It's only a matter of time

[_Droopy]

How are Tarski's criticisms "intellectually problematic in their own right"? Please elaborate.

The idea that nothing is ever fully settled in science and that all explanations/theories are open, and open permanently, to emendation, modification, and even to substantial revision, are long and well established concepts within philosophy of science, and Tarski is simply making it up as he goes along in claiming that it isn't.

[_Droopy]

I wasn't aware that Simon's examples involved eugenics or oncology.

His didn't but...mine did.

[_Morley]

....

For those for whom science is a religion (which is then no longer science at all, but scientism), none of this is going to put a single dent in their...faith.

So, when you want to denigrate science, you call it a religion. Do I have it right?

[_Morley]

How are Tarski's criticisms "intellectually problematic in their own right"? Please elaborate.

The idea that nothing is ever fully settled in science and that all explanations/theories are open, and open permanently, to emendation, modification, and even to substantial revision, are long and well established concepts within philosophy of science, and Tarski is simply making it up as he goes along in claiming that it isn't.

Tarski is claiming no such thing. No one is claiming that science is unchangeable.

Gee, I doubt that you would even claim that Mormonism is unchangeable.

[_Droopy]

I take it that AGW refers to global warming, Droopy. How is a belief in global warming a religion? The same way that Mormonism is a science?

More properly, perhaps, AGW is the core theology of the religion of environmentalism, in which sin (capitalism, free markets, individualism, property rights, high living standards) must be rooted out and exculpated through penance and sacrifice ("sustainable" lifestyles and heavy restrictions on energy use) lest judgment (ecosystem collapse caused by runaway global warming) fall upon the heads of the sinners.

There are two gods within the environmental movement, depending upon its philosophical tendencies. For one, the more New Agish, neo-pagan form, that God is the earth itself. For another variety (the "watermelon" environmentalists), it is the state.

[_Morley]

I take it that AGW refers to global warming, Droopy. How is a belief in global warming a religion? The same way that Mormonism is a science?

More properly, perhaps, AGW is the core theology of the religion of environmentalism, in which sin (capitalism, free markets, individualism, property rights, high living standards) must be rooted out and exculpated through penance and sacrifice ("sustainable" lifestyles and heavy restrictions on energy use) lest judgment (ecosystem collapse caused by runaway global warming) fall upon the heads of the sinners.

There are two gods within the environmental movement, depending upon its philosophical tendencies. For one, the more New Agish, neo-pagan form, that God is the earth itself. For another variety (the "watermelon" environmentalists), it is the state.

When you want to denigrate a political belief, you also call it a religion. Do I also have this one right? (You seem to think so little of religion.)

[Guest]

i can easily foresee a time when any scientific minded person will simply stop bothering with apologists. not unlike like how dawkins approaches creationists.

Dawkins is a dolt outside his tiny academic niche of specialized knowledge, as the truly intellectually abysmal The God Delusion makes exceptionally clear.

Dawkin's dabbled with his own god complex too long, at it took possession of him (as it had with Sagan). This kind of positivist human self worship is a mind killer. It destroys both the imagination and the ability to truly think critically.

your implying i should care if he's as self absorbed as some standard issue, holier then thou.
i was referencing his approach to creationists.

[_keithb]

It is true today that heat is average molecular kinetic energy. When do you think that will stop being true?

It is true today that germs cause infectious disease. I wonder when that will stop being true.

It is true today that DNA encodes instructions for protein synthesis. Not true in a few years?

Your little science-is-changing trope is just as silly coming from you as it was from my mother back when I was 12.
It is tantamount to thinking that since we may learn new things and find we were wrong about a few things, we may as well believe in whatever fairytale our hearts desire regardless of evidence.

Once again, Tarski nails it.

[_plunderpunk]

As a teenager, an atheist once told me he was 99% certain there weren't Gods, or a God.
Why not 100%, I asked. Not all the evidence is in yet, he replied. It wasn't until my first Biology lab in college that I understood what he meant.

[_The Nehor]

In the confrontation between science and religion, when has religion proven science to be wrong?

Do you even realize how nonsensical that statement is?

By what standard of "proof" are you suggesting that religion will prove science wrong? Scientific? In that case it is science proving science wrong (a normal process).

If Jesus were to appear to you tomorrow would you argue that the experience was religion proving science wrong?

I also deny that there is such a confrontation. The "battle between science and religion" sells books and seems to have infatuated our discourse but the whole concept of the battle is inane.