the dream of science

shawn

shawn

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I am not a scientist, but it is my understanding that the dream of science is to understand the workings of nature, of the universe in which we find ourselves.
A great impediment to this understanding is in the nature of understanding itself.
It varies with each person.
Understanding involves an explanation of notions, ideas and principles which each person comes to accept, whether scientist or not.
My experience has been that people usually accept these ideas when they are too young to question them.
But once having grown to maturity, when they might have reason to question their ideas of existence, they have become so familiar with them that it seems unnecessary or even repugnant to question these areas any further.

This syndrome is not confined to science, but extends to every other area of human knowledge.
Its worst forms are virulent and violent prejudice against opposing or different ideas, and the mildest is opinionated closed minds which simply refuse to consider any thing besides their accepted/favored conceptualizations.

It is my opinion that if we wish to attain to the dream of science and a brighter/better future, then we will recognize this fundamental problem/issue and use our alleged maturity and wisdom to sort that out.
 
This facet of human behavior has been known to scientists and philosophers of science for roughly a century, actually. We had explicit coursework addressing it at my alma mater. To partially address this issue, many of us actively seek out collaboration with people from different countries, so we can have several different sets of presumptions at work.
 
Dogbrain said:
This facet of human behavior has been known to scientists and philosophers of science for roughly a century, actually. We had explicit coursework addressing it at my alma mater. To partially address this issue, many of us actively seek out collaboration with people from different countries, so we can have several different sets of presumptions at work.
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Glad to see that there is some that are thinking about these things, recognizing them and setting in motion a methodology to counter it.
Now this needs to become a majority rather than a fraction.
 
shawn said:
Glad to see that there is some that are thinking about these things, recognizing them and setting in motion a methodology to counter it.
Now this needs to become a majority rather than a fraction.
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It is a majority of scientists, so stop bad-mouthing scientists about this issue.
 
shawn said:
Don't be so thin-skinned dog.
You do get awfully touchy about nothing....don't you.
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You decided you would stand on a pulpit and rah-rah-rah about how bad and stupid scientists were regarding a specific issue. You got called on simply being flat-out wrong. Now you lash out.
 
Dogbrain said:
You decided you would stand on a pulpit and rah-rah-rah about how bad and stupid scientists were regarding a specific issue. You got called on simply being flat-out wrong. Now you lash out.
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This is far from a pulpit and I have not called scientists stupid.
I have pointed out a problem which is real and exists and indicated that it occurs in many areas of human activity.
So where have I singled out scientists?
Instead of coming at me with a vengeance, you could just add something of value which builds upon the portions you are in agreement with.
 
This project has just been announced in the news and sounds interesting:


LASAR (learning about science and religion)

s.
 
Snoopy said:
This project has just been announced in the news and sounds interesting:


LASAR (learning about science and religion)

s.
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I read this with interest. I maintain that it would be a slippery slope to start to talk about religion and science together in either educational discipline. Quite rightly they should be discussed together at a third class, Social Studies. In the UK today there is a quiet yet powerful bias that comes from the top down toward trying to turn the tide on the rejection of religious memes. As this initiative is funded by the John Templeton Foundation which has very close links to the Vatican I can only see it as yet a further example of Papal meddling in the secular educational system of the UK. I say it should be resisted.
 
I wonder if understanding the nature within ourselves is the way to understand the nature outside of ourselves...
 
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