clipka wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> 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?
> 
> As you mention it - yes, invading eastern Europe and later Russia was along the
> same lines. "Lebensraum im Osten" ("room to live in the east") was the motto of
> that.

Neither had anything to do with Darwin or evolution. Nazis merely claimed 
they did. Nazis lied. What a surprise.

>> Darwin talked about natural selection and changes between generations.
>> How does that equate to killing millions of people based on their religion?
> 
> Jesus talked about holding the other cheek. Still the crusades are commonly
> associated with the religion he founded. Why should science be treated any
> different in this respect?

I've noticed you've carefully avoided actually answering the question.

Because it wasn't the scientific leaders of the world saying it was 
scientific to invade Russia?  It was the politicians, using the buzzwords of 
science. And that's called an "et tu" fallacy, thanks.

When the scientists generally agree that natural variation and selection 
causes evolution, and then that causes some sort of result, that's science. 
When some pope says that jesus would want you to invade a foreign country, 
that's religion, even if it isn't *jesus's* religion. When some *scientist* 
says you should invade a foreign country, that isn't science unless you 
follow the scientific method in determining that you should.

I don't think anyone blames the crusades on Jesus. They just blame them on 
religion. Why are you blaming the Nazi's on Darwin if you're not blaming the 
crusades on Jesus?  And how do you *know* Jesus didn't want the crusades? He 
*did* mention it to the pope, after all.

> That's actually hypocrisy.

Nice try, but no cigar.

Science is about how the world works regardless of peoples' emotions. 
Religion is about peoples' emotions and how to work them.

>> 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.
> 
> .... neither do I find any reference in the Bible of Jesus mention anything of
> throwing witches in lakes,

Who's talking about Jesus? I'm talking about Salem, and how drowning people 
isn't a scientific method for detecting witches, no matter the propaganda. 
The religious leaders who were drowning the witches weren't practicing 
science in doing so any more than the nazis invading russia were practicing 
science in doing so.

> and still the middle ages are frequently taken as an
> argument against christianity.

I've lost track of what you're trying to say. Are you saying the middle ages 
were not bad? I think I'd disagree with that. Are you saying the church 
wasn't a major factor in the social and scientific environment during the 
middle ages? I think I'd disagree with that as well.

> If actions committed with reference to christian teachings are considered valid
> evidence against christianity, then actions committed with reference to
> scientific teaching must be considered valid evidence against science - or am I
> missing some important point here?

You're missing the important point of who is telling you about the 
teachings.  If Sam Jones next door tells me about what Jesus wants Catholics 
to do, I'm going to take it as less authoritative than if the Pope does.

Hitler didn't do any science. Pope Gregory did inquisitions. Hitler did, 
however, control the nazis. I think if you tried to argue that Hitler wasn't 
to blame for the invasion of russia, but only his army was, I'd have to 
wonder if you're playing silly buggers with me or something. But Hitler 
blaming the holocaust on Darwin is like Gregory blaming the inquisitions on 
Jesus.

Here's two more points you're missing:

1) That someone blames the Catholics for the inquisition doesn't mean 
science is a religion, even if it does some of the same things. (Which you 
haven't convinced me it does.)

2) Science is, by design, susceptible to peer review. You don't have 
"authoritative" scientists whose opinions are accepted in spite of contrary 
evidence. There is no scientist who will tell you what the right answer is 
that you cannot confirm or dispute for yourself. Why? Because science is 
grounded in reality, and religion is grounded in authority.



> I'm quite sure that Hitler got Darwin's teachings perfectly wrong, but I'm sure
> the crusaders and witch hunters din't get Jesus' teachings perfectly right
> either.

Oddly enough, that's why science wins. When Hitler gets Darwin wrong, we can 
look at it and say "Gee, that's not science."  When Pope Gregory gets Jesus' 
teachings wrong, we can't say "Gee, that's not catholicism."  See the 
difference?

How can you know if the witch hunters got Jesus' teaching right? He *did* 
say to murder witches. How can you tell whether they're right, or you're 
right, 1600 years after he's dead, and all you have left is contradictory 
quotations?

>> But religion (in general) doesn't provide moral guidance either.
> 
> Even leaving aside that this is far from true for virtually all religions I know
> of, it would in no way contradict my point.

Religions don't provide moral guidance. They merely tell you what to do.

> It seems to me that you think I'm trying to defend religion against science, but
> I'm not at all. I'm just pointing out that it seems to me that science possesses
> all traits of a religion as well.

Except for the faith part, the telling you how to behave part, and the 
authority figures, and the supernatural events.

I'll grant that *some* religions are closer to science than others.

>> 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.
> 
> Why is irrationality bad and rationality good?

Who said it is? Not science or scientists. Irrationality is only bad *for 
doing science*.

 > What makes you think knowing that
> doing X will get you from A to B is superior to just knowing that doing X (or
> maybe actually Y) is the right thing to do?

How do you know that doing X is the right thing to do in situation A unless 
you know it'll get you to situation B instead of situation C?

Look, OK, let's say your religion tells you that getting to B is good, and 
you're at A. And getting to C is a bad thing. OK?

Now, does your religion tell you how to get to B from A? If not, what good 
is telling you that you want to be at B? How do you avoid going to C if you 
don't know how to get to B? Why would you trust someone who doesn't know how 
to get to B from A and isn't at B to tell you how to get there yourself? If 
bringing happiness to many people is "good" according to your religion, how 
do you know that (say) executing gay people is or isn't making them happier? 
If going to heaven is tremendously good, doesn't that offset a bit of 
torture now to get people to convert?

Does it tell you *why* being at B is good? If not, what good is your 
religion? You're just accepting what someone else tells you is good for no 
reason. How do you apply that same reasoning to many different situations?

"Turn the other cheek." Why? What good does it do? Or is it intrinsically 
"good" because you told me so? Just like the faithful like asking "why" 
until the scientist says "we don't know", it's easy to ask "why" about 
goodness until the faithful says "we don't know."

> If nobody can tell you whether
> being at B is really a good thing, knowing how to get there doesn't seem to add
> much substantial benefit.

Yes? And? Or by "nobody" do you mean "no scientists"? Or "no faithful"?

 > Maybe being busy finding out how to get to B may
> instead actually distract you from the question whether you really want to go
> to B?

Why would you be researching how to get to B if you didn't want to go to B?

> I think the disciples of science employ a circular argument regarding the
> alleged superiority of rationality.

It's only superior for figuring out how the world works. If you're 
uninterested in controlling your own fate, improving the lot of yourself or 
others, and uninterested in knowing *how* to do the good your religion tells 
you to do, then you don't need to be rational at all.

Rationality is certainly superior for learning about how the world works. It 
tells you little about what is good or bad morally speaking. It's possible 
your religion tells you that pain and suffering is good (because it's a test 
of faith, perhaps), that slavery is beneficial, that people of dark skin are 
subhuman, women are evil, everything good in your life comes from without, 
every failure in your life is your personal fault and something to be 
ashamed of, and so on.

Science can't tell you how to be good. It can only tell you how to be happy 
(or at least happier than you'd likely be without science). If healthy and 
happy is bad, then it's not going to help. If healthy and happy is good, 
then science certainly is superior to religion.

> I'll stick with it: From what I see, science possesses every feature of a
> religion. 

It lacks faith, morality (by your own words), deities, prophets, authority 
figures (to be distinguished from experts, mind), prayer, and elitism. 
Science says *nothing* about "good" or "bad", but only measures what is or 
is not. People who commit evil in the name of science are doing so in the 
name of science, or while performing science. But it's not science to say 
something is "good" or "bad" in a moral sense, and evil scientists don't 
make science itself evil.

Caveat: Evolution says things can be "good" for a species, like adaptability 
and a tendency not to eat all your own babies, for example. Not "morally" 
good, tho.

Caveat: Some scientific experiments can be evil, such as some of the 
*actual* science the nazis did (like measuring how hard you can hit someone 
on the head before they get brain damage, etc). That doesn't mean science is 
evil, but that scientists are doing something evil. Just like a bishop 
raping an alter boy (probably) isn't doing it for religious purposes, but 
merely is an evil religious person.

I don't think irrationality is morally bad. I don't think religion is 
morally bad. I think many of the faithful are also evil to a greater or 
lesser extent, generally greater the more they try to enforce their faith on 
others via violence.

> Not in the theories it develops, but in its very foundations.

THIS:

What do you think are the foundations of science? I suppose "knowledge is 
better than ignorance" might be one element taken on faith, in some sense, 
except that seems to be empirically true if you assume happiness is "better" 
than suffering. "Repeatability is better for gaining knowledge than 
anecdote" is another, but again it seems to be empirically true, as it leads 
to technology whereas anecdotes don't. "Non-falsifiable hypotheses are not 
useful" also seems to be born out by empirical evidence. "There's an actual 
universe out there" is something I guess you'd have to take on faith, altho 
Decartes thinks he solved that problem too and even came to the conclusion 
that the YHVH is out there looking out for him starting from the hypothesis 
of "I know nothing for sure."

So, what are you actually thinking is science's "very foundations"? 
Certainly not "technological progress is always good", since science isn't 
technology and I have heard of many scientists who (for example) regret 
having developed the atom bomb. Indeed, a great number of scientists right 
now think that global warming is a bad thing.

I think this is the source of our disagreement here. I'm looking at science 
as "the scientific method of observation and experimentation, falsifiable 
hypotheses, and peer review, and the body of knowledge gained therefrom."

-- 
   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."

Post a reply to this message