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Bad Science is Bad Religion

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Lectro

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One of my longtime favorite thinkers, Rupert Sheldrake.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2200597

Excerpt-

I have been a scientist for more than 40 years, having studied at Cambridge and Harvard. I researched and taught at Cambridge University, was a research fellow of the Royal Society, and have more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals. I am strongly pro-science. But I am more and more convinced that that the spirit of free inquiry is being repressed within the scientific community by fear-based conformity. Institutional science is being crippled by dogmas and taboos. Increasingly expensive research is yielding diminishing returns.

Bad religion is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. And so is bad science. But unlike religious fundamentalists, scientific fundamentalists do not realize that their opinions are based on faith. They think they know the truth. They believe that science has already solved the fundamental questions. The details still need working out, but in principle the answers are known.
 
"In order to sustain and extend the huge, invincible and legitimate effort of research in which the vital weight of human activity is at present engaged, a faith, a mysticism is necessary. Whether it is a question of preserving the sacred hunger that impels man's efforts, or of giving him the altruism he needs for his increasingly indispensable collaboration with his fellows, religion is the soul biologically necessary for the future of science. Humanity is no longer imaginable without science. But no more is science possible without some religion to animate it." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Human Energy, 1939.
 
Lectro said:
ut I am more and more convinced that that the spirit of free inquiry is being repressed within the scientific community by fear-based conformity. Institutional science is being crippled by dogmas and taboos. Increasingly expensive research is yielding diminishing returns.

Bad religion is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. And so is bad science. But unlike religious fundamentalists, scientific fundamentalists do not realize that their opinions are based on faith. They think they know the truth.
Click to expand...
And they repress the actual principles of science to get there...in the name of the truth/their faith. Great article.
 
Deacon Dog said:
"In order to sustain and extend the huge, invincible and legitimate effort of research in which the vital weight of human activity is at present engaged, a faith, a mysticism is necessary. Whether it is a question of preserving the sacred hunger that impels man's efforts, or of giving him the altruism he needs for his increasingly indispensable collaboration with his fellows, religion is the soul biologically necessary for the future of science. Humanity is no longer imaginable without science. But no more is science possible without some religion to animate it." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Human Energy, 1939.
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That is a great quote from de Chardin.
 
Fantastic article.
"Good science, like good religion, is a journey of discovery, a quest. It builds on traditions from the past. But it is most effective when it recognizes how much we do not know, when it is not arrogant but humble."
 
Good read, but this sentence is sad- "Believers are sustained by the implicit faith that scientific discoveries will justify their beliefs."

It is sad because that view is so commonplace, but also so incomplete among believers, as it suggests an erroneous sense of competition between science and faith. That Chardin quote helps.

sent via Nexus 7
 
Isn't a nearly limitless number of universes in an astounding level of scientific order more proof than disproof of faith?
 
RevDeac06 said:
Good read, but this sentence is sad- "Believers are sustained by the implicit faith that scientific discoveries will justify their beliefs."

It is sad because that view is so commonplace, but also so incomplete among believers, as it suggests an erroneous sense of competition between science and faith. That Chardin quote helps.

sent via Nexus 7
Click to expand...
By "believers" he's referring to those, often scientists, who unquestioningly accept a materialist worldview where "living organisms are complex machines, nature is purposeless, and minds are nothing but brain activity."
 
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