[FoRK] Faith and/or Science dingding redux

[Luis Villa]

On Nov 28, 2007 10:44 AM, Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> wrote:
>
> On Nov 27, 2007, at 5:13 PM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote:
>
> > Hi Jeff,
> >
> > On Nov 27, 2007, at 1:27 PM, Jeff Bone wrote:
> >> Religions are primarily concerned with enforcing a particular
> >> social order, norms, and behavior, and only incidentally /
> >> superficially / supposedly interested in explanation.  Science is
> >> exclusively focused on the latter, and not at all on the former.
> >
> > Right, science has never been used as a tool to support a
> > particular social order...
>
> Yawn...  sure, let's talk about the Soviets again.  Or the Nazis?
> Whatever.  ANY method, ideology, process, etc. can be misappropriated.
>
> The bottom line stands as stated:  the *purpose* of science, at its
> most basic, is understanding;  the *purpose* of religion, at its most
> basic, is social control.

I think, though, that it is a fair point to make that
science-as-critical-thought-process is not usually what is taught in
school- what is taught, usually, is science-as-received-fact. And I
don't think it is unfair to see that as similar to the teaching of
religion.

Of course, the difference is that it is at least possible to teach
science-as-critical-thought-process; no such luck in religion.

Luis