TexasScientist said:
Sam Lowry said:
TexasScientist said:
Sam Lowry said:
TexasScientist said:
Sam Lowry said:
TexasScientist said:
quash said:
Sam Lowry said:
TexasScientist said:
Sam Lowry said:
TexasScientist said:
Quote:
quash said:
Sounds like Big Steve's NOMA.
http://www.blc.arizona.edu/courses/schaffer/449/Gould%20Nonoverlapping%20Magisteria.htm
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Sam Lowry said:
Very much so. A wonderful essay, thanks for posting.
NOMA is a useless concept. Science can explore any area of inquiry, and using mathematics it can explore the probability of certain religious ideas being true. Just because god cannot be disproved doesn't mean he is equally likely to exist as not to exist. NOMA pretends to give science and religion equal weights and equal but different domains. However, it is science that determines where the line of non-overlap occurs. As a result, religion/god is left to the gaps. Once science has developed a way to investigate or explore a given area of religion/s magisteria, religion loses its prerogative. If science draws the line in NOMA, why even bother with the concept if religious magisterial is anything that's not science, as long as it is not science?
You could just as easily say that religion determines the boundaries and science is left to the gaps. It's not necessarily a matter of giving equal weight (people have many opinions on that) but of understanding the nature and limitations of the different modes of inquiry.
You can believe in science, as do I. But to insist that science is the only valid source of truth is not in itself a scientific position. It is a matter of faith just as much as any religious dogma.
Ok, give me an example of where an area previously defined by science has been refuted and attributed to god.
The proper question is whether an area defined by science has been assigned to religion, not God. The NOMA principle is agnostic as to the existence of God.
Gould's book on NOMA has an example of science trespassing the boundaries of religion in the story of William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes trial. Bryan's crusade against evolution was inspired by German military officers in World War I, many of whom were biologists and former university professors. These scientists used Darwinism as a moral justification for cruelty and violence. The German philosophy was that "struggle not only must go on...but it should go on so that this natural law may work out in its cruel, inevitable way the salvation of the human species." Similar ideas are found in the writings of American racists of the same era, including the textbook at issue in the Scopes trial. Regarding certain New York "hill families" allegedly predisposed to poverty and crime, the book states that "if such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading."
As Gould points out, many people believe that evolution justifies certain behaviors. In some cases this belief may be harmless. In other cases it's far from it. This would not happen if scientists respected the boundaries of their magisterium and understood that science can't answer moral questions or dictate social policy.
Unlike Gould I think there is room in both directions for overlap. One example is the letter from the Los Alamos scientists to Truman. http://www.dannen.com/decision/45-07-17.html
Anither is the claim of believers of a worldwide flood and an ark to ride it out. My OT prof didn't buy it but for those who do science can provide evidence to the contrary, and allow believers to move from a literal to an allegorical interpretation.
That's not the question I asked, which was what area formerly defined as science was refuted and attributed to god, or even religion as you say. NOMA really doesn't adequately address the issue. However, the real issue is humanism or humanistic determination as to what is moral. Either science can influence that determination or religion can influence that determination. I'd much rather humans use science to make that determination, as opposed to humans using someone's interpretation of a religious edict attributed to an imaginary god.
The problem is that what is moral is not an empirical question. Even if you think you're basing morality on science, in fact you're always interpreting the science based on pre-existing moral assumptions. When those assumptions are wrong, as they were in the German example, the results are as bad or worse than when you base your morality on religious edicts alone.
Science is continually testing, probing and revising assumptions based upon evidence and facts. Science asks questions and finds answers based upon the evidence of reality. Religion presupposes the answer before the question is even asked. Science can correct wrong assumptions. However, as you say, when assumptions are wrong (i.e. religious assumptions) the results are bad when you base morality on religious edicts alone. Religion is unyielding in its beliefs and there is no room for change or correction of error. In the end it is people, society and culture, that makes moral judgements based upon their frame of reference. I would much rather those judgements be based upon the facts and evidence of reality, as opposed to judgements based upon religious edicts from primitive people with primitive understandings. I think you would also. Look how LGBT rights has struggled against religious dogma.
Do you think it's a good idea for moral values to be subject to constant revision without limitation, or are there some values that should remain unchanged?
Everything should be subject to review in light of better information. In fact religious moral dogma has had to yield in the face of cultural enlightenment of societies.
Enlightenment as defined by whom or what? If science appears to justify genocide, as the Germans once believed it did, should dogma yield to science?
Knowledge, as revealed by science, and religion are each subject to cultural interpretation and justification. There were many Germans who believed extermination of the Jews,along with others, was justified upon religious grounds. I would much rather cultures and societies take a humanistic approach, in light of scientific knowledge, in determining what causes harm to others and equitable laws, as opposed to making those determinations from religious edicts. Do you not agree?
The construction of a morality based on humanism is the major philosophical problem since the Enlightenment, and especially since the Second World War. To a great extent it was the failure of this project that led to postmodernism. As the secular critic Tony Davies observed, "It should no longer be possible to formulate phrases like 'the destiny of man' or the 'triumph of human reason' without an instant consciousness of the folly and brutality they drag behind them...it is almost impossible to think of a crime that has not been committed in the name of human reason." In practice, humanism has served the interests of particular races, classes, and other interest groups at least as much as religion did. I would choose religion over humanism if only because religion has done less harm to humanity than such humanistic and scientistic philosophies as Marxism and Nazism.
That being said, let's assume for the sake of argument that there is an ideal form of humanism which, if correctly understood and applied, would allow human beings to thrive more fully than religion. This brings us to the other big problem with humanism: why is human thriving a good thing, and how do you know? Some people actually believe the universe would be a better place if humanity were extinct. How do you prove them wrong? And when I say prove, I mean it exactly the way you mean it. I mean prove it empirically, without reference to any value judgments borrowed from religion or metaphysics.
That's the challenge I put to you. If you can meet it, you'll be widely regarded as the greatest philosophical genius of modern times.
