Originally posted by MirabileAuditu
There is an undeniable arrogance among the self-styled "scientific set."
Pejoratives such as "bible thumper" and "fundie" are two favorite pejoratives of such "intellectuals."
While there are many who fit the exact description you show, this doesn't mean that they are incorrect in their assertions as to reality. Only incorrect in how they behave.
I've seen both atheists and science types get extremely agitated at the enforced ignorance of many. Not all, but many. You may have seen the type - the true believer that dismisses concrete evidence, just because it contradicts what they wish/need to believe. This occurs with many types, not just religious, they include such diverse folk as UFO believers, Holocaust deniers, people that believe in ghosts, magic, etc.
It is hard to keep acting civilly to people that will call green red when it contradicts what they believe. A good example of this occurred when I was dating my first girlfriend. Her family were religious fundamentalist, long before that was common. They believed drinking alcohol, in any form, was a sin. I found a quote in the bible which stated that, basically, wine could be used to ease stomoch problems. When I brought this up to the family matriarch, she proceeded as if I had not said anything. I had produced a contradiction in two things that she considered sacrosanct - the bible and her beliefs. How can a person that denies reality, just because it doesn't fit their view of the world, with respect?
Shut up and march to the scientific drum, or be forever ostracized.
No insult intended, but it's spoken like someone without much scientific background. Science works quite differently. Proving that widely held a scientific idea or ideas are wrong will make a persons career. It may take a lot of proving, but there's a lot of motivation to do so. You act as if scientists belong to a club, with everyone avoid stepping on each others toes. It's much more like a pool of sharks, each trying to make a name for themselves by discovering something profound. It does require objective evidence though. For a widely held view, a lot of strong evidence.
Overturning widely held views is a excellent way to make you career. Einstein is an excellent example.
Pons and Fleishman are an excellent example of science's self-correcting nature. There isn't a physicist worth his salt that didn't want their discovery to be true - I new a few nuclear physicist that worked to confirm their discovery. They didn't see how it could work, but until they showed it wasn't so, they were like kids in a toy shop, it was all they could talk about. Ultimately, the evidence wasn't there. They were quite depressed over it.
As far as anti-religious, that's not the domain of science, whatsoever. Science will produce results that may contradict certain religious dogma - when that dogma say's something about objective, physical reality. It couldn't possibly say anything about the existence or non-existence of a diety that is non-corporeal and not reported to be readily detectable.
I merely open with highly inflammatory words which have been hurled at me and my friends, not in an effort to call any of the doubtless fine people here such a name, but rather to expose you to the ugly reality facing many millions of people.
Moreover, our accusers are often far less well educated than we "rednecks" are.
So you're acting in the proper christian manner and responding in kind? <tongue firmlly in cheek>
This Chessie Cat smiling "Skeptic" fellow, Michael Shermer, is always piously intoning the scientific method as if it were the sine qua non.
Consider: science is a man-made construct. Man defined the term, refined it, practices it as best he knows how. BUT, does science accurately define reality?
Science is designed to discover only objective reality, and then is highly limited to what we can measure. It says nothing about things such as finding purpose in life, a persons spiritual development, living a moral life, or much about how to be happy. These are, intentionally, outside it's scope.
It is designed to be self-correcting. And the last time I checked, produces quite a bit of useful information, used for things like creating the machines were both typing on, the cars we drive, the airplanes we ride in, and the television we watch.
Is truth invariably discoverable?
You say this as if truth were one thing.
The truth of what? Until that is answered, the question you ask is non-answerable.
Are all things we seek measurable, knowable, even conceivable?
Probably not, which is why the scope of science is limited.
What arrogance to pretend that truth is so simple a thing, given what mankind has already discovered.
Very arrogant, and just a little foolish. If we had already discovered everything, then there would be no scientific researchers.
It's also quite arrogant to dismiss the vast areas of scientific evidence that supports the universe is well over 10 billion years old, that the Earth is over 4 billion years old, that evolution is occurring as we speak, and that the most reasonable answer, which doesn't include the invocation of an all-powerful being (for which there is no objective evidence), to how life diversified and spread into all the known ecosystems of the earth, without thoroughly investigating that evidence.
You mention evolution as if you are a creationist. I've studied quite a bit of science and read a fair amount of the creationist literature (I was an attendee at that fundamentalist church for over three years). I've seen creationism produce a simple view of how the world was created, one that has so many flaws as to be almost comical. The flaws they point out about evolution, that aren't easily dismissed because they are addressing already superceded ideas, grossly misinterpreting experimental results, or committing the argument flaw of ommision of evidence, are at over a million to one ratio compared to the problems their theory introduces. When you make assumptions as to reality, then dismiss all evidence that doesn't match that assumption, this isn't scientific inquiry.
The atheists I've seen attack theists, I apologize for. However, in their defense, it's hard to be attacked, lied about, defamed, and generally abused, without responding in kind. It's not right, but I can understand it.
The number of atheists in this country are greater than that of Buddhists, yet atheists are much, much more subject to being insulted and reviled than Buddhists. I speak from the knowledge of being both.
- to not show the full range of human personalities?
