They Blinded Us With Science
Commentary Magazine,
by
Sohrab Ahmari
Original Article
Posted By: StormCnter,
5/16/2020 4:15:21 PM
If post-Enlightenment modernity has a single credal axiom, it is that truth is limited to only what can be sensed with the senses, measured with our instruments, and generally expressed in mathematical language. Facts, in a word. All other claimants to “truth,” in this view, amount to subjective opinion at best and dark superstition at worst.
This way of knowing the world emerged roughly 400 years ago from within the natural sciences and soon came to color many people’s approach to life as a whole. The great premodern traditions at first balked, then spent the centuries that followed reacting against and/or accommodating the scientific outlook
Reply 1 - Posted by:
mathman 5/16/2020 5:06:36 PM (No. 413018)
Science will not, because Science cannot answer "why."
We cannot model the human brain, let alone explain how it came to be.
Love. Parents. Children. No explanation.
Art. Music. Poetry. Why?
Life. Death. Tragedy. Drama.
Nope. No data. No proof. Build a building? Science. Start a family? No science.
Just watched a goose leading goslings. Why? No answer.
So many things science cannot explain!
6 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Pathcoin1 5/16/2020 5:38:37 PM (No. 413027)
The essence of science is to explain the how. The essence of existence is to experience the why; to be overwhelmed by the inherent grandeur and expanse of the universe. That which cannot be seen is much more powerful than that which can be seen; whether it is of matter, energy, dark energy or spirit. Theology, in its attempt to explain the why, seeks to systematize what cannot be systematized, and explain what cannot be explained. In tn this error that theology into the how. And wandering into a realm in which it has no business, confronts the overwhelming power of science to explain the how. it is in this realm that science becomes the enemy of theology but never the enemy of the spiritual.
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Reply 3 - Posted by:
Timber Queen 5/16/2020 11:37:18 PM (No. 413212)
#2 - I'm not sure what you intended to type here, "In tn this error that theology into the how." But I got a clue with, "And wandering into a realm in which it has no business, confronts the overwhelming power of science to explain the how. it is in this realm that science becomes the enemy of theology but never the enemy of the spiritual."
Theology and science are not enemies nor mutually exclusive. The earliest scientists were often Catholic priests and monks who were exploring the wonders of the world created by God. Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian friar, conducted pea plant experiments from 1856 to 1863 and established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance.
In 1927, Belgian diocesan priest Fr. Georges Lemaître, published his theory explaining that receding galaxies were a function of an expanding universe. His observations were confirmed shortly afterwards by Edwin Hubble. He also was the first to observe what is now known as the Hubble constant, two years before Hubble's article. At the time it was known as the Hubble-Lemaître Law. Lemaître initially called his theory "hypothesis of the primeval atom", known today as the Big Bang Theory.
Lemaître faced brutal criticism from the scientific establishment. Einstein initially refused to accept the universe was expanding and other critics charged Lemaître's theory was an attempt of a theologian to prove scientifically God's instant creation of life. The term Big Bang was coined by a proponent of a static universe, astronomer Fred Hoyle, during a 1949 BBC broadcast. He used the term derogatorily. It must have rankled him that it became a popular term as the theory was accepted by the scientific community. Poor Dr. Hoyle remained a proponent of the steady state universe until his death in 2001.
Lemaître publicly stated that the theory was neutral and there was neither a connection nor a contradiction between his religion and his theory. Lemaître was a devout Catholic, but opposed mixing science with religion, although he held that the two fields were not in conflict.
So, tell me again, how theology has no business in the realm of science and is somehow overwhelmed by its power?
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Reply 4 - Posted by:
chumley 5/16/2020 11:42:21 PM (No. 413216)
One of the big drawbacks I have found to science is that nothing is ever "settled". As more information becomes available, facts change. To bet ones fortune on anything a scientist says is foolish because he'll be saying something else tomorrow.
And all that is absent the political pressures, which pollute the entire process. Science is not to be worshipped, it is to be viewed with suspicion and skepticism.
And while we are at it, how can two or more "experts" have different opinions? Why would we listen to any of them?
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Reply 5 - Posted by:
Sunhan65 5/17/2020 1:31:20 AM (No. 413265)
Fascinating article. Scientists often derogate religion for its unprovable assumptions. I am too kind to point out to scientists that they also believe at least one unprovable thing: That existence operates according to knowable rules that can be cumulatively discovered over time. The entire scientific enterprise depends on the unstated assumption that the cosmos is ordered rather than capricious -- that the rules that govern reality aren't being constantly re-written behind the scenes.
Without that assumption of a stable reality, science has no meaning. If, from the title of an essay about scientific irreproducibility of certain results, "Truth Wears Off,"* then scientists are wasting their time. If, for example, "aether" actually DID exist until the day Michelson-Morley's experiment "disproved" it, then their experiment had no meaning. They didn't advance our cumulative understanding of reality; they simply observed the most recent version of it. And reality could be different tomorrow.
Scientists can't abide that notion. They have to believe they are studying something ordered -- that there is a rule book, and that they are slowly learning read it. Their whole lives and livelihoods depend on it. However, that is still just an unproven assumption, and it might not be true.
Reality might be changing all the time. And science might just be G-d's way of giving scientists something interesting to do.
* Jonah Lehrer, "The truth wears off," The New Yorker 13 (52), 229. 2010.
1 person likes this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Trigger2 5/17/2020 2:54:40 AM (No. 413287)
"Science" is no longer about proof and facts. It's joined the "Arts" as entertainment and feelings.
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