin talked about natural selection and changes between generations. 
How does that equate to killing millions of people based on their religion?

> whether you like to hear that or not.

OK, here's the question:
1) What hypothesis was the nazis trying to disprove by gassing millions of 
people?
2) What would have they accepted as evidence that their hypothesis was wrong?
3) What events were they trying to observe by gassing millions of people in 
support or refutation of their hypothesis?

Again, just because the nazis claimed it was science doesn't mean it was any 
more science than throwing witches in the lake to see if they sink was 
scientific.

If you don't say "We do this experiment, and if X is the result, then our 
hypothesis is wrong", then you're not doing science. It's really pretty 
simple - falsifiability is the hallmark of scientific theories.

>> Straw man.
>> ...
>> No, really, it doesn't. You just don't know what science actually is.
> 
> Very simple to type that as a response instead of really trying to grasp a
> point.

I understand your point. Science doesn't provide moral guidance except in 
some really obvious ways (like "a murder rate greater than the birth rate 
tends to be bad for society, hence murder is bad"). The results of science 
can be used for good or bad. Yep. Science isn't inherently good in a moral 
sense, yep. (It's inherently good in the sense that it works and therefore 
helps you achieve whatever goals you're trying to achieve, including 
religious or moral goals.)

But religion (in general) doesn't provide moral guidance either. It just 
states "this is good, that is bad" without saying how to achieve that 
goodness, how to avoid the badness, or why anything would be good or bad. It 
gives a fiat as to how you should behave without explanation or evidence.

Science isn't good or bad. It's a way of figuring out how the world works. 
You have to decide whether it's good or bad.  Unfortunately, religion isn't 
the way to do this, since it's irrational and therefore ungrounded in 
reality. Once you ground it in reality, it is *ta daaah* science.

> I rather think you are refusing to accept the term "science" in the sense I'm
> using it, 

You're using it wrong. Science isn't technology. Science isn't terminology. 
Science isn't "what the nazis said it was."

I'm refusing to accept the term as you're using it for the simple reason 
that what you're talking about isn't science any more than faith healing is 
moral guidance, nor any more than laws are religion.

> because you don't like it being called a religion, and thrown from
> its steeple.

You're so cute when you're trying to justify yourself.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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