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Vendo wrote:http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html

I love the "arguments Creationists shouldn't use" page, from a Creationism website! It didn't really leave them many options apart from "coz the bible says so!"... which as we know isn't viable argument for anything.

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Both science and religion can be used as agendas depending on the person who utilizes them for what ever ends they seek. It certaintly discourages people from the positive aspects of either for certain. What I mean't earlier is that this is a never ending debate with no definitive answers that will appease both sides. Christanity for better or worse is an institution that has exists and evolved in its own way for the last couple of thousand of years while evolution is a relatively new concept that got more recognition during the time of Darwin as a rejection of Victorianism and the status quo. We have seen examples of biological evolution at work but the complete mechanics of such a theory have still to be defined in concrete terms. Who really knows? I personally can't define human existance in such ideas as "science" and "religion" when both are human constructs as a way of definition for the human race in some kind of rationale manner. What about the metaphysical? Is everything just random? There are no easy answers or absolutes for any of this.

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solum wrote:

Linus Van Pelt wrote:

solum wrote:Surely the method of science is all about having an agenda: progress, advancement, knowledge, etc etc. Science is inextricably tied to the purposes of science, whatever you consider those to be.

I think the same word is being used to mean different things. Science, rightly understood, is nothing more or less than a process by which we understand more fully and accurately the nature of the world around us. I suppose you could say that the agenda of science is progress and advancement (of knowledge), in the same sense that the agenda of digging is more holes. I don't know how useful a statement that is to make. If some scientists, or some diggers, have agendas beyond that, that's one thing. But science itself is value-neutral.

I think that the idea that science is value-neutral is short-sighted in the extreme: you could argue that science, defined properly, is 100% value-neutral in a technical sense. But science cannot (or at any rate is never) pursued without an agenda. Within reason, all organised human endeavour has a point. At the thinnest end of the wedge, the point of science is a search for knowledge, truth, or some sort of progress/advancement. I think that this has an absolutely inextricable knock-on effect on the way people see the world--i.e. its not a slippery slope argument, I'm saying that functionally the scientific method and the scientific outlook (belief in progress, in the absence of need for ethical inquiry into anything pursued with the 'right' method, [socially accepted and irrebutable although not 'absolute'] truth) are one and the same. The upshot of this, as far as I can see, is that the scientific outlook has a fairly obvious and sometimes harmful effect on the way we look at and interact with the world and each other. Nowhere near the extent of religion, but its still there. the fact that science so influences the terms of and content of debate, whilst purporting to be value-neutral, drives me crazy.

The only sense in which science is value-neutral is, imho, one which is semantically correct but has little meaning.

Hmm, I think Solum makes a fair point, a point which seems to boil down to the fact that science is only value-neutral from a position of naturalized western humanism. And fair enough.

LVP wrote:I suppose you could say that the agenda of science is progress and advancement (of knowledge), in the same sense that the agenda of digging is more holes.

I might dig for oil, you might be (an orthodox Jewish mother) digging to bury your child's placenta. Both are instances of digging, but the manner of the digging and the meaning and results of the hole are rather different, yes? Similarily, there are many ways of looking out at things, out there, where our eyes excede our bodies. And, although I am not well-aquainted with it, I suspect there is a wide body of eco-criticism which takes science to task for making an object of nature - as something which is understood in a very utilitarian way.

And one can surely see the shortcomings of dominant science -- the way in which it is always already embedded in a ideological frame -- by just looking at the way western medicine aims for expensive technologically oriented cures at the expense of preventative solutions. Thing is, homeopathy is science, too. And science can and does provide evidence that prevention (eat some fucking fresh vegetables, move your ass regularily, etc) should be a greater priority than finding expensive, capitalist antidotes for all the cancerous crap we imbibe daily.


Science is not a transparent, homogenous thing, as many, including myself, have been pretending. Specific, cultural, and historically variable ways of percieving, thinking and being -- taxonomy, categorization, objectification -- seem to be part and parcel of the scientific project, a project which itself is very much constituitive of a worldview.

But, I didn't want to go there/here to a critique of the enlightenment/progress/humanism/science, etc! I'm not interested. I'd revisit some Foucault or some shit if I was. I mean. there's tons to be learned from such critiques, but that's the thing, they are critiques in the humanist tradition whether they style themselves as such or not. Derrida was essentially a modern Socrates.

The important thing is that my version of what science is and what science means is better and more beautiful (as well as more politicized and full of potential) than TMH's fake grandpa's belly-aching about birth-control, or what-have-you.

This post is long. Too long. But I must add still a quote and and a link or two (re: the ideological stupefication drum I was banging on in previous post):

More than 50 percent of Americans have a "negative" or "highly negative" view of people who do not believe in God; 70 percent think it important for presidential candidates to be "strongly religious." Because it is taboo to criticize a person's religious beliefs, political debate over questions of public policy (stem-cell research, the ethics of assisted suicide and euthanasia, obscenity and free speech, gay marriage, etc.) generally gets framed in terms appropriate to a theocracy. Unreason is now ascendant in the United States -- in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 68 percent believe in Satan. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world.

From this article which I came to via Long Sunday, an exceptional group weblog.

The amount of God-belief and God-talk (ie, mysticism) in the States, perhaps the most industrialized and technologically advanced nation on earth, is without comparison in the western world -- it's at levels characteristic of only pre-industrial societies (though Canada's terrible for this too, I hasten to add, So that's one comparison, but America's worse, really a lot worse: Canada just legalized same-sex marriage, becoming, I think, the 3rd nation on earth to do so at the highest federal level). So terrible, the enlightenment, she is dead!!

solum wrote:

Linus Van Pelt wrote:

solum wrote:Surely the method of science is all about having an agenda: progress, advancement, knowledge, etc etc. Science is inextricably tied to the purposes of science, whatever you consider those to be.

I think the same word is being used to mean different things. Science, rightly understood, is nothing more or less than a process by which we understand more fully and accurately the nature of the world around us. I suppose you could say that the agenda of science is progress and advancement (of knowledge), in the same sense that the agenda of digging is more holes. I don't know how useful a statement that is to make. If some scientists, or some diggers, have agendas beyond that, that's one thing. But science itself is value-neutral.

I think that the idea that science is value-neutral is short-sighted in the extreme: you could argue that science, defined properly, is 100% value-neutral in a technical sense.

Could and have.

But science cannot (or at any rate is never) pursued without an agenda.

I refer you to my digging analogy. Nobody, except in the beginning of that Simpsons episode, digs without an agenda. But can we really say that digging has an agenda? Is that a useful statement to make?

Within reason, all organised human endeavour has a point. At the thinnest end of the wedge, the point of science is a search for knowledge, truth, or some sort of progress/advancement. I think that this has an absolutely inextricable knock-on effect on the way people see the world--i.e. its not a slippery slope argument, I'm saying that functionally the scientific method and the scientific outlook (belief in progress, in the absence of need for ethical inquiry into anything pursued with the 'right' method, [socially accepted and irrebutable although not 'absolute'] truth) are one and the same. The upshot of this, as far as I can see, is that the scientific outlook has a fairly obvious and sometimes harmful effect on the way we look at and interact with the world and each other. Nowhere near the extent of religion, but its still there. the fact that science so influences the terms of and content of debate, whilst purporting to be value-neutral, drives me crazy.

This is all fair, but I think the focus is misplaced. In your arguments, the word "science" is code for people in labs inventing all kinds of things that are supposed to make our lives better but just end up causing cancer or birth defects or hormonal imbalances.

But in the arguments germane to this thread, the word "science" means exactly that: a way of observing and understanding the world around us. We're not talking about the roles of "Darwinism" vs. "Creationism" in terms of how they relate to, say, the pros and cons of instituting a eugenics policy. We're talking about telling our youth how the world works. "Darwinism" makes scientific (read: falsifiable) claims, backs up those claims with mounds of evidence, and changes those claims to fit new evidence. "Creationism" makes nonscientific claims, has no real evidence, and denies evidence if it doesn't fit. If you feel like it's worth it to educate children, and do so accurately, then the choice is clear.

Now, as far as relying on people to act morally, ethically, or in a socially sound manner, I don't implicitly trust scientists (since these things don't fall under "science") or religionists (since they've shown that they are not to be trusted). But at least scientists have the benefit of rationality.

The only sense in which science is value-neutral is, imho, one which is semantically correct but has little meaning.

I think the only sense in which science is not value-neutral is one which is semantically and otherwise incorrect.

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I tell you what, you Yanks can fight about myths vs science and the rest of the world will get on and overtake your technology and medical treatments. Do you seriously think the Chinese leadership sit around debating the "morals" of science?

How about this, leave the judging up to whatever deity you think runs the show... but I'll take science and gene-therapy over myths and babbling nonsense any day of the week. I'm not joking with you people, no other country apart from Iran have the kind of debates you guys are having.

For all you creation-ID people out there:

You are living in the Dark Ages. The debate is over -everywhere apart from America-, even the fucking Catholic church don't debate this...

End of transmission

Gramsci wrote:I tell you what, you Yanks can fight about myths vs science and the rest of the world will get on and overtake your technology and medical treatments. Do you seriously think the Chinese leadership sit around debating the "morals" of science?

How about this, leave the judging up to whatever deity you think runs the show... but I'll take science and gene-therapy over myths and babbling nonsense any day of the week. I'm not joking with you people, no other country apart from Iran have the kind of debates you guys are having.

For all you creation-ID people out there:

You are living in the Dark Ages. The debate is over -everywhere apart from America-, even the fucking Catholic church don't debate this...

End of transmission

man, what the fuck do you know about all this? everything, apparently? you're talking like you've got some kinda lock on the "facts" here. you're telling me that in Honduras, they don't believe in Intelligent Design nor Creationism? neither one? why do they have the gigantic statue of Jesus looking down on Tegucigalpa then? as a tribute to good science? it's only the US and Iran, huh? i have to say, flat out, that you sound like a really pissy idiot. cheers, non-American guy! you're the best!