I am amused that science is proud of its hard-headedness in relying upon data, then engages a mooshy-headedness in explaining that data.
Take a step back from science and you will see that it is so: there is data and there is story.
And furthermore, he said, rolling back his sleeves, only certain kinds and types of data are admitted. Bias is already built into the system.
When certain kinds of data are not admitted, the story is stunted, the bed we lie in short-sheeted.
But ha! some of you may say, rushing to extol the virtues of science and all its benefits. Never mind that. I know, I know. I simply point to its shortcomings.
Was not Buddha the first scientist, extolling people to test everything? Science is a method of observation and testing conclusions and hypotheses. It is falsifiable unlike various belief systems. If it is flawed, it's because there are flawed human beings in the process. It's one wonderful way to satify one's curiousity.
ReplyDeleteEmpiricism, as a 'rational' system, has irrational, foundational elements which are necessary for its ever-growing edifice. These elements include: induction, the uniformity of nature and the principle of sufficient reason.
ReplyDeleteScience cannot be done without these components as first principles, i.e., principles that are only reasoned from, not to. These are empiricism's essential, raw 'givens,' and as such, are irrational.
Is a scientist "...like a foolish man who built his house on sand?" (Matthew 7:26) I'll leave this question to epistemologists. I do think, however, that the wise scientist would acknowledge that her rational structure could not exist without the irrational.
--Gary
Well said, Gary!
ReplyDeleteWithout irrational, we would not know rational. And visa versa.
ReplyDeleteSurmised from readings of Buddists' writings.
"only certain kinds and types of data are admitted"
ReplyDeleteHmmm, sounds like what I've heard of the way the bible was put together. Maybe other spiritual texts too.
Where is there room for the whole story?
There is data and there is story. Sometimes they are the same though we fight against any such "nonsense", regardless of the side with which we align ourselves.
ReplyDeleteTake the big bang for example. Science supports this model of the universe's origin, but is the explosion of substance from nothingness any different than God saying "let there be light"?
Science also has demonstrated how there was an initial conflict between matter and anti-matter shortly after the big bang. The result of that conflict shaped the nature of all existence following that moment. Is this any different than the battle for heaven between the angels and what were to become demons, or how the demons were "cast out" of this realm? (have you tried to buy a nannogram of anti-matter lately? Very hard to locate).
My point is that science and mythology share an incredible bond. What amazes me is how the metaphors, now thousands of years old, are so closely aligned with what science has deduced from empirical study only relatively recently. Hmm... The story affects the data, and the data affects the story. Both are true and neither is true.
Can't tell me there is no mystery.