From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: Religion & Physics Don't Mix
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 00:58:34 GMT

In article <1dk87uINNek2@chnews.intel.com> bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:

>I didn't say science in the present can't suck; I only
>said it beats the heck out of religion's rationalizations.

     Which side do you want to take:  'Cooking' or 'Linguistics'?
      
>>>Theories come with descriptions of the paradigms in which
>>>they were deduced, allowing examination of the gaps and
>>>false bridges in the knowledge they convey.
>>
>>Wa-hoo.  Does this really happen?
>
>I said, "properly," not "commonly."  It may take fifty or a
>hundred investigators doing the same stupid little
>experiment to converge on a consensus that the effect
>claimed is actually observed.

     Properly, I'm not sure one can, even in principle, describe
     all of one's assumptions.  The whole mess gets a bit self-referential.
     One ends up listing a rather restricted subset that is *assumed*
     sufficient.

     And is 'consensus' a basis for 'truth'? (I'd be vewy vewy careful 
     answering this one, you may want to take this one back if you
     insist that science is related to 'truth')

>>I've tried to keep my big mouth shut but I can't any longer.
>>Your view of science as The Ultimate Self-Correcting, Fundamentally 
>>Truth-Approximating (tm) process does not describe well what I see 
>>goin' on.  One might say your view is not experimentally verified :-)  
>
>Facts and truth are two closely related things.

      Facts and the 'truth' may be two so widely divergent things
      that it often makes no sense to use them in the way you 
      appear to.

>One can speak the truth and yet use facts that do not
>approximate anything in reality.

      Exactly.

>If I say "I've seen the mountains and they look majestically
>purple" I admit myself to any number of recourses including
>atmospheric scattering and color-blindness, if geology doesn't
>support my finding.

      But the mountains *are* majestically purple if you have
      'seen' them that way.  You need no corroboration at all.
      You don't even need eyes.

      Facts about the relevant spectral characteristics of 
      the mountain and your retina are not relevant unless you
      want them to be (or are talking about science).

>>Science is definitely different from religion
>
>The only real difference is in the postulates; science
>starts from a few observables (some not yet proven, e.g.,
>the limit of the speed of light) and mathematical
>necessities, while religion starts from a few inobservables
>(all--and they have a reason for this, in that it is one of
>them--unproven).  From then on it's a repitition of that
>method, bolstered by all the logic one can ensconse.

      Religion hardly has an axiomatic basis, and it does not necessarily 
      follow the precepts of symbolic logic.  It makes absolutely
      no sense to ridicule it by trying to jam it into the 
      round hole of science.

      I think you might find, to your dismay, that the legions
      of the religious are far larger, and such improper assertions
      might, godforbid, strengthen certain people's attempts to jam
      their square peg in our direction.

>>but there is no point
>>in bashing religion over this.  All it does is alienate people who
>>value their religious beliefs.  Not only is this insulting, it's
>>also foolish - why get people any madder at scientists?
>
>You're dealing in a politicism that prevents a discussion
>of the facts, and therefore supports the religious
>status-quo against science.  Anyone who is offended by
>having their beliefs disproved by an application of logic
>and experiment deserves the full, bilious effect of any
>adverse, emotional reaction they feel from it.

     The fact is that you *haven't* disproved the beliefs of the religious.
     
     To misuse science by claiming to do so greatly weakens the 
     position of those who would claim that science is not the 
     subject of omnipotence and miracles.  If you say science
     can disprove omniscience, omnipotence, and miraculous occurences,
     then the religious surely have the right to publication of large-scale
     investigations of such topics using the rules of omniscience,
     omnipotence and miracles.  They should also be able to compete
     for grant money.

                           dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                          crb7q@virginia.edu        
Department of Mechanical, 
     Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering
University of Virginia                              (804) 924-7926