Here's a good point for me to jump in with a point I have already made in this thread. I am actually fine with science being slow and cautious. However, I (not being an adherent of scientism) consider more than science in forming my overall understanding of reality. Other esoteric wisdom traditions and the paranormal claims of mankind are also things I consider. I feel science is great but limited in what it can know and I consider the full body of all human experiences.
Well the majority of paranormal and spiritual events are spontaneous and not predictable. 'Science' does not work well with such things. Also I think the experimental and paranormal investigative work by professionals is just simply looked down upon by many with an unfortunate arrogant attitude that too many in science seem to hold.
Well, I think you are overrating the understanding of science. To me things like dark matter, quantum mechanics, the nature of consciousness has me believing science (although a great thing) has a long, long way to go. At this point observation can precede understanding.
George, I am more of engineer than a scientist. When I got out of high school, I did a course on civil engineering. And during my mid-30s to today, I was in computer science.
While both course did have some science involved, particularly physics and maths, I don’t consider myself to be a physicist or mathematician, but whether it be engineering or science, I have learned the values of testings, measuring and acquiring and analysing data for whatever work I am doing.
During my computer science course, I have to at least grasp the concept of electrical devices and electronics circuitry. And a lot of that involved in using measurements.
Devices I used to measure any components, can be as simple as multimeters, or something larger like an oscilloscope. Components (eg resistors, capacitors, transistors, IC, etc) can be faulty, but so can any measuring devices, so it is important to have other devices handy, to test if the faults lie with the components or with devices that measure the components.
Mistakes can be costly especially if the necessary tests haven’t been done.
My point is that I prefer to have proper tests done, then just relying on people’s testimonies.
It has nothing to do with scientism, to be objective and thorough.
What I find absurd are people who throw around words, like “atheism”, “materialism” or “scientism”, when others disagree with them. Like when people science background disagree with creationists, and they immediately resorted to using one or combination of these labels on others.
How many times I have seen creationists labelling people being “atheists”, including those people who disagree them happened to be theists?
You are doing exactly the same things. Just because some people don’t agree with your belief or with your methodology of using the unreliable anecdotes, you immediately jump the gun and accuse others of being adherents of “materialism” or of “scientism”.
You do this time and time again. It is silly, and no less immature in using the same tactics as that of creationists.
