James Le Fanu: Why Us? (The limitations of science)

by John Clinch , Tuesday, July 14, 2009, 17:47 (5398 days ago) @ dhw

Dear, dear, dhw! What's eating you? It comes to something when we're arguing about the style of the argument rather than the substance. Well, David has posted his response to what you described as an extraordinary attack, which was neither extraordinary or an attack. Well, except an attack on pseudoscience certainly, which I loathe - I think for very good reason. - In my defence I plead Montaigne:- "There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees". I just think the differences are more interesting to explore than the similarities. An occupational hazard I guess. - Anyway, my convictions are borne out of many things ... but I'd like to think that "prejudice" (pre-judgement) isn't one of them. How does agnosticism prejudge an argument about the existence of a deity? If anyone does that, it is religionists who, not being interested in the basis for their belief, prejudge the matter utterly by cleaving to the beliefs of their forebears. - Granted, perhaps I should not have used "mumbo-jumbo". It was to dismiss too readily the desperate importance people attach to their mythos ... their taboo accounts of creation. I should, however, like to defend the right to ridicule religion. You should need no convincing that it was ... and is ... religion that is the cause of a great deal of avoidable suffering in the world. It was religionists ... not atheists - who, acting in the name of their religion, persecuted heretics and apostates and, yes, scientists; burned witches; who carried out savage pogroms against each other; who are blowing themselves up for speedy entry into paradise. It wasn't atheism that brought down the twin towers. For good people to do evil, it really helps if you have religion. - So, purely in terms of ethics, I think God-based morality deserves a good kicking. I consider that organised faiths have earned little but the ridicule and contempt of good people. Especially, perhaps, the preposterous faith of scientology. Was your comment about libel serious? You shouldn't be so risk-averse ... and don't let them bully you into silence. If they succeed in doing that, then doesn't that demonstrate in a small way that religion is defended by force and fear?
 
Right, back to the argument:- - You: "The theory that inanimate matter can spontaneously transform itself into living organisms with the potential for astonishing variations will seem just as "ridiculous" as Amma and Nommo seem to you. If you have already decided that this unproven theory is right, you confirm that you are prejudiced; if you haven't, then you must allow for it being wrong. How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables". - I couldn't disagree more. First, you are confusing the mythos and the logos. Amma and Nommo are mythical accounts (I had to check ... they are Dogon). They were never meant to be taken literally. It is the same with Genesis. Part of the absurdity of modern history is that as science has explained more and more, alternative religious accounts of creation have ossified into logos ... as a literal account of actual events. Remember Archbishop Usher's calculation of the date of creation as being 3pm on a day in October, 4004 BC? Now, that really is mumbo-jumbo! The Bronze Age tribe whose account it originally was ... the Hebrews ... never saw it the same way. My point is that they are explanations at different levels. Creation myths are myths ... true in the cultural context of the people who hold them, but not literal accounts. - You don't have to agree. However, any reasonable person would accept the proposition that science purports to be objective and literal. It is a claim about the world that can be falsified through observation, experiment and reason. The claims of religion, whatever their status, cannot be. They are different categories of statement. So, what is being done by physicists at the Sante Fe institute isn't just another creation story ... it is THE creation story, an attempt to discover what is REALLY there and how it REALLY started, each succeeding explanation merely a provisional account. The creation myths of the Native Americans who live in the hills around are not the same. - As for my "belief" (that word again) in abiogenesis, I will say this. There can be zero doubt that life arose from non-life. Even if panspermia happened, it arose somewhere from inanimate matter. The question is how. Of course we don't yet know the mechanism but, personally, I am absolutely confident that it wasn't a miracle ... a suspension of the laws of physics by a god. Why am I so confident? I look around the world and I see no miracles and conclude that that's not how the world works. The naturalistic presumption that natural forces are responsible simply accords with every other explanation for any other aspect of nature. The statement "all phenomena of nature are natural" requires no leap of faith: a miracle does. You have explained that, for reasons of personal incredulity alone, you cannot dismiss the miracle account. But the miracle account is a creation myth. - I will close with Montaigne: "Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do".