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Goodbye Jesus

Neil Degrasse Tyson: You Can't Bend Science To Suit Religious Or Cultural Mores


Fweethawt

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Ahh.  A breath of fresh air.  How we tell truth from "personal truths".  

 

I only wish that, when I was younger, I had had the same understanding and the same appreciation for science that I do now. My life would have been much different. 

 

We grow too soon old, and too late smart.  

 

A smart guy said that once. 

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Science goes first to reality, then examines the facts and comes to a conclusion, changing the conclusion when presented with new facts. Religion comes first to a conclusion, then denies reality and ignores the facts, refusing to change it's conclusion regardless of new facts.

 

In Peter Boghossian's book, A Manual for Creating Atheists, he points out that you can't argue religious points with religionists. What you do is question the thinking behind it. For example, he will ask, "How do you know if something is real [or true]?" Thus you get them to start thinking about the process they use for coming to their conclusions.

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Science goes first to reality, then examines the facts and comes to a conclusion, changing the conclusion when presented with new facts. Religion comes first to a conclusion, then denies reality and ignores the facts, refusing to change it's conclusion regardless of new facts.

 

In Peter Boghossian's book, A Manual for Creating Atheists, he points out that you can't argue religious points with religionists. What you do is question the thinking behind it. For example, he will ask, "How do you know if something is real [or true]?" Thus you get them to start thinking about the process they use for coming to their conclusions.

 

Hey Older!

 

Does Boghossian deal with the Christian belief that we cannot ever know what is real/true?

 

That even though there is an objective reality, we cannot objectively know what it is?

 

That we must therefore accept what we believe about it... by faith?  

 

That faith in God is always better than faith in science?

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

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Hey Older!

 

Does Boghossian deal with the Christian belief that we cannot ever know what is real/true?

 

That even though there is an objective reality, we cannot objectively know what it is?

 

That we must therefore accept what we believe about it... by faith?  

 

That faith in God is always better than faith in science?

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

 

 

No. And, frankly, I think the book is a little thin. Read it but find it in a library.

 

He doesn't use debate techniques with believers nor does he challenge the belief itself. He just asks questions about how they come to conclusions, using those questions to lead believers to look at their own methods of thought. He gently puts them in a place where they, hopefully, can see the fallacies in their logic.

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Hey Older!

 

Does Boghossian deal with the Christian belief that we cannot ever know what is real/true?

 

That even though there is an objective reality, we cannot objectively know what it is?

 

That we must therefore accept what we believe about it... by faith?  

 

That faith in God is always better than faith in science?

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

 

 

No. And, frankly, I think the book is a little thin. Read it but find it in a library.

 

He doesn't use debate techniques with believers nor does he challenge the belief itself. He just asks questions about how they come to conclusions, using those questions to lead believers to look at their own methods of thought. He gently puts them in a place where they, hopefully, can see the fallacies in their logic.

 

 

Ok, thanks for the head's up.

 

All the best,

 

BAA.

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“Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into thinking something is true that is not, or that something is not true that is."

 

I very much like this description of the scientific method as quoted above but think instead this is one of the primary considerations or objectives of the scientific method rather than the scientific method itself.

 

“Since then, we would further learn not to claim knowledge of a newly discovered truth until multiple researchers, and ultimately the majority of researchers, obtain results consistent with one another.”

 

“Science discovers objective truths.”

 

“Newly discovered truth,” “objective truths,” or the word “truth” itself is strong wordings seldom used by practitioners of science. The use of consensus to determine the validity of something also does not necessarily better validate conclusions. I think this is better explained by the quote below. To come up with a better theory:

 

“pose an idea that is counter to prevailing research and which ultimately earns a consistency of observations and experiment. This ensures healthy disagreement at all times while working on the bleeding edge of discovery.” 

 

 

Prevailing research is interpreted by prevailing theory. When observations seem to contradict prevailing theory the observations may need to be interpreted by a different theory or perspective for a better explanation or understanding. I think this is very difficult based upon present applications of the scientific method since nearly all alternative theory/ explanations are totally unknown to science practitioners. To come up with alternative theory to explain seemingly contradictory observations, is often more like trying to re-invent the wheel without knowledge of its prior discovery probably more than once.

 

Including such considerations, the title of the article still remains generally valid:

 

You Can't Bend Science to Suit Religious or Cultural Mores

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