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Our universe maybe a little younger than previously thought

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  • #16
    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
    Again . . . Scientism
    Are you implying 'scientism' didn't/doesn't exist?

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by ReformedApologist View Post
      It's interesting, those who hold to a radical view scientism always talk about how Science is objective in its research, and yet they can come up with different numbers that contradict previous ideas. Science used to say the universe was 14 Billion years old, and now new evidence has come to light that this may not be the case. But of course science is never neutral, rather it is interpreted by the presuppositions of the scientist. So this news never surprises me.
      You think some scientists presupposed that the universe began 14bya rather than 13bya???
      Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

      MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
      MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

      seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by Seeker View Post
        Are you implying 'scientism' didn't/doesn't exist?
        Actually yes and no, it exists, but it is a bogus ambiguous 'stone' word that fundamentalists like to throw at science, and has no constructive meaning. Science is science, and not related to the diverse conflicting philosophical and theological assumptions beyond Methodological Naturalism.

        I like the following explanation:

        Source: http://www.keithbuhler.com/scientism



        Clarity is the great harbinger of truth. Truth is clear, hard, and bright, like light or crystal, while falsehood is soft, obscure, soporific, and fuzzy.

        Certainly, there are some opaque truths and some clear falsehoods. These are the minority, while truths almost always interlock with a great interlocking web of luminous truth; and falsehoods almost always jostle within a blooming, buzzing hive of unclarity.

        The striking feature of each pillar of the modern secular worldview is not its falsehood but its haziness. Modern secular doctrines such as physicalist materialism, totalitarian political correctness, and unlimited sexual autonomy have come to replace the older, ruddier Christian doctrines of incarnation, original sin, and the traditional family. But what do you mean by ‘physical’? And which phrases are supposed to offend me today? If anything two consenting adults do in the bedroom is morally acceptable, why not incest?

        The same fuzziness is a feature of the belief that “science is the only begetter of truth”. Call this doctrine ‘scientism’. One of the our latter-day high priests of secularism Richard Lewontin praises scientistic dogma in a sermon to his enlightened flock. His goal is to save the unenlightened from the demons in their imaginations. We can applaud his evangelistic fervor. But before we join his flock, let’s be clear on the doctrine.

        The problem with scientism is not that it is false. (Understood one way, I take scientism to be obviously and unquestionably true.) The problem with scientism – in a word – is unclarity. Those who believe in scientism do not know what they believe. As we might worry about some religious believers, the faithful of scientism think their doctrine is true and have placed a lot of stock in the though, but it is likely they haven’t given it a moment’s thought.

        Taking Leowontin’s text as the reading for the day, I shall do the work of giving scientism a moment’s thought. My conclusion, in brief, is this: scientism is either tautologically true or false.

        Scientism is what Daniel Dennet calls “a deepity.” A deepity is a phrase (like “Love is just a word”) that taken one way is obviously true but insignificant, but taken another way is momentous but obviously false. Of course ‘love’ is a word, as is ‘God’, ‘hate’, and every other word. But of course love is not “just” a word – it is also an emotion, a powerful benevolent force, a divine energy of God.

        Likewise, scientism is either trivial or false. In either case, scientism as a thesis for disputation is not worth disputing. But since a gentleman does not complain of a problem without offering a solution, I shall offer a thesis that is worth disputing: namely, that science begets supernatural explanations of the world.

        © Copyright Original Source



        Read on . . .
        Last edited by shunyadragon; 04-29-2019, 11:03 AM.
        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

        go with the flow the river knows . . .

        Frank

        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
          Looks like your complaint about a communication problem has a communication problem.
          The issue would be with rogue06, and you have offered nothing constructive to the conversation.
          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

          go with the flow the river knows . . .

          Frank

          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
            No, you need to read what he wrote more carefully:



            "directly above your post", i.e post #6 which was directly above the post of yours to which he was replying. He was being perfectly clear, you just need to work on your reading comprehension.
            Again it is a problem(?) between me and rogue06, and you have provided nothing constructive. It is longer than just the two posts, and addressed to me NOT YOU.
            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

            go with the flow the river knows . . .

            Frank

            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
              Again it is a problem(?) between me and rogue06, and you have provided nothing constructive. It is longer than just the two posts, and addressed to me NOT YOU.

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                The issue would be with rogue06, and you have offered nothing constructive to the conversation.
                He's my brudder - you pick a fight with him, you deal with me!

                (and you were actually responding to Chrawnus)
                The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                  Again it is a problem(?) between me and rogue06,
                  Your point being?

                  Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                  and you have provided nothing constructive.
                  I have shown that the communication problem is because of you, not rogue.

                  Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                  It is longer than just the two posts, and addressed to me NOT YOU.
                  Yes, it is longer than just the two posts, and yes, it is addressed to you. But he's not REFERRING to anything you wrote however, but to post #6 that Seeker wrote. In post #8 Rogue is saying that post #6 is an example of scientism and in post #10 he's explaining how post #6 is an example of scientism.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                    Your point being?



                    I have shown that the communication problem is because of you, not rogue.



                    Yes, it is longer than just the two posts, and yes, it is addressed to you. But he's not REFERRING to anything you wrote however, but to post #6 that Seeker wrote. In post #8 Rogue is saying that post #6 is an example of scientism and in post #10 he's explaining how post #6 is an example of scientism.
                    But, when the dust clears, it's all about me.
                    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                      Actually yes and no, it exists, but it is a bogus ambiguous 'stone' word that fundamentalists like to throw at science, and has no constructive meaning. Science is science, and not related to the diverse conflicting philosophical and theological assumptions beyond Methodological Naturalism.

                      I like the following explanation:

                      Source: http://www.keithbuhler.com/scientism



                      Clarity is the great harbinger of truth. Truth is clear, hard, and bright, like light or crystal, while falsehood is soft, obscure, soporific, and fuzzy.

                      Certainly, there are some opaque truths and some clear falsehoods. These are the minority, while truths almost always interlock with a great interlocking web of luminous truth; and falsehoods almost always jostle within a blooming, buzzing hive of unclarity.

                      The striking feature of each pillar of the modern secular worldview is not its falsehood but its haziness. Modern secular doctrines such as physicalist materialism, totalitarian political correctness, and unlimited sexual autonomy have come to replace the older, ruddier Christian doctrines of incarnation, original sin, and the traditional family. But what do you mean by ‘physical’? And which phrases are supposed to offend me today? If anything two consenting adults do in the bedroom is morally acceptable, why not incest?

                      The same fuzziness is a feature of the belief that “science is the only begetter of truth”. Call this doctrine ‘scientism’. One of the our latter-day high priests of secularism Richard Lewontin praises scientistic dogma in a sermon to his enlightened flock. His goal is to save the unenlightened from the demons in their imaginations. We can applaud his evangelistic fervor. But before we join his flock, let’s be clear on the doctrine.

                      The problem with scientism is not that it is false. (Understood one way, I take scientism to be obviously and unquestionably true.) The problem with scientism – in a word – is unclarity. Those who believe in scientism do not know what they believe. As we might worry about some religious believers, the faithful of scientism think their doctrine is true and have placed a lot of stock in the though, but it is likely they haven’t given it a moment’s thought.

                      Taking Leowontin’s text as the reading for the day, I shall do the work of giving scientism a moment’s thought. My conclusion, in brief, is this: scientism is either tautologically true or false.

                      Scientism is what Daniel Dennet calls “a deepity.” A deepity is a phrase (like “Love is just a word”) that taken one way is obviously true but insignificant, but taken another way is momentous but obviously false. Of course ‘love’ is a word, as is ‘God’, ‘hate’, and every other word. But of course love is not “just” a word – it is also an emotion, a powerful benevolent force, a divine energy of God.

                      Likewise, scientism is either trivial or false. In either case, scientism as a thesis for disputation is not worth disputing. But since a gentleman does not complain of a problem without offering a solution, I shall offer a thesis that is worth disputing: namely, that science begets supernatural explanations of the world.

                      © Copyright Original Source



                      Read on . . .
                      I read the article you linked to. Buhler is just juggling with words and playing fast and loose with terms such as 'science' and 'knowledge' and begging the question that all knowledge is scientific knowledge. Nothing in the article actually brings any clarity to the issue of whether scientism is a meaningful term.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                        go with the flow the river knows . . .

                        Frank

                        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                          I read the article you linked to. Buhler is just juggling with words and playing fast and loose with terms such as 'science' and 'knowledge' and begging the question that all knowledge is scientific knowledge. Nothing in the article actually brings any clarity to the issue of whether scientism is a meaningful term.
                          Your response was more than a little to quick. You apparently did not read the article. It did not address the question 'whether all knowledge is scientific knowledge.'

                          Please read at least the cited portion, if not the whole article, respond again coherently, and cite the article specifically in context.

                          Where did he specifically claim: 'all knowledge is scientific knowledge?'

                          I can probably interpret this article to conclude that 'Scientific knowledge is the product of Methodological Naturalism only.'
                          Last edited by shunyadragon; 04-29-2019, 11:50 AM.
                          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                          go with the flow the river knows . . .

                          Frank

                          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                            Your response was more than a little to quick. You apparently did not read the article. It did not address the question 'whether all knowledge is scientific knowledge.'
                            It really wasn't that long of an article, and I'm a fairly quick reader. And yes, it does address that question:

                            Source: http://www.keithbuhler.com/scientism


                            My first argument is that scientism, once clarified, is not worth disputing. For any proposition that is either trivially true or obviously false is not worth disputing; and the thesis that all genuine knowledge is scientific knowledge is such a proposition.

                            © Copyright Original Source



                            Furthermore:

                            Source: http://www.keithbuhler.com/scientism


                            The minor premise says that scientism is either trivially true or obviously false. I will establish each disjunct in turn. To do so, I only ask you to grant me two suppositions. First, suppose that one of the legitimate meanings of the English word ‘science’ is the old Latin sense of the word, namely, ‘knowledge.’ Second, suppose that ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’ are roughly synonymous – the Oxford English Dictionary supports the commonsense definition of knowledge as “apprehension of truth” and truth as “knowledge”.

                            With these suppositions in hand, let’s rephrase Leowontin’s poetic thesis. Replacing “science” with “knowledge” by the first supposition, the doctrine of scientism becomes the less grand but more clear thesis that: “knowledge is the only begetter of truth.” Fair enough.

                            Replacing “truth” with “knowledge” (or vice versa) by the second supposition renders the same proposition as follows: “knowledge is the only begetter of knowledge” (or “truth is the only source of truth.”) True, but hardly startling stuff.

                            My two suppositions do not, I think, alter the meaning of the thesis. They are eminently plausible and respectable. So, if they hold, they help us to see that the central doctrine of scientism is a perfectly empty tautology to which no sane person would object: all knowledge comes from knowledge! Great! So what?

                            © Copyright Original Source



                            And then further on in the text he claims that all genuine knowledge is scientific knowledge.

                            Source: http://www.keithbuhler.com/scientism


                            I affirm scientism but deny that it is worth disputing. Instead, I offer for consideration a second argument, which is that genuine theological knowledge is scientific knowledge. For all genuine knowledge is science; and theological knowledge, say about God’s attributes and his actions in the world are genuine items of knowledge.

                            My second argument is that theological knowledge, when it is genuine knowledge, is scientific knowledge. This is compatible with scientism, since all knowledge is science, just as all that exists is “natural.”

                            © Copyright Original Source




                            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                            Please read at least the cited portion, if not the whole article, respond again coherently, and cite the article specifically in context.
                            My previous response was perfectly coherent, hit the nail right on the head, and didn't take anything out of context.

                            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                            Where did he specifically claim: 'all knowledge is scientific knowledge?'
                            See above. "All knowledge is scientific knowledge" is one of the main points of the article and used to support his claim that "scientism is trivially true". Perhaps you need to reread the article, because you clearly seem to have misunderstood what Buhler is arguing.

                            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                            I can probably interpret this article to conclude that 'Scientific knowledge is the product of Methodological Naturalism only.'
                            Well, you're notoriously infamous for being able to read whatever you want into your sources, regardless of whether there's actually anything in them to support what you're claiming, so that doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                              And yet directly above your post we see an example of it.
                              I am sorry, actually the quote was:

                              'There are Discoveries and Inventions
                              There are 'Hows' and 'Whys'
                              The 'Hows' can only be discovered
                              The 'Whys' can only be made up'

                              But I don't agree that this is an example of 'scientism', whatever you mean by that. The guy who wrote that isn't even an atheist, he's an agnostic.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by rogue06
                                There are those who think that science can answer virtually any question. They are beholden to philosophical or ontological naturalism[1]. While science is extremely good at answering questions dealing with "how" it often fails miserably at answering the questions dealing with why. Those questions are best answered by theologians and philosophers.

                                1. as opposed to methodological naturalism which is an entirely different thing
                                Why would ReformedApologist post this if it were not an accusation based on a religious agenda using scientism as a 'stone' word to throw at science? It was not related to the topic.


                                Originally posted by ReformedApologist View Post
                                It's interesting, those who hold to a radical view scientism always talk about how Science is objective in its research, and yet they can come up with different numbers that contradict previous ideas. Science used to say the universe was 14 Billion years old, and now new evidence has come to light that this may not be the case. But of course science is never neutral, rather it is interpreted by the presuppositions of the scientist. So this news never surprises me.
                                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                                Frank

                                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                                Comment

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