Isn't speculation on the nature of the question the first part of finding the solution? That's what the soul does ... inquire.
Inquiry stimulating scientific research can come from rational speculation but most often, it comes from the observation of natural phenomena, and the curiosity to understand it.
Really? You think philosophy is just making stuff up?
Actually I do. It is not based on evidence. That is why nobody ever wins a philosophical debate. The perceived winner of philosophical debate is based on the opinion of most of the audience.
There's your problem then, because you're presupposing the answer before it's even started looking ... that's bad process ... it rules out finding anything 'new' other than by chance or accident.
Religion presumes the answer then invents the argument. Science has the major responsibility to evaluate natural phenomena through rational evaluation of the evidence, which may lead to answers not expected by the researcher. Scientists know that answers through empirical research may disprove their initial speculation. Then they abandon the debunked speculation.
In my science, theology, pre-supposing the answer is a vice in the reasoning process, not a virtue. We call it 'the negative argument'. That kind of argument said man will never fly.
Theology studies and speculates on something unseen, unheard, unmeasured, intangible, and non-perceived. It presents no evidence, so there is nothing to examine, and nothing to disprove or prove. Theology is like belief in aquatic elephants swimming in a sea under the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa. Actually, the Europa sub-ice aquatic elephant speculation is more valid than the personal god hypothesis. At least we know there is a Europa and it is ice covered with fissures suggesting a sub glacial sea.
On the other hand, I've heard a lot of scientists say that 'breakthrough' often does not follow the scientific method, but comes 'out of the blue'.
Breakthrough sometimes (not necessarily often) comes from "out of the blue." We will take it if the result is real and provable. In my experience (44 years) since graduate school and med school, most breakthroughs come from observation of a phenomenon then setting forth with a protocol to examine it. Any evidence obtained is then further examined to see patterns or comparisons. Then "experimentation" is designed and organised to obtain further evidence. The researcher then gathers that data to formulate a Theory. The researcher then tries to find errors that may disprove his theory. If it passes his attempt at critical investigation, he then puts the theory before a large group of peers at a scientific symposium.
If arguments successfully challenge the Theory, then the researcher goes back to his protocol and revises his investigation. If no successful rebuttals are presented, the Theory is then presented to a respectable scientific journal whose editorial board examine it and decide whether to publish it. If they agree, then it is published. Even after publication, other peers may publish commentaries or challenge the theory. Believe me, I know, there are many hurdles to get a theory published and accepted by the scientific community.
Even long after publication and general scientific community acceptance, the theory can be successfully challenged if new and contrary evidence is found. Such never occurs in Theology.
Depends on your idea of beauty. I think the beauty lies with the imagination that believes it can solve problems, find answers.
If beauty is simply the belief that imagination finds more facts than fictions then it is a delusion. Real beauty is the appreciation of joy in finding facts or most likely explanations from rational inquiry into phenomena.
Only because scientists speculate on what the discovery means, and where it might lead them. Without philosophy, we'd be in the Stone Age too.
I doubt that. Philosophy, particularly Theology, have stood in the way of scientific inquiry since it first began. As scientific method advanced from embryonic form by the Ancient Greeks like Eratosthenes and Aristarchus 2300 years ago, it was met by religious opposition. Hypatia of Alexandria, Director of the Great (Pagan) Library of Alexandria taught that the Earth was spherical and revolved around the Sun, and that animals evolved from simpler forms. This was not simple philosophy but based on observations of shadows cast by the Sun in northern and southern Egypt, eclipses, and anatomical similarities of animals. Hypatia was murdered by Catholic monks in a gruesome way, drawn and quartered, because her science was contrary to the Bible in the newly Christian Empire.
From 393 CE to 412 CE the only known science was destroyed and from 412 CE to the 16th Century science was condemned as heresy or blasphemy. Scientists were tortured, drawn and quartered like Hypatia, burned at the stake like Giordano Bruno, and Galileo was intimidated by the Church Inquisition to renounce his true findings about celestial bodies. Copernicus and Newton survived because of the Protestant Reformation. The greatest scientist of the 19th Century, Charles Darwin, was able past the mid-century to publish the Origin of Species. He was vilified, and over in America half the generally illiterate public still doubts the
FACT of Evolution.
Today many US fundamentalists still reject Evolution, Plate Tectonics and Continental drift, Neuro-biological Cognition, Age of the Earth, Age of the Universe, and all heavy atoms made in cores of ancient Giant Stars.
Scientific literacy statistics - countries compared - NationMaster
Rank----Countries---------Amount
# 1 Korea, South:--------552
# 2 Japan:----------------550
# 3 Finland:--------------538
# 4 United Kingdom:-----532
# 5 Canada:--------------529
= 6 Australia:------------528
= 6 New Zealand:--------528
# 8 Austria:--------------519
# 9 Ireland:--------------513
# 10 Sweden:-------------512
# 11 Czech Republic:-----511
= 12 France:--------------500
= 12 Norway:-------------500
# 14 United States:------499
= 15 Switzerland:--------496
= 15 Hungary:------------496
= 15 Belgium:------------496
= 15 Iceland:-------------496
# 19 Spain:---------------491
Weighted average:--------500.0
What I'm trying to say is the two work hand-in-hand — ignore one, and the other stops dead in its tracks.
Philosophy does make up ideas that stimulate curiosity and the natural human curiosity to invent real science. I do not follow science stopping in its tracts. I will only concede that Philosophy acted as a stimulus or catalyst to the inquiring minds that progressed into science. For myself, my knowledge of Philosophy is quite limited and I admit that.
Animals don't do science ... that should tell you something.
Animals are the only ones who do science. A primate of the Hominid Family, Homo sapiens sapiens invented and advanced all of the science that we know. Moreover, we are unquestionably animals. All vertebrate animals and we have a brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, bony skull, bony spinal column, 4 limbs (radius, ulna, humerus in the forelimbs and femur, tibia, and fibula in hind limbs), heart, arteries, veins, lymphatics, muscles, tendons, ligaments, fat storage, and skin.
PLEASE DON'T KICK US OUT OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.
Faith, like any other science, is argued reasonable and logically from its own axioms. Faith and reason and go hand in hand.
Science produces theories and natural laws by observation of phenomena, evidence, methodology, reason, critical analysis, and strict sceptical filtering.
Faith assumes its own answers. It bases its answers on authority only, mythology, and dogma of human belief systems. Evidence is absent and unnecessary. Questioning is forbidden or ignored. Challenges are rejected out of hand. Ingersoll wrote that religion is explaining the unknown with the unknowable.
Science argues from its own axioms. And then a breakthrough shows its axioms are faulty ... so you can't claim some order of 'infallibility' for science. All you can say is the quest for knowledge — philosophy — keeps science honest and on track!
It is too simple to claim that science argues from its own axioms. Axioms are self-evident truths. Science uses axioms, but mainly relies on observations. It observes phenomena and applies axioms only where they are relevant. It mainly relies on gathering evidence, protocols for experimental procedures, testing, and rational analysis of the results. I have explained this earlier.
Philosophy/Theology more often sees its role as suppressing science or other facts that threaten belief in its sacred cows such as gods, angels, demons, and leprechauns. It does so with vigour because religion is the major tool of despotic oppression of gullible people. The major enemy of oppression is knowledge and understanding of reality (i.e. science.) The Dark Ages were a horrid example when religion was a department of state.
'organised scientific method' is the product of philosophy. The methodology of science is its philosophy ... the scope of its inquiry is its philosophy.
One can call a methodology philosophy. One can also call methodologies of swindle artists, pick pockets, and embezzlers philosophies.
Again, you really don't seem to understand how philosophy, or theology, works. How would you classify a paper on the evidence of the Gospel of St Luke based on recent archaeological discovery?
Archaeology is a science. It searches for artefacts of the past including tools, skeletal remains, ruins, and old documents. Some religious archaeologists might hope for a significant religious finding but often find an artefact more valuable than the one for which he searched. It is scientific generally in that many ancient civilisations are excavated not knowing exactly what they might find. Those who dig in Palestine may expect some Judaic or early Christian artefact. If it is the Gospel of Luke, he might have well been happy to find the Gospel of Jesus.
Fuelled by the speculative intellect. If not, we'd still be happlity digging termites with sticks, and throwing poo at others!
We might be throwing poo if 6 million years ago as forests gave way to savannah some Chimp-humans retreated with the forest to a semi-arboreal lifestyle and others took to the open grasslands walking upright and needing intelligence to outwit stronger predators and prey. Intelligence led to tool making and space walking. We are lucky that some local factor (the African Rift) separated the Chimp-Humans into the forested lands and others to the grassy plains. We are not Chimps because of bloody frigging luck. We at first looked ape like except for our upright gait and ability to run and carry food with arms and hands. Over the last 2 million, we progressed rapidly thanks to Ice Age and Inter-glacial periods with warm dry and cool wet conditions fluctuating. We became fully human at about 200,000 years ago for Homo sapiens and 300,000 years ago for Neanderthals.
Our evolution was not completely random but due to many factors of climate, ecology, geology, interacting according to chaos theory. I think the Rift Valley participated in dividing the Chimp-Human ancestor into two different genera over time.
Er ... its religious belief that provided the foundation of the idea of the 'person'. Religious belief is the foundation of most moral and ethical systems, even Bertrand Russell made that point.
I disagree with you and Sir Bertrand Russell. The idea of a person is in my opinion possessed by dogs, parrots, all primates and us. It is self-awareness. It may go back to amphibians and even fish. Morality was imprinted in brain circuits of humans by evolution perhaps starting 2 million years before they invented religion or gods. Moral Selection resulted in the banishment of disruptive individuals, those who killed or abused tribal members. Woman abusers were rejected as husbands of potential brides. Over time, evil doers were largely selected out of the gene pool. It produced in most people an intuitive morality in brain circuits of humans. A “Good” person had better selective success but was not perfect. Today immoral people are considered defective. We know it is wrong to kill children or fellow citizens. It was considered wrong before we invented god. Evolutionary Intuitive morality is far stronger than the morality of Law and morality of god-fear commandments.
Really? I think ideas have enabled humans, not science ... science just supplies the technology.
In your opinion ...
Nope, that's philosophy.
And often, it isn't ... and knowledge is often a prison.
I disagree. Knowledge is the path to real freedom. Theology/Philosophy/Religion is a tool of oppression.
For all our science, all our technology, we haven't sovled man's ills. What's the phrase, 'techno rich, time poor'? We've become addicts, and now we're victims of our technologies because we've given up thinking.
"The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul, breaking the mental manacles, getting the brain out of bondage, giving courage to thought, filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy." - Robert G. Ingersoll in "Complete Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll"
That's philosophy again, the Queen of the Sciences.
All science has done has cluttered the world, and increasingly the cosmos, with machinery. Useful machinery, some of it, but it's just machinery.
God bless,
Thomas
So, can we give up automobiles, trains, light bulbs, cardiac surgery, brain surgery, cancer therapy, antibiotics, vaccinations, appendectomies, tumour resections, dentistry, successful treatment of epilepsy (instead of exorcism), deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's Disease, surgical removal of epileptic foci, hernia repair surgery, radios, televisions, CDs, DVD's, space shuttles, genetic improvement of food crops, printing presses, books, telescopes, microscopes, electron microscopes, atomic force microscopes, CAT scans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, computer controlled limb replacements for amputees, stem cell repair of brain and spinal cord damage, etc. etc.?
Philosophy would not have led us to any of the above.
Amergin
