[FoRK] Faith and/or Science dingding redux

[Luis Villa]

On Nov 28, 2007 11:42 AM, Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> wrote:
>
> On Nov 28, 2007, at 9:59 AM, Luis Villa wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> +1, that's entirely fair.  And I think there's an ENORMOUS amount of
> popular confusion about and between those two different things;  the
> common layman's perception of science seems to be entirely the
> latter, and further those received facts are perceived as
> epistemologically no different than other forms of "received fact"
> such as religious "fact."  (I don't think there *should be* any such
> confusion on this list, though...)
>
> To be clear, though, that sort of "science-as-received-fact" is not
> really science, is it?

Dunno... I mean, at some point, one frequently has to accept some
results of the scientific process without really understanding what
went into it; that doesn't seem to make those results any less
scientific. Are those results of science (the process) still science?
I'd say yes, but at some point the argument becomes semantic rather
than meaningful.

> I think that historically it's been a mix of true believers and
> manipulators.  And to be fair, those are almost certainly not exclusive.

Part of what makes it so powerful is that they are only rarely exclusive.

Luis