Science as a Brief Candle in the Dark

[Cheerful Charlie]

So, the administrators' lack of interest in keeping Indians alive is evidence that Malthus wanted to kill Irishmen?

No. This is a warning that taking a scientific argument and misapplying it can have horrendous effects. Malthus was used as an excuse to do nothing when something could have been done. Malthus himself would have probably been horrified to see what was done in his name.

 

[Speakpigeon]

A few maxims on epistemology, science, and religion:

- we cannot perceive that which we do not know
- so: before the rise of science, the material nature of the universe was largely unknowable
- so: religion/myth predominated
- so: knowledge of the universe, secularism, materialism, is contingent on modern science and similar
- so: all of us are only secular because secularism is now knowable

Science as a Brief Candle in the Dark

I don't agree entirely with the OP.

I think the material nature of things was well known.

It was well known what was hard and what was soft and what was sharp and what was dull and how to create something that could kill.

What wasn't known was why this nature is the way it is.

And we're none the wiser today. Our knowledge is less superficial but we certainly don't understand why nature is the way it is although perhaps we understand that's a fucking unanswerable question to begin with.

As to the Dark, I guess we could have tried to manage the world we had and ourselves within it, just to keep having a future. Now, we have to rely on the off-chance that some bright idiot finds a solution to our present and future troubles.

Still, science is the necessary knowledge to get us out of our own mess, the very mess we frenetically created using all the resources of the same science. Science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme.
EB

Now that's fucked up. If science had consciousness it would not be science. So referring to soul in the same misstatement is pure waste.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme.
EB

Now that's fucked up. If science had consciousness it would not be science. So referring to soul in the same misstatement is pure waste.

My quote doesn't suggest for "science to have consciousness".

It also isn't referring to the "soul".

You're making it all up, probably I have to assume entirely correctly in a state of deep stupor.

Pure waste, indeed.
EB

NB

Stupor is the lack of critical mental function and a level of consciousness wherein a sufferer is almost entirely unresponsive and only responds to base stimuli such as pain. Those in a stuporous state are rigid, mute and only appear to be conscious, as the eyes are open and follow surrounding objects. The word derives from the Latin stupor ("numbness, insensibility"). Being characterised by impairments to reactions to external stimuli, it usually appears in infectious diseases, complicated toxic states (e.g. heavy metals), severe hypothermia, mental illnesses (e.g. schizophrenia, severe clinical depression), epilepsy, vascular illnesses (e.g. hypertensive encephalopathy), shock (e.g. learning of a death or surviving a car crash), neoplasms (e.g. brain tumours), major trauma, vitamin D deficiency and other maladies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupor

 

[Bomb#20]

Slam dunk in the direction I indicated.

Not seeing the slam dunk. You haven't shown that Britain enacted any laws at all after 1798 that resulted in failure to help the Irish. Not helping the Irish had already been settled policy for hundreds of years. Screwing the Irish was what the English government always did.

Moreover, of the laws Britain did enact, you haven't shown they wouldn't have enacted them without Malthus.

Malthus wasn't so much anti-irish as he was misguided economically.

Certainly. Everyone was misguided economically. Economists were philosophers in that era. A realistic theory of economics wasn't developed until the late 1800's.

He used that false ideology to advantage with Whigs enacting stifling policies for later disaster. When some listen to a concert others hear Rap and vica versa. Spirit of the times old fella spirit of the times.

Well, if it was the spirit of the times, then what grounds are there to claim anyone in particular was instrumental? That's the way the pendulum was swinging, regardless of what some demographer calculated population could increase to.

 

[fromderinside]

Sounds a bit like the flavor of those who are defending Kavanaugh. Proving negatives aren't my kind of thing. Amazing of you too. You know English society and law have been evolving to the left for a thousand years yet you stop the clock for your rant. I put it out there from verifiable source. You don't like it. Tough. End of story.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Doing unto others as I would have them do to me works for me.

Very sorry I can't reciprocate the irrelevance of your posts. I can't help it, you know. I have to keep to the point.
EB

 

[metacristi]

A few maxims on epistemology, science, and religion:

- we cannot perceive that which we do not know
- so: before the rise of science, the material nature of the universe was largely unknowable
- so: religion/myth predominated
- so: knowledge of the universe, secularism, materialism, is contingent on modern science and similar
- so: all of us are only secular because secularism is now knowable

Science as a Brief Candle in the Dark

I would restate what you say, too many so-s

-We can perceive that which we did not know before and humans are fearful yet curious people

-Religion is an early attempt to explain what we perceive / the Universe

-Unfortunately before the rise of science most religions taught that the deep nature of the universe is unknowable or at least that it is pointless to search for laws of nature (which are at the basis of modern science) + that they have the last word here

-Religions predominated so myth predominated (although some Greek, roman thinkers et altri praised Reason)

-Western civilization raised to a new height the conviction that human intellect can penetrate nature’s secrets, leading in time to the scientific revolution, which proved very successful to explain the observed facts (one can argue here that the Christian belief that God is Logos/Reason, influenced at its turn by Greek philosophy, played a certain role in this process)

-We have now good reasons to think that modern science or something similar is the best tool to make sense of observed facts and that secularism (which had quite many supporters also in mainstream Christian sects already at the beginning of modern era by the way) is the best solution to create a much more harmonious society / extend the limits of knowledge

So most of us are now secular and scientific minded because rationality indicates that

 

[fromderinside]

My quote doesn't suggest for "science to have consciousness".

It also isn't referring to the "soul".

It's your statement "La science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme" treated by translator as "Science without consciousness is only ruin of the soul." Go ahead. make my day.

 

[fromderinside]

Doing unto others as I would have them do to me works for me.

Very sorry I can't reciprocate the irrelevance of your posts. I can't help it, you know. I have to keep to the point.
EB

Obviously a scientist has to disagree with another who finds a 'flaw' in the description forest by noting they have meadows is a bit over the top much like denying all religious teachings including those that show scientific benefit.

From whence have you departed the party?

 

[bilby]

My quote doesn't suggest for "science to have consciousness".

It also isn't referring to the "soul".

It's your statement "La science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme" treated by translator as "Science without consciousness is only ruin of the soul." Go ahead. make my day.

"L'âme" can mean the soul, but it can also mean the mind, the person, the blade, or the bore of a gun.

Personally, I could easily see how science without conscience could cause severe fouling of a cannon. Artillerymen take note!

It's a pretty lame word, really.

 

[fromderinside]

Thanks bilby. As you have noted I don't even have a grasp of English so ...

limping.

 

[Speakpigeon]

My quote doesn't suggest for "science to have consciousness".

It also isn't referring to the "soul".

It's your statement "La science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme" treated by translator as "Science without consciousness is only ruin of the soul." Go ahead. make my day.

Using automatic translation without understanding of the language is not something you can argue from.

Doing science without regard for the morality of what you do may be science but it is also an abdication of your responsibility towards other human beings.

You're free to disagree of course.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

...and of course I do.

Science and any emotive aspect are toxic. Money creates an emotive aspect. For that and position people cheat.

As for translation algorithms, they are the product of science and technology. If one has researched the background of that technology one will find it is about as good as an experienced translator at a presentation. So I have fair confidence in the Google app used for translating. Instead I'm going with the caution provided by bilby and making my assertion of soul conditional.

Your serve.

 

[steve_bank]

...and of course I do.

Science and any emotive aspect are toxic. Money creates an emotive aspect. For that and position people cheat.

As for translation algorithms, they are the product of science and technology. If one has researched the background of that technology one will find it is about as good as an experienced translator at a presentation. So I have fair confidence in the Google app used for translating. Instead I'm going with the caution provided by bilby and making my assertion of soul conditional.

Your serve.

Yes. Science is populated by Vulcan like people with no emotions or feelings or ambitions or need to succeed.

 

[fromderinside]

true and false. People have emotions and people are scientists. Scientific method provides mechanisms for reducing effects of emotional behavior in the collecting and interpreting empirical data by people.

For instance an observer faced with a choice between whether there is a signal or is not a signal at time of sample is controlled by randomization of whether a signal will be presented in that interval.

Candle relit.

 

[steve_bank]

Science succeeds because it is in large part by personal ambition and advancement, and profit.

The 19th century development of thermodynamics resulted from competition in developing steam engines.

In the 20th century it was WWII that spurred science followed by electronics and commercialization of space..

Religion's power is steadfastly remain the same. The RCC can not make major changes, otherwise it loses its authority as moral leader.

 

[fromderinside]

steve_bank if what you write is true why didn't the Romans become scientific leaders and sustain progress. Why haven't the Egyptian efforts in moving water become universal basis for such efforts. Competition is something we use as a replacement for survival in large social systems.

If you don't think so consider what happened to the migrants to Tasmania in ancient times Capabilities were lost because of too few individuals. Pecuniary ambition is not the motivator for science.

Science is a belief in objective evidence evaluation which has resulted in a more or less formal method for doing such in the last few hundred years. Scientists, generally, are not riding the crest of human endeavor they are the makers of it. Scientists are more like priests than tycoons.

What you write reads like the work of an engineer rather than the musing of a scientist.

 

[steve_bank]

steve_bank if what you write is true why didn't the Romans become scientific leaders and sustain progress. Why haven't the Egyptian efforts in moving water become universal basis for such efforts. Competition is something we use as a replacement for survival in large social systems.

If you don't think so consider what happened to the migrants to Tasmania in ancient times Capabilities were lost because of too few individuals. Pecuniary ambition is not the motivator for science.

Science is a belief in objective evidence evaluation which has resulted in a more or less formal method for doing such in the last few hundred years. Scientists, generally, are not riding the crest of human endeavor they are the makers of it. Scientists are more like priests than tycoons.

What you write reads like the work of an engineer rather than the musing of a scientist.

Given yout backgroground I'd assume it would be obvious. Scince builds on what comes before.

Eienstien built on Maxwell. Problems with relative motion predated Eienstien.

Mawell built on Ampere, Gause, and Fraday.

Newtons laws of motion in various conceptual forms were in print long before he was born.

Elements of differential and integral calculus go back to Egypt.

The Romans had science and outstanding engineering. They understood the strength advantage of beams.

The rise of science in Europe was based on Newton's mechanics and most importantly his notational synthesis of calculus.

Before Europe the mid east was the place to be for science, Arabs and Persians. They had the wealth. As they declined and Europe rose all the historical knowledge passed to Europe asd the foundation for modern science to build on.

I read books on history of math and science/technology. The paths leading to Maxwell and Einstein are all traceable. Contrary to white Eurocentrism Christianity, science did not just pop up in Christian Europe.

 

[ronburgundy]

Philosophers have been positing naturalism since as far back as Thales of Miletus. But the disadvantage was that the ancients only had their own two eyes to measure the universe. They didn't have the tools to discover that the natural world is both far grander and far more fine-grained than at first appearances.

So what do we do when something strange happens that can't be easily understood--like why did someone get sick just three days after talking back to the village leader? With only a superficial understanding of the world, we can either say, "We don't know" which is unsatisfying, or we can say he was cursed by the gods, or some other unfalsifiable doctrine. Unfalsifiable, that is, until we invented microscopes and discovered germs.

Exactly. Science only became really successful with the age of scientific instruments. The invention of mechanical clocks. The invention of reading glasses. Then telescopes, microscopes, thermometers, and using the tools of alchemists to develop chemistry. This lead to whole new worlds to explore,not hinted of in the Bible and unknown to the Greek philosophers. Now the best minds had something to work with. Progress could be made. Science as an enterprise became organized. Rise of things like steam engines drove physics and the invention of thermodynamics. Scientific instruments allowed science to grow beyond the bounds of armchair theorizing. The experimenters became kings of science.

Not disagreeing, but it is more than just the physical instruments, which don't solve the "garbage-in garbage-out" problem. Armchair theorizing was also limited by a lack of formalized intellectual principles for empirical observation. The need for random and/or representative observations, larger samples, control over extraneous variables, and accounting for chance co-variation are all essential to scientific progress. Also, secularization and legal protections of free thought are neccessary conditions for sound science on a large scale. Authoritarian dogmas which include monotheism coercively prohibit honest questioning of many core assumptions. Germs were observed via early telescopes 200 years before germ theory of disease was accepted, with the early theories viewing germs as effects rather than causes of diseases. Even micro level observation itself doesn't get you very far if it is not done in a rigorous systematic way where all assumptions are questioned and all alternatives are considered.

Science is at least as much about the principles of reasoning applied before, during, and after the observations and data collection than the about the observations and data itself.