Why some don't trust science

[Orogeny]

Scientists often help with the construction of the technology, but the decision is not made by them.

The decision is not ALWAYS made by them. Sometimes it is. Scientists are not completely blaimless. I don't think that's the point you were trying to make, but I think it's worth clarifying in this forum, where some posters muddy the water intentionally.

 

[Chesterton]

I agree with most of your points, gluadys. I think you agree with me, though, when I say to fear the man, not the method. Yes?

Is that the sophisticated converse of "Don't hate the playah, hate the game"?

 

[Orogeny]

Well... yeah, i guess so.

 

[lucaspa]

The decision is not ALWAYS made by them. Sometimes it is. Scientists are not completely blaimless. I don't think that's the point you were trying to make, but I think it's worth clarifying in this forum, where some posters muddy the water intentionally.

Let's clarify a bit better, then, shall we?

When scientists make decisions to apply the knowledge, then they are making an ethical or commercial decision. It may be the same physical person, but the scientist isn't acting as a scientist anymore or doing science when he/she makes the decision.

 

[lucaspa]

Science, as a methodology, is benign.

Science isn't a methodology. Science uses a lot of methods.

What people apply the produce of scientific endeavor to is wholly unrelated to the nature of science itself.

It is not the knowledge that is to be feared, it is, as you say, the cooptation of the knowledge that can be harmful.

What I said. Or, the use of the knowledge. "Cooptation" implies using it for something it was not meant for. But the knowledge has no "meant for" within it.

 

[lucaspa]

Is that the sophisticated converse of "Don't hate the playah, hate the game"?

Or the "Don't hate the sinner, but the sin"?

 

[Orogeny]

Let's clarify a bit better, then, shall we?

When scientists make decisions to apply the knowledge, then they are making an ethical or commercial decision. It may be the same physical person, but the scientist isn't acting as a scientist anymore or doing science when he/she makes the decision.

Well put.

 

[Orogeny]

Science isn't a methodology. Science uses a lot of methods.

I apologize for being unclear. I was referring to the scientific method, and the knowledge gained through its application.

 

[sfs]

When scientists make decisions to apply the knowledge, then they are making an ethical or commercial decision. It may be the same physical person, but the scientist isn't acting as a scientist anymore or doing science when he/she makes the decision.

When the scientist chooses to pursue a scientific question that is likely to have any kind of technological application or social effect, he or she is also making an ethical decision.

 

[metherion]

Yes, but on the other hand, many technologies can be co-opted for other reasons that the intended applications. IIRC, Telsa ran into this dilemma and refused to do a lot of his research because he didn't want military applications which were fairly obvious to derive from his work. However, with the sheer number of ways ANYTHING could be possibly co-opted to some unethical use, scientific progress would come to a halt. And new cutting tool could be used to kill someone, any new efficient energy source could be turned into some more powerful and efficient weapon, the list goes on and on. There is a point where over-doing it can become ridiculous.

Metherion

 

[juvenissun]

STOP. This isn't about the Creation. This is about creationism. Creation and creationism are 2 different things.

What happened is that some people decided that the Biblical description of creation was how it really happened. They were doing that long before evolution. Here is Francis Bacon writing in the early 1600s .

"For nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error; and it is a very plague of the understanding for vanity to become the object of veneration. Yet in this vanity some of the moderns have with extreme levity indulged so far as to attempt to found a system of natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis, on the book of Job, and other parts of the sacred writings, seeking for the dead among the living; which also makes the inhibition and repression of it the more important, because from this unwholesome mixture of things human and divine there arises not only a fantastic philosophy[science] but also a heretical religion. Very meet it is therefore that we be sober-minded, and give to faith that only which is faith's." Francis Bacon. Novum Organum LXV, 1620 Francis Bacon: Novum Organum (1620)

So, people had made Genesis 1-8 into a scientific theory long before evolution was discovered.



Darwin did everything possible in Origin to avoid attacking the idea of creation. Read the Fontispiece. Then consider these quotes:
"To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species,pg. 449.

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pg 450.

The first attacks came from the clergy. Remember the Bishop Wilberforce vs Huxley debate in 1860? The attack came from creationists.

What happened next was that Christians rapidly accepted evolution.
"When my Father [Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury] announced and defended his acceptance of evolution in his Brough Lectures in 1884 it provoked no serious amount of criticism ... The particular battle over evolution was already won by 1884." F.A. Iremonger, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, His Life and Letters, Oxford Univ. Press, 1948, pg. 491.

Then came the Fundamentalists. These people believed the Bible was inerrant. In a series of pamphlets published between 1900 and 1910 called The Fundamentals they attacked evolution.



Creationists. Fundamentalists. They felt attacked. But only because they were worried about the Bible and not God. As you are.



And why are you "forced" to defend "Scripture"? And why do you capitalize "Scripture" like you would capitalize "God"? Scripture isn't God. We can dispense with the creation stories and still have God. Genesis 1-8 is not essential to Judaism or Christianity.

Here you go. If the Bible is given by a king and you said that to the book, your head might be chopped off.

In fact, if we lost Gen 1 to 8, the whole Bible message is lost. This is the consequence when one does not "worship" the Bible.

 

[juvenissun]

The creationists, long before evolution existed. Don’t worry, I WILL provide evidence.


Agreed.


WRONG. Case in point, Galileo. People trying to read science into the Bible to contradict actual observed science. PRE-EVOLUTION.
Case in point: James Hutton came up with the geological idea of uniformitarianism, and died BEFORE 1800. So he died more than 60 years before Origin of Species was published.
There are more.

NO. It was NOT evolution, it was Christians trying to find actual science having the Bible used to attempt to contradict their actual scientific findings. The BIBLE was co-opted as a science book to try and make creation a scientific theory (which it wasn’t) to refute ACTUAL science, LONG before evolution. You, sir, are wrong.



But for that to have happened, somebody MUST have been attempted to USE the Bible AS science, which you have already admitted is the wrong use for the Bible.


In order, : Yes, by some of us. I know I see that Biblical creation stories are not meant to imply science.

Because people insist on trying to make it science to refute ACTUAL science. So the not-science of the Bible had to be SHOWN as not-science so ACTUAL science could progress. The Bible was used to attempt to deny ACTUAL science FIRST.


As my examples show, and to quote Gene Wilder:
WRONG, SIR! WRONG!


This statement is based on your previous statement, which is wrong, which explains why THIS statement is wrong too.


Except there WERE creationists around LONG before evolution, and science making new discoveries is not ‘attacks’ on the Bible.




I think you mean ‘words’ and not ‘texts’.

And I would submit that a great many people worship specifically the KJV with the whole KJV only movement which (in some cases) specifically states that God actually spoke in Middle English to the Hebrews and through Jesus’ mouth, and even tho it was miraculously understood and recorded in Hebrew/Greek/whatever, when it was translated in the 1611KJV it was the actual words that came from God’s mouth. Yeah... sounds a bit like Bible worship to me.

And putting WORDS about the Creator, not even literally the direct words OF the Creator, above the WORK of the Creator, and in spite of the nature of the Creator himself... I’d say that’s worship of the Bible.

Metherion

Fine. You have some points.
I had enough on this subject (not exciting enough to me). So I will not continue on it.
Thanks for the thought.

 

[driewerf]

Here you go. If the Bible is given by a king and you said that to the book, your head might be chopped off.

In fact, if we lost Gen 1 to 8, the whole Bible message is lost. This is the consequence when one does not "worship" the Bible.

That is the danger of biblical literalism. Catholics don't have that problem.

 

[juvenissun]

That is the danger of biblical literalism. Catholics don't have that problem.

Their leaders DO have the same problem. (Did they claim that evolution is true? Plain stupid.)

 

[Orogeny]

Their leaders DO have the same problem. (Did they claim that evolution is true? Plain stupid.)

No, the leaders of the Catholic church do not have this problem, because they do not try to read the bible literally. They accept the theory of evolution because they are intelligent and honest enough to realize that it is the best current explaination for the biodiversity extant today and represented in the rock record.

 

[juvenissun]

No, the leaders of the Catholic church do not have this problem, because they do not try to read the bible literally. They accept the theory of evolution because they are intelligent and honest enough to realize that it is the best current explaination for the biodiversity extant today and represented in the rock record.

They compromised their faith on this matter. When they get There, they will pay for that.

 

[Mallon]

They compromised their faith on this matter. When they get There, they will pay for that.

Will you pay for lying about being a geology professor?

 

[juvenissun]

Will you pay for lying about being a geology professor?

Of course not.

 

[Orogeny]

Will you pay for lying about being a geology professor?

Don't be silly, Mallon.

 

[Willtor]

They compromised their faith on this matter. When they get There, they will pay for that.

Unless, of course, they're right and that's the proper way of reading Genesis.