Current science; fraudulent thinking (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, May 14, 2015, 13:51 (3480 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID (QUOTE) "To avoid the circular fallacy, logic dictates that the cause of nature must be supernatural. That, right there, logically falsifies scientism but it also establishes the requirement that the supernatural must be taken into account in humanity's pursuit of answers, not just with respect to the origin of the cosmos and of life, but discussions of justice, beauty, morality, love and honour. Knowledge is an interconnected latticework of information and understanding, each facet of which influences and sheds light on other aspects. Scientism lobotomizes the quest for knowledge by turning a blind eye to God and the supernatural, and corrupts science with fantasy, countless just-so stories and promissory notes of what we ‘may' discover to make up for the absence of real data. Unfortunately, most people fail to distinguish between good science, bad science, science fiction, and scientism; in their minds it is all rolled into 'science', the result of which is the increasing corruption of 21st century science." (my bold)-Dhw: Until this paragraph, I thought the articles were spot on, and I would also say we have no way of knowing how far science can take us along the path of knowledge, and much of so-called science contains as many just-so stories as religion. But to claim that the cause of nature must be supernatural and therefore God exists and therefore science (presumably the writer means atheistic scientists) turns a blind eye to God is just about as fallaciously circular as you can get! -DAVID: I suspect you did not read the preceding paragraphs where he set up his argument:-
I read and agreed with everything else in your post. However, I did not log onto the website itself (I am struggling currently to find time), and so did not see the following:-QUOTE: "Example One: Good science reveals that nature, composed of space, time, matter and energy, had a beginning. Scientism requires a natural explanation for the origin of nature, a logically impossible task. One cannot provide a natural explanation for the origin of nature without assuming the existence of nature in that ‘natural' explanation; a circular fallacy. The result is a variety of arcane string, M-brane, and multiverse theories that have been conflated with science but are now being exposed as fantasy and a threat to the integrity of physics. (my bold)-I'm not at all convinced that “good science” reveals that Nature as he defines it had a beginning, but otherwise I agree completely with this. However, his own response to the fallacy as quoted in the paragraph at the head of this post is laughable. He has substituted one circular fallacy for another! If you assume the origin of nature is “natural”, it can't be supernatural (yah boo), and to avoid that mistake, you must assume that the origin of nature is not natural, and therefore it is supernatural, and therefore God exists (hurray).
 
Everything else, though, is fine with me, and provides a sound argument for agnosticism.