Comments on: Science and Religion

By: Jerry

Jerry — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

"Religion, logic, philosophy, theology, all work in the fundamentally different domain of axiom." My allusion to your mention science and religion's being on different axiom trees was referring to this comment, albeit in a somewhat opaque matter. I should drink more coffee.

Or less. That might be the best route (groan).

By: Steve N

Steve N — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I agree with what you say about axioms, but am not entirely convinced that religion and science are on different "trees". But more on that later, maybe.

Huh?! You're very correct to be unconvinced about them being on different trees. But I certainly never said nor implied any such thing.

Cheers!

By: Jerry

Jerry — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Also, regarding falsifiable, I did not know that was the sense that you meant the term. I'm not sure if there's a single word that would describe what I'd have in mind, except for supplant or replace. The term naive is not meant as a denigration in any way–mathematicians talk about naive set theory–but just as that the generalization you made was too simple. And it's also the same wording that may be used in critiquing Popper. Sorry, I try not to get bogged down by jargon, but mathematicians and philosophers sometimes use common terms like naive in a very specific manner and I need to be reminded of that from time to time.

By: Steve N

Steve N — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

And, Jerry, BTW, whose side ya on anyway? I wasn't using "falsifiable" in the sense that a theory is proved false, but more in the sense that it fails to explain certain observations. If you have a better word than "falsifiable" to use, then propose one.

Newton's gravity isn't FALSE, it just doesn't explain all observations. It is a trivialization of General Relativity. All theories will ultimately prove to be trivializations of bigger ones (or occasionally, complete bullshit). This is something I believe but cannot prove….

But I don't think "falsifiable" is "naive", at least in the way I intended it…. Perhaps you were using "naive" in a similar way?

Cheers!

By: Jerry

Jerry — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Hi Steve: the "falsifiability" model of science that Popper championed is somewhat naive. Very often a claim is not falsified so much as a more elegant theory supplants it. For instance, I seem to recall that a decisive proof of the Earth's rotation about the Sun was not made until the 19th Century (I'll look into that), but given that the Ptolemaic model became more and more unwieldy in order to explain the growing body of astronomical observations.

I agree with what you say about axioms, but am not entirely convinced that religion and science are on different "trees". But more on that later, maybe.

By: Steve N

Steve N — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I guess I see the whole debate as moot, or at least that's the way it oughta be. Science works in the domain of predictive models. For the model to be valid, it must be falsifiable. Religion, logic, philosophy, theology, all work in the fundamentally different domain of axiom. If it weren't for the axiomatic tree, the branch science itself would never have existed. The "scientific method" simply (usually tacitly) assumes stuff like "inference is valid", "facts cannot truly be mutually exclusive", "the theory that explains more data is more complete".

I think it's funny that today we have scientists trying to get "in behind" religious belief. It represents to me precisely the same sort of hubris that inspired "creation science." It is equally likely doomed to failure.

The world of axiom pervades, nay I'd say owns, everything. Our axiomatic set informs everything about our lives, and therefore the way we do science. Science is what it is, and continues to not be what it is not. And science is fundamentally (inherently) incapable of determining ethical right vs. wrong. To fault someone for thinking that some area of research is off limits, because of some ethical dilemma (informed by their axiomatic base), is, at best, idiotic and, at worst, to make a power grab for science that it just wasn't built for. Just like the creation scientist going around preaching his "pseudo-science", we have instead the scientific axiomizer going around preaching his "pseudo-ethics"–the ethic, of course, that there are no ethics and science should do whatever the hell it wants.

Cheers!

By: Steve N

Steve N — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Oh-n-geez, Kanzelberger's essay is one of the best, in terms of power per word, I've ever read. IMO, he completely devastates this "evidence for God" mumbo-jumbo… I hope this guy keeps blogging (only one post so far).

Cheers!