*!"Do You Believe in Science?"!*

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Yes, science did that a while back. And for a while there was a creatively rich relationship/dialogue between subjective and objective, from the time of the Crusades, 1100 onward, when Knights brought back new and advanced scientific ideas from the Islamic empire), to the late 1800s.

I think that The Theory of Evolution may have created a "tipping point", after which the objectivity of modern science began to take on the role previously held by christianity. I accept Darwins theory, but think that the balance of power changed drastically, and has not yet been adjusted for.

NB: I think it is also important to remember that there was a long period when the principles of christianity were still being debated, and rigidity only set in from 600 AD, at the very earliest, before the first challenges came in the form of english, and german, etc, translations of the bible in the 1400's.

Where did i say that there had not been serious or "real" art before the advent of science?

Modern art is largely abstract, denuded of moral values/too obviously subjective treatments, unless is the work of, or about, political underdogs, ( poor, non-white, gay, women etc, who are traditionally expected to be more subjective!).

Surrealism is in itself a mockery of the subjective. It is a powerful expression of doubt about/negation of the personal position/location in one place or time. It expresses well the beliefs on which science works; that the subjective is not trustworthy, is not authorative. That a single/personal viewpoint is necessarily false/suspect.

Detrimental to whom? Who is happier as a result of modern science? Is there more or less violence ( %) now than 2000 years ago?
But WHAT is it about modern society that shows we understand more now than then? Surely not just the fruits of science ? And without considering how much these have/cost us too? Is that really how you measure our level of understanding ? I am not sure what are the essential factors for me, but i am not prepared to completely believe/accept, without examination, or serious questioning, that because we have heating, cars, computers, longer lives, etc, we understand the world better.

Last edited by ouinon on 03 Mar 2008, 5:10 am, edited 10 times in total.

I think it is an interesting phenomenon. Why do we have the impression of going deeper? I do too, when thinking through subjects, "feel" as if i am heading for the heart of things.

I think it may be a sort of mental illusion, perhaps created by social conditioning, the concepts/constructs we use for thinking of/perceiving our thinking, OR it may be biological, an artefact of neural activity when using fluid intelligence.

When we think with scientific or philosophical or political or literary ( etc) concepts we are using/manipulating man-made symbols, so actually it is far more likely that what we are doing when thinking is creating/building something, rather than finding something.

On the other hand maybe the man-made , the words/terms/concepts, are actually just "dressing" for our experience of our brains wiring, and when we "think" actually we are just following a path of neural connections, hence a sense of movement, of "finding" something out, etc.

( PS: Though i experience belief in god as finding something i remain open to understanding it as a cognitive tool.)

Last edited by ouinon on 03 Mar 2008, 6:07 am, edited 3 times in total.

I thought that it was a not entirely exaggerated way of describing how science decides what counts. If it does not threaten the fundamental belief system on which science is based it is allowed to be science, even if it is then shown to be false, but if it does threaten the belief system, by using, or implying the relevance/importance of, subjective data, then it is not science and doesn't need to be taken into account. So actually you could say science is used to identify science/tists. It has the same circularity anyway as some religious arguments.

I think it is very important that the subjective should (be recognised to) have a role in science. As I said above:
I believe that this is a significant objection to the "understanding" achieved by science. We were required to have faith in Science as soon as we started studying it, because so often the results were not the ones we were told should have happened.

I have a 99% belief in objective reality and therefore the scientific method, but there is room for doubt in all things, including this, because all "facts" are filtered through our minds. It ultimately comes down to whether we are part of the world (objectivity) or the world is part of us (subjectivity). Either of those possibilities could be true, but given that we don't have any real control over the world, I think the evidence is in favour of objective reality.

I see no need to believe in science.. Science is only about finding the facts on how things work. You can believe in theory's while they arent proven but of course once a science theory is successfully proved you dont need to believe it anymore because its fact.

In fact school may have functioned to select out people ( from scientific careers) who were not prepared to believe/have faith in science. We were asked to ignore/deny the evidence of our own senses, that something had done A, B, and C, and to accept/believe instead dogma handed out by authority ( the teacher or textbooks) that the "real" results should have been, ( would have been, if we or the material had been pure enough), x, y, and z.

I suddenly realise that this may be why pure-science students at university always seemed slightly christian to me, like acolytes/newly shaved monks.

Last edited by ouinon on 03 Mar 2008, 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

And yet where has this discovery led, but to increased bacterial adaptation, "super-bacteria", and to increased dependence on medicine to treat illnesses people just fasted or fed themselves out of in many cases in the past. Also to wiping out the population of bacteria in the intestines which help us with absorption, metabolisation, protection, etc, which we receive at only one period in our lives, in our mothers milk.
I do not accept that the discovery of penicillin increased our understanding of the world. We are only just beginning to realise how much it led us into error.

I don't see a conflict between science and the subjective side of life. Saying that I like Beethoven's 9th Symphony, for example, is a subjective assertion, it is a statement of personal preference. Saying that nature gives me a sense of awe and wonder is a subjective statement. I seek objective knowledge about the world because of that subjective sense of awe, wonder, and beauty. Objective vs. subjective is merely a distinction between statements based on empirical facts and statements based on personal value judgments. The objective is about questions of physical properties while the subjective is based on personal values judgments based on objective things. Just because a movie exists and as X, Y, and Z starring in it does not mean one will think the movie is any good. just because a certain food is made of ingredients A, B, and C does not being one will think the food tastes good.

You don't see any conflict in the situation i described then? No conflict between objectivity and subjectivity?

To me it looks like a pretty serious collision, ....so long as science continues to insist that it is entirely objective; of course if it admitted that it involves fundamental questions of faith/belief/personal perspective/social values, then there would not be such a conflict.

Is it "error" to have discovered something that saves thousands of lives?

net profit ?

see "Are Antibiotics Killing Us? " at:

http://discovermagazine.com/2005/nov/ar ... cs-killing

You need to scroll down a bit. But it's the only article on the page. A nice long one, with lots of examples !

Last edited by ouinon on 03 Mar 2008, 1:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, if a science experiment doesn't come out the way it was "supposed to", then it just means you messed up somewhere. Really, you expect a bunch of students to be able to carry out experiments flawlessly? Saying that science is flawed because some students don't get the expected result in a science project is like saying that electronics don't work because some people can't wire together a DVD player and cable to a TV.

Some experiments have factors which make them difficult, such as acetic acid's rate of evaporation is fairly high. My titration experiments with vinegar usually come out with a lower concentration value than "expected" but it is able to be accounted for. Other experiments have just a lack of precision; using an eyedropper rather than a burette will obtain different results. But is 0.12 molars really different from 0.1162 molars?

Yes, that's what we were told, on many occasions, when it wasn't said to be the fault of the material. The people who found this explanation requiring rather too much in the way of unquestioning faith, ( after all the teachers should have known how to make it work; if not why not? ), who weren't prepared to "simply believe" did not go on to study pure science at A-level. I suppose it's possible that the students who were most ready to ignore their own experience might not have seen any problem in this. They are supposed to be "universal laws"! Not dependent on completely artificial conditions of " flawlessness".

What experiments are we talking about? Also are we talking about qualitative results or quantitative results?