If there was a reason for posting that wikipedia entry on Lemaître, I'm missing it. — counterpunch

It was a response to your mentioning of the fact that LeMaitre published his thesis in 1927. What was the point you were making with that reference? That it took until 2014 for the Catholic Church to recognise his theory?

So, I posted that paragraph on LeMaitre to make some further points: first, LeMaitre was and remained a devout Catholic all his life, he didn’t see any conflict between science and religion. Secondly, that the then Pope actually started to refer to the theory as support for the idea of ‘creation from nothing’ in the 1950s- something which LeMaitre enlisted the Pope’s science advisor to caution him against. (Incidentally when LeMaitre’s theory first started to circulate, there was a lot of scientific pushback because it sounded too mystical. I mean, it’s very much like ‘creation from nothing’, is it not?)

So I think that somewhat blurs your cut-and-dried, hard-and-fast distinction between religion and science, don’t it? I mean, if LeMaitre was ‘religious’ how could he come up with something like that? When, according to you, he should have been studying chicken entrails or casting Ouija boards? Wouldn’t it be quite impossible to be a Catholic and a scientist, if what you say was true?

(See also the list of Catholic clergy scientists.)

My point in pursuing this is to show that faith is neither exclusive to religion, nor the absence of either doubt nor reason, but certainty. It may be slightly tangential, but how we respond to uncertainty is nevertheless important to understand in this discussion ‘in praise of science’. — Possibility

I agree that faith is not the absence of doubt or reason, but it is held in the absence of what we would count as evidence (i.e. empirical evidence). That said, empirical evidence does not amount (always at least) to certainty, so it could be said that all substantive (as opposed to tautological) belief is held in the absence of certainty.

One response to uncertainty (lack of definitive evidence or proof) is to suspend judgement entirely. Another response is to adopt provisional hypotheses. And another is to believe despite the absence of evidence; and this last is to have faith.

I think we're done, Counterpunch - we're plainly just talking past one another. — Wayfarer

The problem isn't that the lanes aren't clearly marked. The problem is that people won't stay in their lanes. — Hanover

People won't even do it literally, in traffic or in waiting lines. What hope is there for them staying in their lanes in any other way?

What one ought do is decided by interacting with other people — Banno

How???

Sketch out how what one ought do is decided by interacting with other people!

Sample situation: You're a kid in school and another boy is bullying you and demands your lunch money.
How do you decide, based on interacting with other people, what the right course of action is??

She created the situation, and deserved everything she got. — counterpunch

Well, then, if you're such a proponent of the just world hypothesis, then you must never criticize anyone or anything or object to anything. Everything is happening exactly as it sould be happening and everyone gets what they deserve, right?

No need for magma.

I can't understand the mindset of people who uncritically accept everything without question. — fishfry

Meh, it's convenient to think of others as "uncritically accepting everything without question", innit? Makes one feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

A child being bullied is already socially involved, as oppose to "the ought questions rely upon introspection and wisdom, relying upon ancient texts and time honored traditions". That was the point.

It was a response to your mentioning of the fact that Lemaitre published his thesis in 1927. What was the point you were making with that reference? That it took until 2014 for the Catholic Church to recognise his theory? — Wayfarer

I was responding to banno - who dismissed the idea that the Church has a problem with science; and I'm showing that this has been a problem for 400 years.

In that context, I don't think it matters a jot what religion Lemaitre was, or what the Pope may or may not have thought in 1950 - if in 2014, nearly a century after Lemaitre, 160 years after Darwin, the Pope had to declare evolution and big bang are real.

Those details are irrelevant to the point that there's an anti-science tendency, going right back to Galileo - in 1616, who "practically invented the experimental method" and that's still playing out in 2014. This then supports my comment that 'scientism is an attempt to put science back in a box in which it doesn't belong in the first place.'

I'm not making hard and fast distinctions of any kind. I think it's crazy that religion and science should be in conflict, and believe this conflict has brought us to the brink of extinction because it deprived science of any moral implication as valid knowledge of Creation; and allowed government and industry to use science as a tool - without acknowledging the meaningful implications of science as an understanding of reality. I'm saying we are headed for extinction because we used scientific tools in service to religious, political and economic ideological ends - unreformed, in relation to a scientific understanding of reality.

I stand accused of scientism, via Susan Haack's essay, that you argued: "says all that needs to be said." I disagree - with her and with you. For me, the idea of scientism implies that our relationship to science is fine, that there's no problem, and if you think there is a problem - then that's scientism.

Well, no - it's a perfectly appropriate regard for the means to establish valid knowledge of reality - and the body of knowledge thus established, particularly when - in face of the existential threat of climate change, we have politicians able to say things like: "Trump digs coal" - and not be recognised immediately, and dismissed as a raving lunatic.

Religious groups have restricted the use of contraceptives to control population growth and the spread of disease. There has been opposition to medical research and technologies that make use embryonic stem cells. — Fooloso4

Leaving aside for the moment that the use of hormonal contraceptives (which are generally preferred) makes STI's have a field day 24/7, 365 days/year --

The use of contraceptives also made human life into something optional and expendable, most literally so. Without the use of contraceptives, human birth has an element that is beyond human control, and this gives it an inherent value, makes it as objectively existing as mountains and oceans. Without this element, humans become a commodity. Just another thing to be produced at will, or not.

How does our bullied kid decide what to do in regard to the bully??

↪counterpunch
I think we're done, Counterpunch - we're plainly just talking past one another.
— Wayfarer — Banno

See what you've gone and done!

Off topic.

Edit: But OK: How does our bullied kid decide what to do in regard to the bully?? Hopefully with care, with a great deal of support, and with time.

Introspection? What one ought do is decided by interacting with other people, not by navel-gazing.

You're being misled by your focus on the subjective, again. — Banno

https://m.timesofindia.com/home/science/scientists-appear-to-have-located-the-conscience/articleshow/29632772.cms

That's not to say my conscience can't be defective andl yields objectively incorrect answers.

You're passionate about this, but I don't think I properly understand your point. I'm not trying to be a dick, and I am interested in these kinds of arguments, but do you think you could summarise your main argument in some dot points?

Forgive me if this is wrong. You seem to be saying that science has been strategically deprived of spirituality (you use the word religion).

As a consequence of this, science is robbed of its capacity to integrate our understanding of facts and our understanding of... god?

How would science work better in your view?

Well, then, if you're such a proponent of the just world hypothesis, — baker

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying something like: If a police officer is going to arrest you - that's not your time to protest. Your time to protest will come later. The arrest is going to happen, and you can make it easy, or you can make it hard, but it's still going to happen. She made it hard, she refused to wear a mask, she resisted arrest - and she got tased. You said, she got tased for not wearing a mask. That's not true, is it? She got tased for resisting arrest.

Ah, citing that most venerable of sources, the Times of India.

How does our bullied kid decide what to do in regard to the bully?? Hopefully with care, with a great deal of support, and with time. — Banno

IOW, with "introspection and wisdom, relying upon ancient texts and time honored traditions".

Your time to protest will come later. — counterpunch

Except that that time never comes.

She made it hard, she refused to wear a mask, she resisted arrest - and she got tased. You said, she got tased for not wearing a mask. That's not true, is it? She got tased for resisting arrest.

I said that? Where? In your mind?

Cheers.

This discussion has been declared off topic by the owner of the thread. I'm already on thin ice with Baden for my wanderlust, so I'll say no more on it.

You're passionate about this, but I don't think I properly understand your point. I'm not trying to be a dick, and I am interested in these kinds of arguments, but do you think you could summarise your main argument in some dot points? Forgive me if this is wrong. You seem to be saying that science has been strategically deprived of spirituality (you use the word religion). As a consequence of this, science is robbed of its capacity to integrate our understanding of facts and our understanding of... god? How would science work better in your view? — Tom Storm

It is wrong, and I forgive you easily. It's a complex argument with many moving pieces. I can quite understand how would not pick it up right away. Thanks for trying.

*Human beings evolve as hunter gatherers.
*Hunter gatherer tribes join together by worshipping the same God.
*Religion requires faith to uphold moral laws attributed to God.

*Galileo shows religion to be incorrect, using scientific method.
*Church puts Galileo on trial for heresy.
*Descartes wets his subjective pants!
*Philosophy wears Descartes subjectively wet pants for 400 years.

During which time:

*Science used to drive industrial revolution.
*Science used to drive military/economic expansion.
*Religious and subjectivist philosophy continues to attack science.
*Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein.
*Mad scientists defeated by flag waving God loving hero on page, stage and silver screen.

*Nuclear weapons.
*Fossil fuels.
*Oceans full of plastic.
*Climate change ignored for 70 years.

Thank you for providing this. That's a big theme! How did you come upon these ideas?

I'm not sure I understand properly the nature of the split between scientific technology and religion. Are you arguing that science is driven by crass material gain and disrespect for nature and this would not have happened if religion had not opposed it?

How did you come upon these ideas? — Tom Storm

I studied sociology and politics at university, and got into philosophy via political theory. I read Rousseau's "Inquiry into the Causes and Nature of Inequality between Men" - which starts with a crawling apologetic to the Church for even daring to think in rational terms. It's a brilliant piece of writing - that foreshadows evolution, and explains the origin of money and much else besides.

I was already concerned with climate change, and then read "Energy for Survival - the alternative to extinction" by Wilson Clark. It's an encyclopaedic survey of energy technologies published in the 1970's.

If I were to cite another influential book, I'd have to go with Daniel Dennett's 'Darwin's Dangerous Idea' - and I've often quoted this passage:

“The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially to the explanation of planet-sized facts of geology and meteorology, through middle-sized facts of ecology and agronomy, down to the latest microscopic facts of genetic engineering. It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a single grand story. Like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, it is unbudgeable, not because of some one or two huge chains of argument that might–hope against hope–have weak links in them, but because it is securely tied by hundreds of thousands of threads of evidence anchoring it to virtually every other field of knowledge. New discoveries may conceivably lead to dramatic, even 'revolutionary' shifts in the Darwinian theory, but the hope that it will be 'refuted' by some shattering breakthrough is about as reasonable as the hope that we will return to a geocentric vision and discard Copernicus.”
― Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

I'm not sure I understand properly the nature of the split between scientific technology and religion. Are you arguing that science is driven by crass material gain and disrespect for nature and this would not have happened if religion had not opposed it? — Tom Storm

Not exactly, because Galileo was right. It moves! Descartes however, wet his pants - and concocted a skeptical argument for subjectivism to flatter the Church's emphasis of the spiritual over the mundane, and got a nice little title bump with an appointment to the Royal Court of Queen Christina of Sweden. Galileo meanwhile, was threatened with torture, excommunication, execution - and only by the skin of his teeth got away with house arrest for the rest of his life.

Effectively, science as an understanding of reality, was divorced from science as a tool - and we used the tools without regard to science as an understanding of reality. The religious, political and economic ideological architecture of society; wherein political authority was justified with reference to the Divine Right of Kings - a religious law dating back to the year 700 AD, remained - unreformed in relation to a emerging scientific understanding of reality. Consequently, we remained ideologically primitive - and so applied the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons. Like monkeys with machine guns; that can't end well!

Descartes however, wet his pants - and concocted a skeptical argument for subjectivism to flatter the Church's emphasis of the spiritual over the mundane — counterpunch

Descartes' doubt gave him the cover to doubt the authority of the Church.

Descartes' doubt gave him the cover to doubt the authority of the Church. — Fooloso4

Descartes method of doubt is skeptical doubt. It's not reasonable to dispense with the object world by imagining some demon is deceiving him. Taking into consideration also, that he withdrew a work on physics, entitled 'The World' from publication while Galileo was on trial, clearly Descartes wrote in fear of the Church - whom, were burning people alive for heresy through to 1792, 60 years into the industrial revolution. Darwin was attacked in 1859. Craig Venter was attacked for "playing God" in 2008, for creating artificial life.

If Descartes doubted the authority of the Church, he was very quiet about it, and no-one heard him.

If Descartes doubted the authority of the Church, he was very quiet about it, and no-one heard him. — counterpunch

You misunderstood my point.The Church was the final authority on all matters philosophical and scientific. To challenge this authority was to risk the fate of Galileo. Descartes begins by doubting everything, which means doubting the teachings of the Church. He replaces the authority of the Church with the authority of the thinking self and reason

I ran across a video of a woman being tased for refusing to put on a mask. — fishfry

What does this have to do with the issue we are discussing?

Fauci finally admitted that covid might have a lab origin. — fishfry

First - No, he did not admit that Covid might have a lab origin. He became open to the possibility based on new evidence. Second - In terms of how the pandemic has been handled here, what difference does it make where it came from?

This morning The Federalist ran a long piece about how sensible independent thought regarding the origin of covid was systematically suppressed. — fishfry

Again, what difference does it make in terms of our pandemic response? Also, "The Federalist" is a knee-jerk right-wing rag. They've spread misinformation about Covid from the start and promoted the stolen election lie.

Most of what comes from our authorities these days is absolute bullshit. I can't understand the mindset of people who uncritically accept everything without question. — fishfry

As I wrote previously, I've been impressed by how well the US responded to the pandemic, even given the jerky start and all the zig-zags. A lot of those missteps came from right-wing political sources like "The Federalist." I think you are a reverse conspiracy theorist. It's not that people are conspiring to do bad things, it's that people are conspiring not to do good things.

It's too early to comment.
— TheMadFool

Then it's too early for praise. — baker

@Banno, did you get that? How would you respond?

You misunderstood my point. The Church was the final authority on all matters philosophical and scientific. To challenge this authority was to risk the fate of Galileo. Descartes begins by doubting everything, which means doubting the teachings of the Church. He replaces the authority of the Church with the authority of the thinking self and reason — Fooloso4

I misunderstood your point? I can live with that - because you're wrong, and offer no evidence, or even argument that you're right. You are simply making assertions I know to be false. Subjectivism and spirituality are synonyms; and Meditations blows white smoke up the Church's chimney!

because you're wrong, and offer no evidence, or even argument that you're right — counterpunch

No argument needed. If he begins by doubting everything that includes doubting the Church. Of course he makes it appear otherwise.

From the Second Meditation:

Archimedes, in order that he might draw the terrestrial globe out of its place, and transport it elsewhere, demanded only that one point should be fixed and immoveable; in the same way I shall have the right to conceive high hopes if I am happy enough to discover one thing only which is certain
and indubitable.

But how can I know there is not something different from those things that I have just considered, of which one cannot have the slightest doubt? Is there not some God, or some other being by name we call it, who puts these reflections into my mind? That is not necessary, for is it not possible that I am capable of producing them myself?

I myself, am I not at least something?

But what then am I? A thing which thinks.

This is his Archimedean point. The one thing that is fixed and immovable, the one thing certain and indubitable, he exists and is a thinking thing. It is not the Church or God but the thinking self that is the starting point from which all that is certain and indubitable follows.