You can’t even begin to do that. You can’t follow the invisible. Nobody has ever even been able to define the church, because nobody knows who is a Christian- though most people blithely ignore the tests that Christ stipulated, anyway. The church certainly isn’t, and wasn’t, any organisation that has big money. So the medieval body that you referred to, that was exceedingly rich, that was led by the scum of the earth, that Adolf Hitler modelled his ideas on, does not qualify as the church. That body was devoted to extermination of the church- which may have something to do with its popularity among those who claim to be atheists. At the turn of the millennium, before the Renaissance, it is pretty fair to say that there was no church anywhere in the world, certainly not in Europe within a thousand miles of Rome.
But let’s pretend, for a weird, lunatic moment, that the worst criminal element of Europe actually represented Christianity before the start of the Scientific Revolution. Can JJ’s notion that modern science is a development of Christianity make any sense? Here’s a very good question:
Capitalists do that. Capitalism funded science from the start because capital was generated by science, as it is now. The venal underworld that ran ‘the Church’ attempted to hinder that process, except where it saw that it could advance its own interests. Galileo didn’t get regular pay-cheques from the Vatican, anyway.
Of course the rise of science has long been associated by scholarship with Protestantism, but that association cannot be what JJ referred to as a splitting off. The comment ‘A religious splinter group emerged which we now call modern science’ is one of the most absurd things one is ever likely to read here, because a scientist is no scientist if he permits religious views to influence his method or data. Perhaps it refers to the propensity of early scientists to be Protestants or renegade Catholics as private individuals- but there was nothing organised or orchestrated about even that.
I explicitly define the church as:
“the medieval body I referred to, that was exceedingly rich, that was led by the scum of the earth, that Adolf Hitler modelled his ideas on, and was a bunch of Capitalists”
Let’s go ahead and let Hitler into this thread, why not?
See? We agree on everything.
To say that modern science is inextricably tied to the creation of the “private individual” is the same as saying that modern art begins with Rembrandt’s myriad self-portraits.
I think that there is an implicit claim in the above quote of yours Ochaye that liberation from religious views = private individualism. To the contrary, I suggest that collectives are more successful than individuals at transitioning to a secular funding structure.
They killed Galileo! That is not a successful career!
I am posting in order to counter the power in this argument. It is my reason to be. At certain points in history scientists have been exactly those who permit religious views to influence his or her method or data. The scientists who do not do so have been put to death by the scientific community. Their views are only resurrected and affirmed much later. If the scientific community rejects you, you are a not called a successful scientist. Instead, you are a looney until some revisionist comes along and points out that you got it right way back when. This is why it is so painful to be anti-authoritarian, (I.e. to be an atheist. There are no atheist presidents of the United States.)
I am directly attacking any definition of Science which is methodological. By a methodological definition I mean a definition that says something like, “Thou shalt not permit religious views to influence thy method or data.”
Instead I affirm the definition of Science that is: A community of scientific practitioners in a historical situation characterized primarily by the funding structure of their various endeavors.
No. Like “the rock-climbing community” or “the death metal community”, people with shared understanding of a practice who develop that within the context of its history and social situation.
Although insofar as particle physicists probably don’t get much more girl action than monks, maybe.
I quite agree. Though the incidence of scientists making almost simultaneous discoveries of the same phenomena, entirely without knowledge of each other, is too frequent for even that definition to carry great conviction.
Quite possibly. Except when the accelerator breaks down.
What I’m getting at, though, is the proposition that “Thou shalt not permit religious views to influence thy method or data” is to be opposed, not supported. It flies in the face of Huxley’s once famous dictum about intellectual rigour:
“Science is simply common sense at its best; that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.” T H Huxley
Some people would apparently have us all Young-Earth Creationists!
The monastery is so loaded with imagery already, it’s hard to fit a laboratory in there. How about defense contracts.
What do we say about the internet emerging out of scientific developments made with military telecom in mind, then repackaged for a consumer market. When we talk about the scientific discovery of penicillin, the prototypical antibiotic, we typically mention that it did wonders for the troops in late World War 1 and World War 2. Are we committed to the idea that geometry must develop for the sake of Pythagorean math-cults, or is it more likely that early advances in geometry were best applied to shooting things at your enemy from a distance? Some historians (ex. Richard Bulliet at Columbia) argue that the Egyptians developed the pyramids because they needed to keep a standing army’s worth of workers in one place near the government-revenue grain silos and give them something to do during peace-time (like Keynes’ hole-diggers).
Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Manhattan, Alfred Nobel, Einstein. These are the penultimate famous scientists in popular discourse, and they also all made bombs. Coincidence?
Could being situated such that the best way to fund your research is to find applications in the defense sector possibly not change the character of your discipline? I’m not saying that your kitchen appliances are all explosives prototypes that failed, but I do think that the way the people that do science are payed and the institutions that scientiests form and are formed by matters to the way science has developed.
I thought you meant ET, that yukky-cartoon-style-poor-excuse-for-a-teddy-bear which Spielberg, to his unending shame, rammed up our arses for christmas viewings ever to come. You know, that baby-droid extraterrestrial hippo or whatever the bollocks it was. It had long fingewrs because it hard to work it out with a pencil, just like spielberg.
Your historical account is seriously flawed because of one simple inclusion that tells all. You said “Scientists who do not wish to be executed theorize fitting religious allegories.” The term “scientists” anticipates a more modern conception, but is a conception that you take to be implicit in any epoch.
Your historical account is seriously flawed because of one simple inclusion that tells all. You said “Scientists who do not wish to be executed theorize fitting religious allegories.” The term “scientists” anticipates a more modern conception, but is a conception that you take to be implicit in any epoch.
I just mean thinkers. Everything I said about the changing community and institutional situation of scientists, I also apply to the changing community and institutional situation of thinkers, philosophers included.
Except for the stuff about military contractors, though now that I think about it, 20th century philosophy, especially moral philosophy, is suspiciously preoccupied with nazis. “Is this artwork immoral? If you say that artworks can’t be immoral then you have to say that the nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will is not immoral, thus _______”
Yep, I’m lumping every thinker together into a group. I only called them scientists because this is a thread about science.
Surely there have been thinkers since the ancients. Perhaps we should call them professional thinkers. Perhaps instead we should call them writers (now this is provocative).
Heaven forfend! My personal, private passion/theology begins with Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows, and ends emphatically with a non-vocal Pink Panther to complete the sublime canon. All beyond is anathema, foul heresy.
On a more mundane level, we have the small issue of ‘Evolutionary theory meets biblical theory in their common beliefs’. Could we see an enlargement of this admittedly somewhat intriguing comment?
That says more about the popular perception than about science, of course. I think Darwin, Watson and Crick, Hawking and Dawkins all rank above most of those examples (excepting Einstein) in the popular consciousness of scientists.
I agree; I just see a very broad range of funding possibilities by which those in power advance their interests, to take it at its most cynical expression. Defence, yes, but also health (medicine), prestige/status (space and academia), trade…
Is there a reason why the scientific principle cannot be applied to the nature of mind? I mean in our subjective minds we make observations according to the given data, so naturally those observations correlate and we get observable results. What’s the difference between that and making observations on ideas and thoughts [e.g. in philosophy and psychology], and upon consciousness, information the nature of mind [mumbo jumbo apparently?
Should there not be a science of the mind ~ and not brain [though they tend to be related. Is there not simply a cult that seeks to undermine such things.
“Survival of the gene”. In fact, just the word “survival” points to a transmigration of a non-material substance. This is more than a metaphor. It is used as a rationale that can account for real behaviour.
Well I think we must all be careful there. The synonymity of “thinkers” with “scientists” does a great disservice to the role of the church in supporting technical advances, especially as science and religion are today seen to be intellectually at odds.
Regarding philosophy, I would say that the church has always been more astute than the scientists. Scientists are clever but don’t always make good philosophers, that’s for sure. I am continually at odds with scientists over philosophy.
I have always said that practical/natural skills should not be lumped under science skills. We must distinguish between science, which is a social movement, and practical/natural skills.
Why call it a “science”? Why would an investigation into the sort of experiences we have be a task for a recent social movement called science? Why give so much away to others?
Interesting insight! Would you say, then, that I don’t really survive? That I should take the “survival” of “me” literally, rather than metaphorically, is deluded?
“God” is replaced by “nature"; Deific creation is replaced by "Copy(ing)”; intelligent design is replaced by Dawkinian animism; “human” is replaced by “gene”; “sin” is replaced by “selfishness”; “resurrection” is replaced by “survival”; the lineage of the prophets is replaced by “selection”; “sins, money-lenders and miracles” are replaced by “memes”; and “altruism”, - well, altruism - that remains the same, but no-one notices
