But to claim that knowledge ends at the boundaries of a scientific experiment would only be meaningful if we all lived every moment of every day in a laboratory. — Pantagruel

I agree with the sentiment, but I don’t know if even the firmest propagandists of ‘scientism’ would put it that way. It’s more the way that the ‘scientific worldview’ filters through to what everyone thinks is the case. That the universe is mechanical, that life arises by chance, that humans are no different to animals, that reasoning is no different to computation. It shows up in these kinds of underlying sentiments.

The middle-aged mind preserves many of its youthful skills and even develops some new strengths.

:up: Good to hear!

One thing I see more and more as I get older is that everything has happened before. The biggest storm, the worst president, the end of western civilization, the greatest basketball team, the worst recession, drinking is bad for you, drinking is good for you, Japan's economy will destroy ours, China's economy will destroy ours, Russia is our friend, Russia is our enemy, and of course my favorite - our troops will be home in six months.

Is that wisdom? Not really. If you live long enough and have an average memory, you see things over and over again.

Hmmm. That's just recognising Newspeak.

all of these life lessons are different, and yet they all reveal different aspects of a fundamental set of truths. — Pantagruel

:up:

It's like the same tune played on a horn, a tuba, a saxophone. For my money, what you are saying above is one of those fuzzy but important truths. To manifest a grasp of that truth is to happily invent a bridge-language in a friendly conversation, to want to understand and be understood more than one wants to establish 'my' pet terminology.

'I'm OK, you're OK, but let's learn from one another to be a little more OK.'

Is that wisdom? Not really. If you live long enough and have an average memory, you see things over and over again. — T Clark

Or maybe it is?

We probably have at least as much to learn on average as we have to teach. But I think that's a good thing.

One thing I see more and more as I get older is that everything has happened before — T Clark

Yes. Repetition compulsion is pretty powerful.

The middle-aged mind preserves many of its youthful skills and even develops some new strengths. — Banno

:up:

I agree with the sentiment, but I don’t know if even the firmest propagandists of ‘scientism’ would put it that way. It’s more the way that the ‘scientific worldview’ filters through to what everyone thinks is the case. That the universe is mechanical, that life arises by chance, that humans are no different to animals, that reasoning is no different to computation. It shows up in these kinds of underlying sentiments. — Wayfarer

Evolution is JUST A THEORY — Unknown

Scientists have to realize this simple truth. They can't deny it for the simple reason that a better "theory" will immediately and with minimal to no resistance knock Darwin's "theory" of evolution off the pedestal its been put on for nearly 200 years now and counting.

There’s the biological theory of the evolution of species. Then there’s Darwinism as a philosophy. Sometimes, there’s a connection.

And here I am laboring under the prospect (or delusion) that "getting wiser" implies habitually making fewer and fewer unwise – foolish – judgments, decisions, commitments, etc as I/we mature. "Knowledge beyond science?" Of course; it's called context or tacit know-how (Polyani, anybody?), the very gumbo science sifts-through, sorts-out & reverse engineers in an endless attempt to approximately explain 'the fundamental recipe' (ToE) for making that gumbo. Science, like art, seeks some order in the encompassing disorder, and even illuminates it briefly as disorder gradually annihilates order. Sublime, numinous, terrible (Rilke). "Scientism" tosses like Neurath's dinghy in a tropical storm.

Science is great for knowledge of the material realm. Outside of that, other modes of enquiry are needed. The problem is that science oversteps its mark.

The problem is that science oversteps its mark. — emancipate

How so? An example.

here's two: When scientists claim there is no god. When scientists claim they are understanding the nature of reality.

It would only be right to make assertions like this if reality was merely physical.

The problem is that science oversteps its mark.
— emancipate
How so? An example. — 180 Proof

Google ‘the popperazi’. Suggests that ‘string theory’ comprises ‘science overstepping its mark’.

as people age past middle-age and into deepening maturity, the kinds of things they learn grow beyond the quantifiable knowledge that defines us as working members of society, words, names of things, facts, figures, conventions of politeness, technical skills, and become instead a deeper form of understanding, lessons learned from situations that may unfold over months or years, or may still be unfolding. And because every individual has a unique set of experiences (because that is part of what it means to be an individual) all of these life lessons are different, and yet they all reveal different aspects of a fundamental set of truths. So it becomes a challenge of vocabulary and semantics to translate between the meanings of different perspectives of deeper wisdom. — Pantagruel

Why would you bother with that challenge?

When scientists claim there is no god. — emancipate

More people than just scientists have claimed for millennia "there is no god" so that's not an example of science overstepping its boundaries.

When scientists claim they are understanding the nature of reality.

Scientists study 'the reality of nature' and explain this with precise approximations called "theories" which they test with controlled experiments that compel them to revise their findings. Scientific understanding is deliberately fallible, approximate, defeasible and thereby self-corrective; the results are public, repeatable, measurable and reliable. No doubt it's the shallowest form of understanding there is except for all of the others our species has conjured-up in the last several millennia.

As for claims about "the nature of reality": that's merely speculative and anyone can and does play in the metaphysical sandbox; again, not an example of the overstepping of science.

It would only be right to make assertions like this if reality was merely physical.

Well, whatever "reality" is, it is also inescapably physical, and any non-physical "understanding" implies an explanation of how the physical is manifest and its function in some greater non-physical scheme of things. Since there are as many "non-physical realities" as there are 'mythologies pantheons religions theologies mysticisms & woo-of-the-gaps pseudo-theories' and yet only one physical (aspect of?) reality which allows for reliable repeatable public results, science opportunistically digs wells in the physical where it's far more likely to find water than in the endless desert of non-physicality. Perhaps the physical is "merely" the tip of the iceberg of reality (à la Gnosticism); that speculative possibility, however, is not denied by scientists and science, in fact, endeavors to discover the limits of the physical, that is, the lapses in physical laws – "the cracks" which are, as a poet sang, "how the light gets in."

Another, related-but-not-the-same argument is the appeal of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics. In this interpretation of quantum physics, the pesky ‘measurement problem’, which relates to the spooky ‘wave-function collapse’ is obviated by the argument that every measurement is taken in some other world, so that ‘the wave function collapse’ never occurs.

It is said that ‘desperate problems call for desperate solutions’. If the prospect of infinite parallel worlds is a solution, then what’s the problem? How can something be so desperately out-of-whack as to require the sliding-doors answer of Hugh Everett III? Why, that would be the fact that ‘a measurement’ seems to effect the outcome of an experiment purely by the act of observation thereby undermining the sacred tenet of the ‘mind-independence’ of phenomena and suggesting a ‘fundamental role for consciousness’ :yikes: . That is the ‘desperate problem’ which the bomb-throwing alcoholic Everett offered a solution to, and despite the fact that Neils Bohr himself would never hear a word of it, it is now the preferred ‘interpretation’ of many physicists.

Perhaps the physical is "merely" the tip of the iceberg of reality (à la Gnosticism); — 180 Proof

You do come up with the occasional gem.

At worst string theory is a physics-based mathematical metaphysics, so clearly within the remit of science (e.g. Galilean Relativity, Newtonian Gravity, Maxwell's Demon, Schödinger's Cat, The Copenhagen Interpretation, etc). Conjectures are the basis from which scientific theories are formed and interpretations of scientific theories are logical explorations of how to proceed (à la gendankenexperiments, intuition pumps) from current experimental findings. Speculations like string theory attempt to extend fundamental physics which so far remains untested / untestable but in no way a "leap of whatever" beyond – disconnected from – physics. Even when wrong, speculative science (e.g. cosmic steady-state theory) has the distinct advantage of plausibility & fecundity over speculative non/pseudo-science (e.g. synchronicity) which is, as Wolfgang Pauli quipped, not even wrong. (NB: Btw, I'm on team loop quantum gravity :smirk:)

Even when wrong, speculative science (e.g. cosmic steady-state theory) has the distinct advantage of plausibility & fecundity over speculative non/pseudo-science (e.g. synchronicity) which is, as Wolfgang Pauli quipped, not even wrong — 180 Proof

Yeah, Peter Woit’s book on string theory was called ‘Not Even Wrong’.

Galilean Relativity, Newtonian Gravity, Maxwell's Demon, Schödinger's Cat, The Copenhagen Interpretation — 180 Proof

And as Kuhn points out, these are not all part of the same paradigm. Einstein never accepted quantum theory. Schrodinger's cat was making a rhetorical point, it's arguably not part of science at all. So they're not all part of one picture of the world, or of one worldview. So if what you're saying is, 'nothing beats scientific method', then sure! But the question is not that. It's the role of science in normative judgement. And that has restricted scope; it's restricted to those objects you can be objective about, something which you can measure and quantify - which leads back to the question in the OP.

Your issue is, I hope you don't mind me saying, you're still completely wedged in the Science V Religion dichotomy. You think everythihg has to be one or the other. Actually there are many scientists who have, let's say, a very holistic attitude, who are not all 'scientistic' - as you say! But if you continue to dichotomize what you see as the two sides, then you're going to be forked.

So we might as well try to learn all of the lessons that life teaches us. And wherever one experiences the greatest aversion is usually where one has the most to learn. Because there is no need for what is understood to cause an emotional response. — Pantagruel

I am heading into late middle age. I don't think I have learned anything much from the passing of time or experience. I'm not sure how I would test this. Memory? Even more fallible than emotions. What I have always thought is that our emotional reactions are unreliable and are barely understood to our own selves. We may be less influenced by our emotions as we age but that is a moot point. In making decision I look for good reasons and evidence. I may be better at doing this with age but I really can't say for certain.

And as Kuhn points out, these are not all part of the same paradigm. — Wayfarer

Non sequitur.

It's the role of science in normative judgement.

Not at all, my friend. Rather it's the role – adaptivity – of 'evidence-based knowledge-claims' as compared to 'evidence-free belief-claims' in normative judgment.

Your issue is, I hope you don't mind me saying, you're still completely wedged in the Science V Religion dichotomy.

My issue, to put it in my own words if you don't mind, is I am committed, with Kantian severity, to demarcating the Scientific & Philosophical discursive practices (re: Spinoza's 2nd & 3rd kinds of knowledge) from pseudo-scientific & pseudo-philosophical fantasies (re: Spinoza's 1st kind of knowledge).

And as Kuhn points out, these are not all part of the same paradigm.
— Wayfarer
Non sequitur. — 180 Proof

It is not at all a non sequiter. The ‘Copenhagen Interpretation of Physics’ and the ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ thought experiment/parody are part of a paradigm shift relative to earlier physics, a complete revolution regarding fundamental conceptions of reality. (A paradigm of a paradigm shift, you could say!) And neither of them, which you try and appropriate in support of your argument, are ‘evidence based’ - they’re both types of interpretation. People see the same evidence, but there’s enormous differences in interpretation, in what they say the evidence means. And that is not a matter of science, obviously - otherwise there could be no such divergences of view.

People see the same evidence, but there’s enormous differences in interpretation, in what they say the evidence means. And that is not a matter of science, obviously - otherwise there could be no such divergences of view. — Wayfarer

How on earth are you interpreting 'science' such that practicing it cannot include more than one interpretation of the raw data?

Big whup. I made my point, you evaded rather than answered it.

Folks often accuse me of evasion when they don’t understand what I’ve said. Guess it can’t be helped.

How on earth are you interpreting 'science' such that practicing it cannot include more than one interpretation of the raw data? — Isaac

The subject I referred to was arguments over the string theory and the interpretation of quantum physics. The differences in interpretation are irreconcilable. Sure, they’re all advocated by scientists, but not all of them can be true as they’re contradictory. There is scope for interpretation but not all of them can be right, and deciding between them may not be a matter for science.