The limitations of science (The limitations of science)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, February 15, 2010, 16:46 (5393 days ago) @ dhw

In his post of 13 February at 14.49, under "Politics and Science: is science being corrupted", David wrote:
> 
> We depend on science in our discussions here. Is it safe to depend too much on current scientific conclusions and theories? Again, to harp on current climate science, the answer is no.
> 
> Aside from the fact that it's never safe to depend "too much" on anything, I'd like to offer a few thoughts on this. I acknowledge how essential it is that in our discussions we never lose sight of the findings of science. In that sense, yes, we depend on it. But as you and Matt are constantly emphasizing, science can rarely give us "truths", and in many areas relevant to our discussions, scientists themselves are divided even on "likelihoods". On none of the questions relating, for instance, to the origin of life, chance v. design, the nature of consciousness, what preceded the Big Bang, does science provide us with anything but speculation. Its restriction to the material world provides it with potential reliability ... potential being far removed from actual ... since the material world can be studied, but this leads to the exclusion of experiences which by their very nature suggest the possibility (no more) of something beyond the material world, at least as we know it. 
> -Still, the material world is a very big place, and quite clearly touches everything that we can objectively *know.* -
> ...Matt tends to follow a scientific route away from God but keeps his options open because there is more to life than science (I hope that's a fair summary). From my own point of view, the personal experiences passed on to us by you and BBella, and earlier discussions with various contributors on the nature of a possible God, on ethics, on art, on the "paranormal", are every bit as important as the "scientific conclusions and theories".-Painfully accurate. I often feel I'm caught in a tortuous vise: though many of my atheist friends think religion at large only leads to evil, I actually do admit that I think I know exactly what it is that religions/deities provide. I've mentioned before that when I study the religion of my ancestors I feel very much like these beings and stories pulse and call to me, bridging a gap through the millennium to my ancestors, often to the point where I would cease to say I'm thinking them and actually *feeling* them. There's a primal nature within all of us that exists with the common facade of civilization, and it means different things to different people. If any of you have seen the movie Avatar, it's probably one of the most spiritual movies I've seen, though you have to look beyond the gloss to see it. -This primal mechanism, used with a group of people and the same common mythology, provides a means to commune with one another, provides a central focus for a people, a tribe, and allows the self to be subsumed into the whole of the tribe. It is pointless really, in my mind, to ask the question of whether or not these feelings are created or perceived, because the effect of them is real no matter the root cause.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"