"Scientism" on Wikipedia ...

[Sheldon]

Im being generous with donation and
the request for a single example.

I'm ok with that, but I'm a closed minded bigoted atheist apparently, who has the temerity to ask that objective evidence be demonstrated that is proportionate to the claim, the very nerve I have, to make such an unabashed demand...but that's atheists or you..

 

[PureX]

That's not a rebuttal. That's you dismissing with the wave of a hand.

Yes, that's all it deserved. Sorry. That you can't see that is your problem to deal with. Not mine.

Did you want to take another try, and this time explain why you disagree? It's already known that you do, but you haven't addressed why. I have no reason to change my view on this if you can't give one. It needs to explain specifically why that formulation is incorrect in your estimation, and what disadvantage it entails for those who accept it. If you can't do that, well, why answer at all?

Your ridiculous definition of "faith" requires some imaginary "justification" authority to declare what beliefs are justified and what beliefs are not. Clearly, that imaginary authority is YOU. Or more precisely, it's your bias against any justification that does not comport with your materialist view of reality. So your definition of "faith" then becomes "whatever I say it is". And what you say it is, is anything you consider unjustified nonsense, to be dismissed. It's so perversely circular and self-enforcing that it rivals even the 'inerrant bible theory'.

My argument is that if something can be said to exist but not be detectable even in principle, it can be treated the same as if it didn't exist.

Yes, I read that the first time you wrote it. And it's not logically valid; as existence is not contained by nor defined by what we can or cannot detect, in theory or in practice.

Why would one be interested in something said to be undetectable by any means?

Because it remains a real existential question, and possibility. And the awareness of that questions and possibility will have 'detectable' effects on us. Just because we don't have the answer doesn't mean the question become existentially moot.

Imagine the claim that another universe exists, but cannot have any detectable effect on this one. Why should such a thing be believed to exist, or treated differently from things known to not exist?

Because it can exist, may exist, and may be effecting this universe significantly. And by extension, us. Just because we can't detect this other universe as a fact does not negate it as a possibility, nor the effects of that possibility on us.

Can you give a reason?

You keep confusing yourself with this obsessive insistence on dragging 'belief' into it. There is no reason to 'believe' or 'disbelieve' ANYTHING. So forget about belief. The issue is the existential possibility, and the real effect of that existential possibility on us.

The car is detectable from the trailer because it is not causally disconnected from it. If you feel that you are moving, you have detected it, even if you can't identify what you have detected yet, as when dark matter was detected. It is causally connected to ordinary matter through it's DETECTABLE gravitational effects.

Again, you are doing well at explaining theism, here. Keep up the good work! Yes, we detect the 'movement' but not the source, or the destination. Very good. Now, consider that 'movement' to be existence, itself: ... we detect the 'flow of existence', but we cannot detect the source, or the purpose. The awareness of this conundrum (mystery), and the quest to understand it better, and deal with it 'appropriately', is basically, theism.

Yes, they are. One requires a deterministic universe, and the other allows an undetermined act of will to exist anyway. You are positing a deterministic universe with indeterminism, sort of a married bachelor, or an imperfect perfect God.

I am positing an existential mystery, and labeling the resolution; "God". You're just driving yourself nuts by over-complicating it and tangling it all up in religious mythology. Forget 'belief', and forget religion. You will understand theism a whole lot better and easier.

The theist's agenda is to try to make his faith-based beliefs seem reasonable, and for most, seem supported by evidence.

They are reasonable and supported by evidence according to the theist's experience and understanding, same as you or anyone else. He's just trying to share those with you. Unfortunately, you have placed yourself in position as the grand, high, exalted, universal decider of what is a reasonably 'justified' conceptualization of human experience and understanding, and you are using your own as your criteria. So, of course, you are dismissing any and all others that don't comport with your own as "unjustified belief", to be dismissed as meaningless nonsense. But again, this is your poison pill to deal with. All I can say is that if you don't deal with it, you're never going to understand theism, or any of the many other related human 'spiritual' endeavors.

So, he won't even try to understand the incoherence of his position.

Why should he? It's only 'incoherent' to you. I have explained why omniscience and free will are not mutually incompatible using a very simple and obvious example. Understanding 'how it all plays out' does not necessarily negate the value or purpose of playing it out. And playing it out is not being rendered impossible to do simply by knowing how it'll be done, in advance. So the idea of an omniscient God is not logically "incoherent", as you claim.

Now let's see you explain why you think otherwise.

Why do you suppose that only theists are claiming what you claimed? Why do you suppose that when we had this discussion on RF about two weeks ago in a long thread we had only theists arguing for this incoherent position, and only people who reject faith for reason were disagreeing with them?

This is a misstatement on both counts. But nevertheless, theists make up the significant majority of the world's population. You're surrounded by them. So of course ...

 

[Sheldon]

The original meaning was an excessive belief in science.... Yes?

Is that such a bad mindset?

I mean to say, some folks think that God looks human and created trillions of star systems and billions of galaxies yet particularly favours us, on this tiny little planet.

Now which would be the daftest of those two?

I think it's the fact that you are making this comparison, and having to decide which is the more daft, is what's significant.

For once we agree, since science doesn't require excessive belief, it stands on the objective evidence of the success of that method. Which is why the technology we are using for you to make such embarrassing claims doesn't require faith, or prayer, but still appears on our computer screens, via the internet.

Of course you could try not using technology derived from scientific facts, and just pray we all get your embarrassing claims? Now that sounds like a test that will falsify your prejudiced claims about science.

Hmm, your ball?

 

[Sheldon]

Some of you won't learn at all, regardless of examples, words, or anything else.

Sorry but sometimes sarcasm is not easy to detect in an internet post, but have you switched sides?

 

[Sheldon]

While it is true the examples in the OP are not exactly the clearest, scientism is basically and excessive faith in the scope and accuracy of scientific methods.

Scope in this sense means the range of things scientific methods can be effectively applied to, for example "Scientific" theories of morality.

You mean as opposed to unevidenced bronze age patriarchal superstition?

Fish in a barrel.

 

[Yazata]

I don't understand it. It is all confusing, for example what does "...the characteristic inductive methods of the natural sciences are the only source of genuine factual knowledge ..." actually mean?

Induction is inference from particular to general.

Somebody makes a limited set of observations and detects what they take to be a regularity in nature. He/she invents a hypothesis based on that small set of observed data points that formulates what the regularity might be. Then he/she makes more observations and they conform to the hypothesis. Others do the same. So it's said that the hypothesis has been confirmed and (insert smoke and mirrors) it's accepted that the formulation of the regularity is a "law of nature" and that all future observations must necessarily conform to it. It should be obvious that logical problems arise there and the whole thing appears to be a non-sequitur from the deductive viewpoint. The possibility always remains that no matter how well a scientific law seems to have been confirmed, and no matter how much theoretical physicists rely on it when scrawling on their chalkboards, it still might not be correct. There's inevitably going to be an element of faith involved in accepting an inductive generalization.

Problem of induction - Wikipedia

Underdetermination - Wikipedia

I'm reminded of the famous quip attributed to the logician Morris Cohen:

"All logic texts are divided into two parts. In the first half, on deductive logic, the fallacies are explained. In the second half, on inductive logic, they are committed."

Even if we overlook the problem of induction and accept induction as intellectually legitimate in the practice of science, particularly physics (most scientists do exactly that) there's still the problem that some kinds of knowledge aren't inductive generalizations from particular observations. Take history. There don't seem to be any laws governing the unfolding of history on the model of the dynamical laws of physics, as much as people like Marx strived to discover/invent them.

So the scientistic idea that's being criticized in the thing you quoted is the idea that subjects like history should be, or can be, crammed into the Procrustean bed of classical physics. The idea that there's one proper method that applies to all of intellectual life and to which all intellectual life should conform, derived from some idea of how physics is conducted.

 

[Sheldon]

They certainly can say that. But if you're aiming to disprove something they claim, you have to address their basis for that belief. You can't just say, 'well it's my opinion you are wrong'. That's worthless. They can say 'my faith says something different', and that's fine. That's not a challenge to my views.

Oh so faith only works if you're not denying the faith of others? I have faith your claim is wrong - check mate? No stale mate? No, wait???

Can I point to any belief that cannot be held on faith alone? Certainly. Any belief that has evidence to support it, such as actual experience. Faith is useful, in that it inspires and opens people to possibilities. One doesn't have to have all the data in hand, in order to act. A good bit of inspiration does just fine. Call that faith.

Not beliefs that can be held without faith, but any belief that cannot be held WITH FAITH ALONE?

The comparison was the difference between claiming belief that God exists, versus bigfoot. God is not a physical beast, but "spirit", so the means with which one investigates such claims would be different.

Well the god claim would be entirely unfalsifiable of course, but why can't I use faith to believe in bigfoot or mermaids, or anything really?

You could you science to investigate if bigfoot exists, since it's an animal. You can't use science to investigate God,

Does bigfoot leave any data? it's also pretty obvious that science can't examine what does not exist, so saying science cannot examine a deity may be something of an own goal, you decide.

Yes of course claims of encounters should be considered as evidence. How much veracity there it to the claim, is a different issue. That has be considered case by case.

Indeed, so if the case involves nothing more than the bare unevidenced claim I have no alternative but to disbelieve it, but keep an open mind.

But to simply say "God doesn't exist, so therefore any claim of experiencing God must be disregarded," is not doing science. That's doing religion.

I agree, but since neither science not atheism need involve such a claim, I'm not sure why you posted that? Especially since I have repeatedly explained that my atheism is a lack or absence of belief, and not a contrary claim.

Love is an imagined idea? That's a curious response. Try saying that to your lover sometime. See how quickly you find yourself alone, not actually believing what you say.

She left while I was in work a couple of years ago. Though I'm not sure I've suggested love is solely an imagined idea, I can imagine the Eiffel Tower, I have also been to the top of it.

Unicorns are horses with horns.

I think we both know that isn't true.

So science should be able to confirm their existence.

Only if your straw man about unicorns were true, which it manifestly isn't.

Do you believe science is the right tool to understand what love is?

It's a variety of emotions, that are applicable to a variety of circumstances and relationships. I love chips, I love my family, I love old films etc etc...I'm pretty sure hormone secretions can be measured and matched to such emotions, though the claim to love something can also be a metaphor.

Do you pull out a scale and some test tubes to determine understand what your mother means when she says she loves you?

Nope, but if the claim went entirely unevidenced, I'd grow to believe the claim had no credence.

Or do you use your heart? If so, that's not very scientific of you.

My heart is a muscle that pumps blood, I don't discern anything with it, nor does any other human.

God is more along the lines of love, not like a horse with horns. You don't use test tubes to understand love, or God. You use the heart, so say all the poets and mystics. Unless you think they know nothing because you have science...

Straw man fallacy...it seems theists are far more obsessed with science than atheists.

Objective evidence of the experience of the divine can be observed and demonstrated.

I don't believe you, since theists keep making the claim, but fail to demonstrate any objective evidence.

Love can be demonstrated objectively, even though you can't ever find a love specimen in the fossil record.

False equivalence fallacy and straw man fallacy. Do you know how fossils are formed? Why on earth would you pretend that a human emotion as varied as what we call love could ever be fossilised?

Ah, here comes that logical positivist, scientism voice. So, only objective observation that can be measured and verified by independent study is considered knowledge or truth?

I don't know, what else have you got beyond the bare subjective claims theists keep making here?

What of the rest of the humanities, such as art and poetry, philosophy, love, dance, song, mysticism, and all those things that go beyond reason and concepts and ideas?

Those concepts don't go beyond reason, why would you claim that? And a concept is an abstract idea by definition.

Does anyone who claims rationality as their god, actually live life true to that?

You'd have to ask someone who claims that straw man you've created, dear oh dear.

Or are they living hypocritically?

You mean the imaginary hypothetical people you have created in this straw man version of atheists, to falsely apply to me? Again the irony is palpable.

You keep saying "zero objective evidence". Why do you say this, when I've pointed out that experiences, when taken together and considered, do in fact count as objective evidence?

1. I don't keep saying that.
2. That is an argumentum ad populum fallacy. The number of people who believe something doesn't remotely evidence the validity of the belief.

It's not 'merely' subjective (as if that means subjective evidence is nothing), but when 100 people all report similar subjective experiences, that is now objective. It's something that can be looked at and examined by 3rd person observation.

Only if you offer some data to be examined, beyond that bare subjective opinion, otherwise that is again an argumentum ad populum fallacy.

And yes, you can reserve the right to reject such objective evidences, but do realize, that is purely a subjective response.

1. I reserve rejection of a claim for when I have a rational or epistemological reason. Otherwise I simply withhold belief.
2. The subjective response isn't mine, thus it is a straw man fallacy.

 

[Augustus]

You mean as opposed to unevidenced bronze age patriarchal superstition?

Us folk who care about evidence know it's actually Iron Age

Fish in a barrel.

No, just some parroting of a vapid cliche that shows an embarrassing lack of wit or critical thinking and has literally nothing to do with the point in question.

Noting that there are limitations to the scope and accuracy of scientific methods has no connection to religion.

It is an obvious statement that all rational people should accept. Agreed?

 

[Sheldon]

Sheldon said: ↑
I don't have any idea of "what any deity is", because I'm an atheist

Yes, your idea of a deity is the one you've adopted from the theists you've been exposed to.

Nope....I....have.....no...idea... of ....what....a....deity.....IS.

Though I can examine claims that theists offer, see the difference?

Lets try this:

What is your idea of a flagellafoloop?

 

[Sheldon]

Fortunately for the rest of us, that absurd bias is your own problem to deal with.

Is that one of the reviews of your blog?

 

[Sheldon]

Us folk who care about evidence know it's actually Iron Age

According to the current academic historical view, the origins of Judaism lie in the Bronze Age amidst polytheistic ancient Semitic religions, specifically evolving out of Ancient Canaanite polytheism, then co-existing with Babylonian religion, and syncretizing elements of Babylonian belief into the worship of Yahweh as reflected in the early prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible.

 

[Sheldon]

o, just some parroting of a vapid cliche that shows an embarrassing lack of wit or critical thinking and has literally nothing to do with the point in question.

I'll defer to your obvious expertise in that area.

 

[Sheldon]

Noting that there are limitations to the scope and accuracy of scientific methods has no connection to religion.

Or to mermaids or unicorns, but I sense you were making a different point. Yet you failed to explain the objective difference between your unevidenced assumption about the limits of science, and it's perceived inefficacy to examine or detect what does not exist, or what provides zero data to examine.

 

[Sheldon]

It is an obvious statement that all rational people should accept. Agreed?

No.

 

[Altfish]

Induction is inference from particular to general.

I got this far.....

 

[Sheldon]

Yes, that's all it deserved. Sorry. That you can't see that is your problem to deal with. Not mine.
Your ridiculous definition of "faith" requires some imaginary "justification" authority to declare what beliefs are justified and what beliefs are not. Clearly, that imaginary authority is YOU. Or more precisely, it's your bias against any justification that does not comport with your materialist view of reality. So your definition of "faith" then becomes "whatever I say it is". And what you say it is, is anything you consider unjustified nonsense, to be dismissed. It's so perversely circular and self-enforcing that it rivals even the 'inerrant bible theory'.
Yes, I read that the first time you wrote it. And it's not logically valid; as existence is not contained by nor defined by what we can or cannot detect, in theory or in practice.
Because it remains a real existential question, and possibility. And the awareness of that questions and possibility will have 'detectable' effects on us. Just because we don't have the answer doesn't mean the question become existentially moot.
Because it can exist, may exist, and may be effecting this universe significantly. And by extension, us. Just because we can't detect this other universe as a fact does not negate it as a possibility, nor the effects of that possibility on us.
You keep confusing yourself with this obsessive insistence on dragging 'belief' into it. There is no reason to 'believe' or 'disbelieve' ANYTHING. So forget about belief. The issue is the existential possibility, and the real effect of that existential possibility on us.
Again, you are doing well at explaining theism, here. Keep up the good work! Yes, we detect the 'movement' but not the source, or the destination. Very good. Now, consider that 'movement' to be existence, itself: ... we detect the 'flow of existence', but we cannot detect the source, or the purpose. The awareness of this conundrum (mystery), and the quest to understand it better, and deal with it 'appropriately', is basically, theism.
I am positing an existential mystery, and labeling the resolution; "God". You're just driving yourself nuts by over-complicating it and tangling it all up in religious mythology. Forget 'belief', and forget religion. You will understand theism a whole lot better and easier.
They are reasonable and supported by evidence according to the theist's experience and understanding, same as you or anyone else. He's just trying to share those with you. Unfortunately, you have placed yourself in position as the grand, high, exalted, universal decider of what is a reasonably 'justified' conceptualization of human experience and understanding, and you are using your own as your criteria. So, of course, you are dismissing any and all others that don't comport with your own as "unjustified belief", to be dismissed as meaningless nonsense. But again, this is your poison pill to deal with. All I can say is that if you don't deal with it, you're never going to understand theism, or any of the many other related human 'spiritual' endeavors.
Why should he? It's only 'incoherent' to you. I have explained why omniscience and free will are not mutually incompatible using a very simple and obvious example. Understanding 'how it all plays out' does not necessarily negate the value or purpose of playing it out. And playing it out is not being rendered impossible to do simply by knowing how it'll be done, in advance. So the idea of an omniscient God is not logically "incoherent", as you claim.

Now let's see you explain why you think otherwise.
This is a misstatement on both counts. But nevertheless, theists make up the significant majority of the world's population. You're surrounded by them. So of course ...

So is the earth flat, or not?

 

[Sheldon]

Yazata said: ↑
Induction is inference from particular to general.

I got this far.....

You are very wise, and I wish I had followed your example.

 

[Augustus]

Or to mermaids or unicorns, but I sense you were making a different point. Yet you failed to explain the objective difference between your unevidenced assumption about the limits of science, and it's perceived inefficacy to examine or detect what does not exist, or what provides zero data to examine.

That's because you are terrible at reading and just seem to make up some nonsense that has nothing to do with the post you reply to.

My point was that scientism is an excessive faith in the scope and accuracy of scientific methods.

That's why I said precisely that rather than whatever you are fantasising that I meant.

No

That means you think it's rational to believe scientific methods are currently unlimited in scope and are perfectly accurate.

Are you sure you don't want to reconsider that?

Or perhaps you just misread the post, I can't believe you actually think that.

You don't think that, do you?

 

[Sheldon]

That's because you are terrible at reading and just seem to make up some nonsense that has nothing to do with the post you reply to.

He said, ignoring my post entirely. Is your comma key broken?

My point was that scientism is an excessive faith in the scope and accuracy of scientific methods.

Nope, that is the straw man the thread author has used to create another thread to bash those who have the temerity not to share his theistic beliefs. You're just jumping on the bandwagon, and have fallen into water that is clearly out of your depth.

That's why I said precisely that rather than whatever you are fantasising that I meant.

Can I have that sentence in English please?

That means you think it's rational to believe scientific methods are currently unlimited in scope and are perfectly accurate.

Nope, though that inability to comprehend a simple sentence is pretty hilarious after your opening rant.

Are you sure you don't want to reconsider that?

Hard to say really, since you'd first need to give me a clue what you're referring to, given the redundant paragraphs, and sweeping claims in that disjointed rant.

Or perhaps you just misread the post, I can't believe you actually think that.

Think what? Why do theists love cryptic responses?

You don't think that, do you?

Yes, no, I don't know. What is THAT?

Here is your post, and my response again verbatim, lets see if you can offer a cogent response, or a specific question.

Augustus said: ↑
Noting that there are limitations to the scope and accuracy of scientific methods has no connection to religion.

Or to mermaids or unicorns, but I sense you were making a different point. Yet you failed to explain the objective difference between your unevidenced assumption about the limits of science, and it's perceived inefficacy to examine or detect what does not exist, or what provides zero data to examine.

 

[Augustus]

. According to the current academic historical view, the origins of Judaism lie in the Bronze Age amidst polytheistic ancient Semitic religions, specifically evolving out of Ancient Canaanite polytheism, then co-existing with Babylonian religion, and syncretizing elements of Babylonian belief into the worship of Yahweh as reflected in the early prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible.

Who do you think follows Bronze Age polytheistic superstitions then rather than iron age Biblical superstitions?