Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 26, 2013 6:16 am  

cod'ead wrote:

I'm frankly amazed that some people are capable of rational debate until the subject of religion crops up, then they reert back to tribal instinct

If you start off with the premise that what you are defending has no physical evidence or proof of existence but you're prepared to base the whole of your lifestyle and opinion on mankind on it anyway, including the rubbishing of proven facts and physical evidence, then any further discussion from that starting point is totally irrelevant - anyone who starts any conversation about anything with the view that they will not listen to the other party is not having a conversation or debate at all.

Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 26, 2013 10:40 am  

Mugwump wrote:

You said that before. And before that. Is this some kind of Chinese water torture?

Did you expect a different outcome from the same argument?

Mugwump wrote:

Your interpretations of my words are precisely that and I can't put them more simply. Impasse.

Impasse indeed if you can't explain.

Mugwump wrote:

To be honest, I'm struggling to grasp your disconnect. Nothing I have said is particularly (pardon the pun) heretical. Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wrote at length about the troubling indivisibility of science and scientist. If you are interested the American version of the Open University (TCC) runs an excellent course on Science (which the resourceful should have no difficulty locating) and devotes an entire module to this thorny question.

You assert that science cannot be dissociated from scientists.
I would agree that, in the sense that scientific knowledge cannot come about without scientists to discover it, this is true.
But the knowledge that emerges is also called science and that knowledge cannot be moral (good) or immoral (evil).

When uncovering knowledge or when using knowledge, a scientist can choose whether or not to act in a moral way (although it can be immensely difficult sometimes to decide which direction is morally better and it may be that morality of the use of the outcome is unknown).
This does not make science/knowledge intrinsically moral or immoral.

What it does mean is that the use of science can be put to immoral use or moral use ... and that is a question of conscience.

I don't know what you are thinking but it might be of an example situation where a scientist might consider continuing with his work, because he believes that he has a moral imperative to increase knowledge, even though he knows there will be immoral uses for his results.
This is again a moral dilemma for the scientist and does not make science (which is a process) either moral or immoral.

I haven't looked for your US module, time constrains me.

Re: The Guides : Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:47 am  

El Barbudo wrote:

Impasse indeed if you can't explain.

...

You assert that science cannot be dissociated from scientists.
I would agree that, in the sense that scientific knowledge cannot come about without scientists to discover it, this is true.
But the knowledge that emerges is also called science and that knowledge cannot be moral (good) or immoral (evil).

It "cannot" in the same way that an apple cannot transform itself into a mountain and then ride a bicycle - or "cannot" within a human devised perceptual framework?

Let us return to the point of entry. A silly and factually incorrect graphic claiming that "Science" had cured any number of diseases whilst "Religion" had not.

I responded with my own hastily cobbled together photoshop graphic which claimed that "Science" had played a role in the deaths of millions in wars since 1900 (an extremely conservative figure, I might add).

I then clarified this point by stating that whilst it is often claimed that "science" is neutral (which I didn't disagree with) - we cannot ignore the undeniable fact that science and warfare have shared an unhealthy relationship since the very beginning.

You can't bring yourself to admit this point and so you obfuscate by suggesting the science born out of the atom bomb which killed tens of thousands of Japanese exists in some metaphysical paradise and therefore cannot possibly be connected to the scientists themselves, the dead etc.

Should we debate instead on a metaphysical RLFANS?

Re: The Guides : Fri Jun 28, 2013 12:20 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

It "cannot" in the same way that an apple cannot transform itself into a mountain and then ride a bicycle - or "cannot" within a human devised perceptual framework?

Let us return to the point of entry. A silly and factually incorrect graphic claiming that "Science" had cured any number of diseases whilst "Religion" had not.

I responded with my own hastily cobbled together photoshop graphic which claimed that "Science" had played a role in the deaths of millions in wars since 1900 (an extremely conservative figure, I might add).

I then clarified this point by stating that whilst it is often claimed that "science" is neutral (which I didn't disagree with) - we cannot ignore the undeniable fact that science and warfare have shared an unhealthy relationship since the very beginning.

You can't bring yourself to admit this point and so you obfuscate by suggesting the science born out of the atom bomb which killed tens of thousands of Japanese exists in some metaphysical paradise and therefore cannot possibly be connected to the scientists themselves, the dead etc.

Should we debate instead on a metaphysical RLFANS?

Science has been put to moral use, it has been put to immoral use.
I have denied neither.
That science and knowledge have been put to immoral use does not mean that they are intrinsically immoral or evil.

My point all the way through has been, quite simply, that science is a process of discovering knowledge but is not a guide on how to live your life.

Now that you admit that you do not disagree with that, my work is done.

I did not post any graphics, I responded to a post of yours, to point out that science is the way to knowledge.