Worshiping Science

[_Buffalo]

Abman, you surely must be joking. There's no other way I can take your words in this thread so far.

I may be--shall we say--trolling to a degree, but I think there's some serious food for thought there. The problem is where you draw the line in religion to demarcate one group from another so as to embrace or reject change. Generally what happens in religion when someone has a discovery / revelation that the old guard is wrong, a new movement or group is born. As Jesus said, new wine in new bottles.

Now, what you're likely to say is that this is where science is different from religion. I disagree. Someone famously said science progresses one death at a time. I really don't see that as much different than religion.

Science doesn't break into factions every time an old theory is disproved. There isn't a Newtonite branch of science that ignores everything Einstein came up with.

[Guest]

Does science require the following before giving you further light and knowledge?

10% of your gross
Edited to keep it Terrestial

[_asbestosman]

Science doesn't break into factions every time an old theory is disproved. There isn't a Newtonite branch of science that ignores everything Einstein came up with.

Yes, it's actually easier to prove certain things with science since it doesn't require sincerity or worthiness or faith. However, the ease of proof may not continue to be the case. Modern theoretical physics is of such a nature that proving one theory above another may not be possible.

Also, science has a few other problems. We have seen instances where people make up data or do their experiments poorly. Sometimes we catch it with later experiments, but sometimes this does not happen because some of these experiments are very expensive, and checking every one of them would provide relatively little benefit. I believe it was Richard Feynman who in his autobiography lamented that many experiments are not double-checked due to cost.

When you could spend that million/billion double-checking something, or trying to cure cancer, or feed some families, where would you spend the money?

[_just me]

Science won't send you to hell for not believing.

[_asbestosman]

Does science require the following before giving you further light and knowledge?

It may require:

more than 10% GDP
special protective clothing (space suits, radiation suits, etc)
government clearance for sensitive information (nuclear)

P.S. Please leave the temple stuff in Telestial. I can follow links ya know.

[_asbestosman]

Science won't send you to hell for not believing.

True, but we might turn this planet into hell if we don't (Global Climate Change).

[Guest]

Science won't send you to hell for not believing.

True, but we might turn this planet into hell if we don't (Global Climate Change).

Touche! (I need the little accent thingy! Oh look, it magically appeared!)

[_Sethbag]

Also, science has a few other problems. We have seen instances where people make up data or do their experiments poorly. Sometimes we catch it with later experiments, but sometimes this does not happen because some of these experiments are very expensive, and checking every one of them would provide relatively little benefit. I believe it was Richard Feynman who in his autobiography lamented that many experiments are not double-checked due to cost.

I would argue you'd have a hard time coming up with billion-dollar research experiments where the researchers just made up their data, and that this resulted in flawed new science accepted by the wider scientific establishment, and especially examples where this wasn't detected for a very long time.

Science doesn't shift very much on the basis of one experiment anyway. Others work to duplicate it, and if they can't, then heads are scratched and methodologies looked into and so forth until the conflict is better understood and a resolution is arrived at.

Mormonism is a particularly bad religion to compare to science in this way. By definition, in Mormonism only one guy in the world (at a time) can even possibly receive revelation on the way things are from God. There are no competing prophets, and any who stand up and proclaim themselves such are ostracized and expelled from the community.

[_MrStakhanovite]

So when some thoughtless person accuses you of worshiping science, you decide to ignore the gratuitous false dichotomy and try to justify why worship of science is okay?

Cool story bro

[_Quasimodo]

So when some thoughtless person accuses you of worshiping science, you decide to ignore the gratuitous false dichotomy and try to justify why worship of science is okay?

Cool story bro

I'm a little uncomfortable with the words "worship" and "science" in the same sentence. They seem to be in opposition to each other.