The Fundamental Conflict Between Science And Religion

[mfbukowski]

Calling science a "parable" and making it as poetic as you want has always been fine with me, mf. However, when one loses ground and starts to relativize science in a way it clearly isn't, then that's a problem. I liked what she wrote because I also think emotions play a central role not only in science but also in being rational in general but that doesn't happen in the way I've seen you use them. I also don't agree with your view of objectivity and other stuff I've made clear to you before.

How does one both see science as a "parable" and not "relativize" it?

I am not sure what you mean.

Maybe we could start here. I am honestly trying to communicate, if it doesn't work again, we can just call it off before we both get ticked off?

My objective here is to communicate with you as clearly as I can communicate with HeatherAnn, and since I agreed with what she said and so you did you, I saw this as a possibility.

I really would like to be able to communicate with former LDS who are coming from a viewpoint similar to yours- we don't have to agree, I just want to find the correct words which at least allow us to discuss things.

[elguanteloko]

Oh its not?..

No. It's about explanations and which is more likely. It says nothing about the empirical.

And I didn't come here to post. I was redirected here as the result of googling the definition of "pontification"..

Check the urban dictionary's definition as that one is the most apropos.

...lol?

And I got that too.

great!

No one is arguing that the methodologies aren't different and hence "in conflict", even though the results could in principal be the same. Hence the existence of two different entities: science and religion. And to repeat what others have already asked,.. "So?"..

So, you either accept one or the other or neither and be consistent. If you accept both methodologies you need some serious new argument for such an apparent conflict.

What you seem to be missing is the same as what MP, Honoretheos, Xander all miss. Religion is testimony based. It is testimony based because it is experienced at the level of the individual. It cannot be subjected to the objective procedure of science because not everyone can replicate the experiment. There are conditions placed upon the would be recipients.

...ok, then you didn't get what I was saying. Let me try to explain it in a different way. Whatever your explanation is for a given set of events or phenomena, if you accept scientific methodology, then you should apply it to things like "God has a body" or "God exists"... EVEN IF these statements are falsifiable or not, or testable or not, or whatever. Why? Because religious explanations for feelings, experiences, etc are explanations for phenomena about reality. If you say they are "personal only and God won't choose to test himself in science", then that's fine but what you CAN do is test that whole explanation of "God won't choose to test himself in science" through the other principles science uses (parsimony being one of them), though you can't test it empirically. Example: is it more probably that there is such a superpowerful human (God) that chooses to hide himself from science... or that such being doesn't exist in the first place?

Prayer explored in this manner will not work because God is not a uniform, homogenous force like gravity that must react the same to all stimuli. And He certainly wouldn't respond to being tested in this manner.

ops!

So parsimony doesn't apply to a comparison of the methodologies. Neither does it apply to the explanations as what is accepted by separate individuals is different.

So, people disagree about what they accept... WHO CARES?!

Edited August 2, 2011 by elguanteloko

[elguanteloko]

How does one both see science as a "parable" and not "relativize" it?

Watch this video:

Likewise, you can make the concrete into a parable or poetry.

Maybe we could start here. I am honestly trying to communicate, if it doesn't work again, we can just call it off before we both get ticked off?

Listen, mf, I'll never deny you a try, friend. We may disagree and not communicate often, but that doesn't mean I dislike you at all.

You should see the discussions I used to have with my parents and I still love them.

My objective here is to communicate with you as clearly as I can communicate with HeatherAnn, and since I agreed with what she said and so you did you, I saw this as a possibility.

that's fine!

I really would like to be able to communicate with former LDS who are coming from a viewpoint similar to yours- we don't have to agree, I just want to find the correct words which at least allow us to discuss things.

What I meant wasn't that profound. I just meant that science (or facts, if you want) can always be treated as metaphors or parables ("can", not "should" or "must"). That doesn't imply the words you are using literally mean something non-concrete.

[mfbukowski]

Watch this video:

Likewise, you can make the concrete into a parable or poetry.

Yes I have seen it before.

The problem is that he doesn't understand (from my pov) that there is nothing "concrete"- its all just language. This wikipedia guy, in summarizing Rorty, says it much better than I do.

http://en.wikipedia...._and_Solidarity

(Bolding added)

The contingency of language

Here, Rorty argues that all language is contingent. This is because only descriptions of the world can be true or false, and descriptions are made by humans who must make truth or falsity, as opposed to truth or falsity being determined by any innate property of the world being described. Green grass is not true or false, but "the grass is green" is. For example, I can say that 'the grass is green' and you could agree with that statement, but our use of the words to describe grass is independent of the grass itself. Without the human proposition, truth or falsity is simply irrelevant. Rorty consequently argues that all discussion of language in relation to reality should be abandoned, and that one should instead discuss vocabularies in relation to other vocabularies.

Note it says "descriptions are MADE by humans who MUST MAKE TRUTH OR FALSITY"

You said:

What I meant wasn't that profound. I just meant that science (or facts, if you want) can always be treated as metaphors or parables ("can", not "should" or "must"). That doesn't imply the words you are using literally mean something non-concrete.

I would side with Rorty on that one. I think they ARE indeed "metaphors".

Descriptions themselves are not "things" they are descriptions. That means what they "speak" of is about language, not about anything "concrete".

Truth and falsity are properties of propositions- not things- and there is no way to get "under" language to something "out there" which is outside of language. All our perceptions are filtered through our senses, and all we have to express our perceptions is language.

So ultimately all we can do is talk about talking. We can talk about talking about science, or we can talk about talking about religion, and here we are talking about both talking about science AND talking about talking about religion.

But still it is all "just talk"!

Edited August 2, 2011 by mfbukowski

[elguanteloko]

I would side with Rorty on that one. I think they ARE indeed "metaphors".

(you edited your post after I answered so I'll post a full reply in my next post)

Edited August 2, 2011 by elguanteloko

[shalamabobbi]

No. It's about explanations and which is more likely. It says nothing about the empirical.

"principle of parsimony

Also called Ockham's Razor.

Principle that one should not multiply entities unnecessarily, or make further assumptions than are needed, and in general that one should pursue the simplest hypothesis.

..and it is not clear whether a simpler hypothesis is pro tanto more likely to be true."

source:

http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philosophies/parsimony-principle.php

It seems to be a direct contradiction of your definition to me..

and if it doesn't apply to the empirical than you just sank the good ship science..

So, you either accept one or the other or neither and be consistent. If you accept both methodologies you need some serious new argument for such an apparent conflict.

You are mixing the objective and the subjective. That is why there exists the linguistic distinctions in the first place. I would agree that if something is capable of being established by the objective method that is best/better.

There is much however that is not ameanable to that method that exists anyway, and there needs to be a method of dealing with those realities as well. And since they don't fit within an objective approach they must be dealt with in some other manner.

..ok, then you didn't get what I was saying. Let me try to explain it in a different way. Whatever your explanation is for a given set of events or phenomena, if you accept scientific methodology, then you should apply it to things like "God has a body" or "God exists"... EVEN IF these statements are falsifiable or not, or testable or not, or whatever. Why? Because religious explanations for feelings, experiences, etc are explanations for phenomena about reality. If you say they are "personal only and God won't choose to test himself in science", then that's fine but what you CAN do is test that whole explanation of "God won't choose to test himself in science" through the other principles science uses (parsimony being one of them), though you can't test it empirically.

There's a distinction between not getting what you are saying and disagreeing with what you are saying.

What you are stating makes no sense. Use the scientific method anyway even if the thing being tested is falsifiable or not?? or testable or not??

And then you are back to parsimony, or rather the mis-defined use of that word, as though that is useful to determine truth,(and yes religion is about truth), when in the definition above it is clearly stated that parsimony is of no use at all in the determination of truth. It is simply a principal about choosing between alternate models of the world. The least complex model that suffices to cover the phenomenon wins.

But note that it must cover the phenomenon. To simply deny the phenomenon and say that this is the most parsimonious is a misuse of the principal.

So, people disagree about what they accept... WHO CARES?!

That is so outside of that which is subject to the objective method, yes. Welcome to the real world..

[Zakuska]

Who here is antagonistic towards science?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

<GRIN>

Or so I've been told.

[elguanteloko]

I would side with Rorty on that one. I think they ARE indeed "metaphors".

In a sense they are, mf, but that's not the sense in which I'm using them. "Metaphors" just doesn't describe what scientific theories, for example, are or what describing a table is when we call metaphors a bunch of other things related more to poetry and literature than with science. It just is a different way of using the word. If you like, saying science is a metaphor is a metaphor to illustrate what scientific explanations can be related to, though NOT made equal to a metaphor.

That means what they "speak" of is about language, not about anything "concrete".

So, we speak only about language according to you.

[...] all we have to express our perceptions is language.

So, do we express language with language or perceptions with language?

[mfbukowski]

So, we speak only about language according to you.

In a word, Yes.

Not according only to me but many many contemporary philosophers, including Rorty whom I referred to above

We can only discuss (in language obviously) things which people have experienced and which they have expressed linguistically. All we can talk about is our (collective) experience in interacting with the world, as filtered through human brains and conditioned by language.

[mfbukowski]

elguanteloko

Here is a quote that may put my previous post in a philosophical context for you:

Rorty sets out his stall in two early texts, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) and Consequences of Pragmatism (1982). Rorty is a pragmatist. That is, he believes that language cannot claim accurately to represent reality as some sort of 'mirror of nature'. Instead, the best we can hope for is that knowledge provides us with the means to cope effectively with the 'real' world. There is no truth 'out there' to be discovered. For example, the word 'gene' does not necessarily correspond to some sort of real thing. What matters most is whether or not thinking in terms of genes helps us to cope with the particular environment in which gene-talk has an effect. The resultant collapsing of the assumed 'facts' of hard science into the softer discourse of the humanities and the arts means that there is no guaranteed way of getting beyond language and seeing the world as it 'really' is. All attempts at 'worldmaking' are cursed by an inescapable ethnocentrism.

Rorty's work shows the clear influence of contemporary philosophers such as Nelson Goodman, W. V. O. Quine, Hilary Putnam, and Jacques Derrida. His social philosophy follows from James and Dewey as already mentioned. His strong and sometimes idiosyncratic readings of the work of great philosophical figures such as Hegel and Heidegger have drawn criti cism, but there is no denying that Rorty is the complete, rounded thinker whose work in the collected Philosophical Papers shows an enormous grasp of the entirety of Western philosophy.

http://www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/phil_apr2002.htm

[Franktalk]

As I read this thread, it certainly seems evident that antagonism towards "science" is inversely proportional to the degree of understanding one has for how it actually works.

I am not so sure that is true. There are many who will just go along with who ever is the leader of their pack. These people do not study and their opinions are not grounded in an independent study, more like a parrot. Most people on any side of any issue are these people. Then you have some who gather a little information and they use that in an attempt to rule over others. There are many of these and they come in all flavors. Then there are some who do study what is written but they do not step back and see the big picture and they accept all too quickly the opinions of the experts. Sadly this is most of the educated people we come across. Anyone who studies science will come to the conclusion that all major advancements came from people who did not accept the opinion of the experts. Yet there are some who cast an eye of superiority over these people who are critical of their favorite theory. History is full with great thinkers who received no respect from their peers. Many great people went to their grave before their ideas were shown to be of value. Of course we must ask our self why is this so? It is not the structure of science that causes this but the people in science. Man is weak and has all of the weaknesses of the flesh. Men of science for all of their arm waving to the contrary are weaker than the average man on the street. They have more invested in their opinions and as such will defend their old knowledge. Normally these people who block advancement need to die before new ideas receive the light of day. Myself I offer no new information for the advancement of science, I just have a critical eye.

[Jeff K.]

As I read this thread, it certainly seems evident that antagonism towards "science" is inversely proportional to the degree of understanding one has for how it actually works.

That is something of a throwaway statement. Who specifically has shown antagonism towards science? I would say those who activly critique the sciences have done more homework than those who simply accept what science has to say. This does not mean an antagonism towards science exists.

[ken27]

I think that science and religion are actually the same thing. God uses science that is far more advanced than what we know. Actually he knows ALL science. He also knows ALL religion.

Science and religion have the same rules. You have to be open-minded and want to know only the truth, if you want to know the truth.

Science and religion many times are not completely known to those around them.

Scientists will use "Parables" to explain their discoveries, because most people are not rocket or nuclear scientists.

Religion also uses "Parables" to explain gospel principles.

Scientific leaders will sometimes fall for political or peer pressure and come up with false conclusions. (Flat Earth)

Religious leaders will do the same thing (Trinity, etc.)

[Storm Rider]

I think that science and religion are actually the same thing. God uses science that is far more advanced than what we know. Actually he knows ALL science. He also knows ALL religion.

Science and religion have the same rules. You have to be open-minded and want to know only the truth, if you want to know the truth.

Science and religion many times are not completely known to those around them.

Scientists will use "Parables" to explain their discoveries, because most people are not rocket or nuclear scientists.

Religion also uses "Parables" to explain gospel principles.

Scientific leaders will sometimes fall for political or peer pressure and come up with false conclusions. (Flat Earth)

Religious leaders will do the same thing (Trinity, etc.)

I agree with you position. There is no "fundamental" conflict between science and relgion. There is misunderstandings in both, but that is a personal issue for the individual rather than an inherent problem. Pope John Paul II wrote a wonderful little piece called "Fides et Ratio" that does a good job explaining how Reason (science) and Faith are eternal companions; there is not conflict between them. Science is limited by the understanding of man; as man's intelligence expands, science grows in understanding. This understanding will reflect the knowledge of God.

[Jeff K.]

The Book of Mormon and the Bible don't tell me how weapons were made, but they do tell me why.

Books of the various sciences tell me how to make nuclear power can be made, but not why.

[subgenius]

Someone should have explained Occam's Razor to Einstein - clearly the Theory of Relativity violates this "proof by parsimony"

Quite often it is better to subscribe to "The best answer is not always the simplest", there are many "simpler" theories that have long been abandoned.

[HeatherAnn]

In a sense they are, mf, but that's not the sense in which I'm using them. "Metaphors" just doesn't describe what scientific theories, for example, are or what describing a table is when we call metaphors a bunch of other things related more to poetry and literature than with science. It just is a different way of using the word. If you like, saying science is a metaphor is a metaphor to illustrate what scientific explanations can be related to, though NOT made equal to a metaphor.

Maybe what Mf is implying is that it's convenient that science plays by the rules for reality that human scientists themselves created.

So, in that sense, religious explanation & scientific explanation are both setting it up to validate themselves, instead of opening up to other sources of validation.

Carl Jung combined science (psychology) & spirituality... "The difference between most people & myself is that for me the 'dividing walls' are transparent."

Elguanteloko, I was just reading a book by a surgeon who discovered the influence of belief in healing or dying of dis ease. I was fascinated to realize that there is anatomical evidence that the brain has direct control of the immune system (psychoneuroimmunology)... as well as other mind-body connections through the pituitary, hypothalamous & endocrine & nervous systems.

Dr. Bruce Lipton gave a (very long) seminar, "Where Mind & Matter Meet" - about how genes are not as set in stone as we once thought, but are influenced by environment, especially thoughts.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8506668136396723343#

IMO, this gives deeper meaning to "All things are possible for him who believes"... & "As a man thinketh so is he."

[shalamabobbi]

<GRIN>

Or so I've been told.

Hello Zakuska, welcome back..

I am against entertaining a false dichotomy between science and religion.

With scientism that dichotomy is being pedaled from the other side.

Quotes:

How are we to reconcile this commonsense “manifest image” of the world with the quantitative “scientific image” (to borrow philosopher Wilfrid Sellars’ famous distinction)? The answer is that they cannot be reconciled.

All recalcitrant phenomena would simply be “swept under the rug” of the mind, reinterpreted as part of the mental lens through which we perceive external reality rather than part of external reality itself.

Hayek’s view was that the very nature of objectivism precludes its coherently being applied across –the board to the human mind itself. Since the mind just is the “subjective” realm of so-called “appearances”—the rug under which everything that does not fit the “objectivist” method has been swept—it cannot even in theory be assimilated via quantificational modeling to the material world, as that world has been characterized by physical science. The very nature of scientific understanding, at least as the moderns have defined it, thus entails what Hayek calls a “practical dualism” of mind and matter—a dualism that the objectivist method itself foists upon us, even if we want to deny (as Hayek himself did) that it reflects any genuine metaphysical cleavage between the mental and material worlds.

Scientism’s attempt to apply the objectivistic method to the human mind itself thus entails in Hayek’s view a vicious regress, a methodological “chasing of one’s own tail” on to infinity.

The irony is that the very practice of science itself, which involves the formulation of hypotheses, the weighing of evidence, the invention of technical concepts and vocabularies, the construction of chains of reasoning, and so forth—all mental activities saturated with meaning and purpose—falls on the “subjective,” “manifest image” side of scientism’s divide rather than the “objective,” “scientific image” side.

But as Hayek would have predicted, the very attempt to state the position necessarily, but incoherently, makes use of concepts—“science,” “rationality,” “evidence,” “truth,” and so forth—that presuppose exactly what the position denies, viz. the reality of meaning and mind.

Source:

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/03/1174

http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_scientism.html

[thesometimesaint]

Ultimately science and religion will be reconciled. However I don't expect that to happen any time soon.

[mfbukowski]

The Book of Mormon and the Bible don't tell me how weapons were made, but they do tell me why.

Books of the various sciences tell me how to make nuclear power can be made, but not why.

The first time I read this, I just kind of said to myself- "yeah yeah, loddy-da"

Then I thought about it, and thought again about it- good stuff! Thanks!

Scriptures teach us the meaning of life- our place in the universe. Science teaches us our exact location.

Big difference! Thanks for your thoughts!

[elguanteloko]

Someone should have explained Occam's Razor to Einstein - clearly the Theory of Relativity violates this "proof by parsimony"

Quite often it is better to subscribe to "The best answer is not always the simplest", there are many "simpler" theories that have long been abandoned.

Another misunderstanding of Occam's Razor. No one here is claiming there is such a thing as a "proof by parsimony". There aren't even proofs in science. Einstein didn't just took Relativity out of his... well, out of the blue. Let me repeat, Parsimony NEVER says that "the best answer is always the simplest"... never.

Someone else posted a horrible definition of parsimony and I recommend you guys to read on the several uses the word has. "Parsimony" has as many applications and twists as the word "science" though a very general principle can be perceived.

Here's a trustworthy site on it: http://plato.stanfor...ies/simplicity/

Let me just say right off the bat that if you guys are looking for a problem-free idea, you're going to look in vain. Science works with what works best and with what seems more likely to work best, not with ideas that have no objectors since there aren't pretty much any.That's life. Get over it.

Edited August 3, 2011 by elguanteloko

[elguanteloko]

Ultimately science and religion will be reconciled. However I don't expect that to happen any time soon.

I appreciate the intention of what you said and I really have no problem with people having this hope. Seriously.

However, technically speaking, since science is, formally speaking, a method, if you think that later on we are going to have access to "what is", then it seems that this method of 'trial and error' that science is won't be around because it won't be necessary. If you take science to be the conclusions of science, I think you also won't have that around. Since Godel we know it's not possible for us to find the "theory of everything" as I'm sure you could have if God comes and imparts his knowledge.

Edited August 3, 2011 by elguanteloko

[elguanteloko]

I've been reading that people keep on saying that there is no conflict between science and religion but, again, the conflict lies in that religion accepts a lot of claims about existences for which there is no evidence (or very bad evidence) when doing this is completely antithetical to science. Examples: "God exists", "God has a body of flesh and bones", "Prayer invokes powers that can heal illnesses", "The Priesthood can help heal the sick", "Angels exist", etc, etc. These claims are not outside of the purview of science at all since they are claims about physical effects and influences on the physical. Having had a feeling or being very very sure that these things are the case is pretty close to being the worst possible evidence you can have.

If you keep on repeating, however, that science (for some mysterious reason that's never brought up but too often repeated here and elsewhere) is in principle not able to get to these "facts", then anyways they are against ANOTHER part of science: rationality in general. It is against reason to accept claims like the examples I provided when other much more credible explanations supported by more evidence are offered (or not accept anything and suspend judgment, i.e. being agnostic).

Edited August 3, 2011 by elguanteloko

[subgenius]

Another misunderstanding of Occam's Razor. No one here is claiming there is such a thing as a "proof by parsimony". There aren't even proofs in science. Einstein didn't just took Relativity out of his... well, out of the blue. Let me repeat, Parsimony NEVER says that "the best answer is always the simplest"... [snip]....That's life. Get over it.

Hi, folks.

There is much talk about the possible conflict between science and mormonism lately here and I wanted to contribute to it.

The fundamental conflict between science and religion is that religion (Mormonism specifically) makes claims about things that exist that are not parsimonious and/or unfalsifiable (along with other less important problems)....

But you brought it up in that context. You explicitly equate parsimony with the notion that without parsimony things are not "proven" in the OP you write -----> "In other words, religion and religious explanations are not scientifically testable."

Because surely you are not claiming that the scientific method is beholden to "economy" or "stinginess"??? So, it stands to reason that you mean parsimony in the context of the often overused Razor.

I still maintain that your OP argument is flawed and the notion of your "conflict" is an illusion, created to purport some "science must be able to reveal the true god" agenda.

[elguanteloko]

Not according only to me but many many contemporary philosophers, including Rorty whom I referred to above

It's your interpretation, not "what Rorty said" that I'm questioning.

We can only discuss (in language obviously) things which people have experienced and which they have expressed linguistically. All we can talk about is our (collective) experience in interacting with the world, as filtered through human brains and conditioned by language.

mf, the point of my post was to show you the inconsistency of your position. If I say "It hurts!" when piercing my nose, I'm not expressing "language" (though I express it through some language), I express pain. You said in your post first that we express language and then that we express experiences which doesn't make any sense to me. Through language we express common experiences. Plus, I even think we can make up experiences in our minds like combining textures to create things we've never felt, to create structures to create buildings we've never seen, to create smells to create smells we've never seen, or sounds we've never heard of, etc. If someone tells me the pain they went through, I don't need to have gotten through similar pains to understand, more or less, how horrible that must have been. Again, it seems silly that we don't express our pains and pleasures and experiences through words but words through words. And, no, we don't only experience words only. Poetry doesn't make me feel words but feelings.

Edited August 3, 2011 by elguanteloko