Reason Rally (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, April 01, 2012, 18:15 (4597 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

(Concerning the agnostic fence between theism and atheism, please see my post under "Why is there anything?")-TONY (B_M): [Science] insulates itself from moral responsibility.-DHW: Maybe some scientists do. Science itself is (or perhaps "should be") the study of the material universe. Morality is not its remit. If scientists behave immorally (or "insulate themselves"), one should not blame science, any more than one should blame Christianity for the un-Christian acts of many so-called Christians (ditto Islam, Judaism etc.).
 
TONY: Science as a discipline is what I refer to, not the scientist. I say this because science as a discipline rarely considers whether they SHOULD do something, only concerning itself with whether or not it COULD do it. There has been more than one pandora's box opened by such negligence.-You are referring to particular branches of science that are concerned with "doing" as opposed to finding out. Admittedly these sometimes overlap, but the search for the origins and mechanisms of life, and the study of Nature's Wonders (David has provided us with a vast catalogue of these), have no link to should do or could do. In any case, as with all human institutions, you cannot separate the subject from its practitioners, and "considering"/"concerning itself"/"negligence" (not to mention your accidental use of "they") are all terms relating to the scientists and not the subject. You wrote: "My accusation to science as a discipline though is the same that I leverage at religion and politics, that of allowing itself to be a platform for bigotry." Disciplines like science, religion and politics cannot stand up and say, "Stop using me as a platform for bigotry!" Only their practitioners can do that.-TONY: Treat others as you yourself would want to be treated.-The Rev. Charles Kingsley invented a character called Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby in The Water Babies(before Jehovah's Witnesses came on the scene) ... and I can think of no better basis for any moral code. It is a perfect summary of moral principles according to humanism as well as many religions, and is mercifully stripped of all theological trappings.-Incidentally, it was Kingsley whom Darwin quoted in later editions of Origin as having gradually learnt to see "that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that he created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws." One in the eye for those who insist that the Theory of Evolution is incompatible with religious belief. I'm chucking that in for free!