One important difference between science and religion with respect to the power of explanation is that although science can never say anything with 100% certainty, with repeated observations science can approach 100% certainty with as much precision as practically required. Religion on the other hand can not only not say anything with 100% certainty, it can never increase either the precision or the accuracy of its conclusions.
"but any discussion of "anti-science" shouldn't be taking sides else it falls into the trap it purports to study."
The point that Otto seems to be making is that ultimately, whatever the science, it has a political dimension since science by its very nature is about unlocking the mystery and unexpected within things we had previously "thought" we understood. It does not lie within a single cycle of the application of the scientific method, but it does begin to "creep into" how and in which subsequent directions further experimentation manifests itself. Consequently, as is the case for all human activity, humans, whether they are scientists or not, have no choice but to take sides and live with the consequences. Its not something from which we can escape. Humans will face natural selection as a result of these consequences whether one "believes" it or not. This is what distinguishes Darwinian "[Scientific] Theory" from a mere hypothesis. At least with science, one has the perhaps vain hope that it will have been the "wisest" choice that could have possibly been made at the time and by "wisest" I mean providing the opportunity to try another experiment and extend knowledge further.
Otto's book is a bit slow in parts and does tend to focus on only a few contemporary anti-science issues, however it is interesting reading and does make a number of points well. I haven't quite reached the end yet, but expect to be disappointed by the lack of a more detailed look into the neurophysiology of political decision making. There are hints of this in the book, but so far (as of page 221) only hints. Ultimately, it will be this knowledge, understood at a molecular level from which hope might yet spring. Whether the implementation of the fruits of such research comes soon enough to prevent what will almost certainly be a planetary climatic disaster remains to be seen, but again one can only hope and try to support the science as best as one can.
As for those scientific abstractions having no relevancy to world affairs, just reflect on the effect of the use of the Blacks-Shoals models for computing the risk of derivatives in the most recent collapse of the world economy. Differential equations are funny and highly unpredictable things. Simply because one chooses the wrong parameters hardly makes them irrelevant to mankind's fate.
Your quote of Asimov summarizes the problem extremely well. Thank you for bring clarity to the issue. Hopefully, others might reflect and learn from your post.
When there is no handy scapegoat blame the teachers so eventually there will be none in the US. The Chinese and our other competitors love this approach.
"Reality is a very malleable thing when it comes to politics."
No, its politics that is malleable, especially in the minds of those who are unable to think critically and scientifically.
Jumping up and down and claiming that AWG is all a hoax or denying that 300,000,000,00 tons of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere annually has no effect on climate, will do little to change the reality that soon the average temperature of the planet will be definitely warmer than today.
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
Yes we should be alert. However, if anti-science thinking like yours permeates the American body politic you can be absolutely sure that that "scientific-technological elite" will be Chinese and European. Keep in mind during the time you are referring to the US has gone from first in science and mathematics education to 29th. If you think your hardy, independent band of scientific tinkerers each huddled in his garage is going to win the race for scientific and technological superiority your future is about as delusional as your ideology.
You obviously don't study much biology do you? Do you have any idea of how rapidly ecosystems are now changing in response to global warming and that given the current pace of change, virtually every ecosystem on the planet will shift to an entirely new one within 300 years? Do you have any idea what will grow in Texas as the ecosystem shifts from one of grasslands to a far hotter and much more arid one like that of the central Sahara?
"The climate is always changing, but human activities might be making it change faster, or to a greater extent, than plants or animals (including humans) can adapt without severe stress or hardship."
When one recognizes that the global mean temperature is rising about 100 times faster than at any point in earth history it becomes evident that human extinction is a very real possibility. For the slow, this recognition will take longer.
"The problem occurs when people start making policy based on fear. "
You mean like when we have to invade Iraq because we don't want the "smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"?
People do all sorts of things out of fear, creating religion because of a fear of death is one of them. You are, however, right problems do come from it and this is precisely why we need to exercise what little reasoning skills we have to avoid it and precisely why we need to recognize that climate change is now primarily human induced and with 7 billion people on the planet pumping more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere it only stands TO REASON that we need to begin to do something about it lest we all soon get very uncomfortably warm and in a few hundreds years time make it almost impossible to find something to eat.
Sounds to me that your reality is so confusing that it has left you baffled and unable to clearly explain what it is you are talking about. The concept of "god" simply has no meaning to scientists, it can mean anything or nothing and hence provides no expectation of any particular outcome. To put it simply, "god" is irrelevant to science as science has no use for such a poorly defined notion.
Nonsense. Science can often and easily demonstrate that a contradiction exists, permitting one to conclude that either one or both of two contradictory statements can not be true. How such contradictions are to be interpreted depends of course entirely on additional observations.
Science would say no such thing because it can't. There is no "evidence" one way or the other, because the concept of god can not be sufficiently defined to make it a concept with sufficient meaning or relevance to make any testable assertion that could be disproved with an observation. Hence, the notion of calculating a meaningful or likelihood function that could in some undefined way be evaluated for such a nebulous concept is little more than a fool's errand.
"Skeptics doubt, however, the AGW claim that all or most of the current warming trend is man made or that there's anything we can do to change what's happening."
Perhaps this is because the so-called "skeptics" are generally unaware of the fact that humans produce about 300,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually, whereas all the world's volcanoes only produce about 220,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. Consequently, they don't seem to recognize that credible alternative theories concerning the origins of the increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which reflect infrared radiation, are lacking.
Have you ever heard a skeptic explain why all the world's glaciers are melting, if its not getting warmer? Neither have I. I suspect it is because their ideology forces them into skepticism rather than being able to make the observations they need to see the reality that confronts them.
"why should you care what they do or do not believe in?"
Perhaps it is because when you put enough people together, regardless of what they think, they have the potential of screwing things up for everybody. You might say its symptomatic of being human.
"Science can deal with all the domains that religion deals with."
This is not the case. Science can only deal with questions that have answers that are amenable to observation, whether direct or indirect. Since the entire concept of god has no definite meaning or any meaning at all, there is no observation that can be made with regard to such a concept. The entire concept of god is immaterial to science. Its irrelevant.
Science is no more an abstract concept than gravity or evolution are and none are religions, because none require faith to sustain them, only observation from the natural world.
Slashdot Mirror
One important difference between science and religion with respect to the power of explanation is that although science can never say anything with 100% certainty, with repeated observations science can approach 100% certainty with as much precision as practically required. Religion on the other hand can not only not say anything with 100% certainty, it can never increase either the precision or the accuracy of its conclusions.
"but any discussion of "anti-science" shouldn't be taking sides else it falls into the trap it purports to study."
The point that Otto seems to be making is that ultimately, whatever the science, it has a political dimension since science by its very nature is about unlocking the mystery and unexpected within things we had previously "thought" we understood. It does not lie within a single cycle of the application of the scientific method, but it does begin to "creep into" how and in which subsequent directions further experimentation manifests itself. Consequently, as is the case for all human activity, humans, whether they are scientists or not, have no choice but to take sides and live with the consequences. Its not something from which we can escape. Humans will face natural selection as a result of these consequences whether one "believes" it or not. This is what distinguishes Darwinian "[Scientific] Theory" from a mere hypothesis. At least with science, one has the perhaps vain hope that it will have been the "wisest" choice that could have possibly been made at the time and by "wisest" I mean providing the opportunity to try another experiment and extend knowledge further.
Otto's book is a bit slow in parts and does tend to focus on only a few contemporary anti-science issues, however it is interesting reading and does make a number of points well. I haven't quite reached the end yet, but expect to be disappointed by the lack of a more detailed look into the neurophysiology of political decision making. There are hints of this in the book, but so far (as of page 221) only hints. Ultimately, it will be this knowledge, understood at a molecular level from which hope might yet spring. Whether the implementation of the fruits of such research comes soon enough to prevent what will almost certainly be a planetary climatic disaster remains to be seen, but again one can only hope and try to support the science as best as one can.
As for those scientific abstractions having no relevancy to world affairs, just reflect on the effect of the use of the Blacks-Shoals models for computing the risk of derivatives in the most recent collapse of the world economy. Differential equations are funny and highly unpredictable things. Simply because one chooses the wrong parameters hardly makes them irrelevant to mankind's fate.
For a given function, at an inflection point there is no change at all. The slope is zero. You are confusing the first and second derivatives.
Your quote of Asimov summarizes the problem extremely well. Thank you for bring clarity to the issue. Hopefully, others might reflect and learn from your post.
When there is no handy scapegoat blame the teachers so eventually there will be none in the US. The Chinese and our other competitors love this approach.
"Reality is a very malleable thing when it comes to politics."
No, its politics that is malleable, especially in the minds of those who are unable to think critically and scientifically.
Jumping up and down and claiming that AWG is all a hoax or denying that 300,000,000,00 tons of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere annually has no effect on climate, will do little to change the reality that soon the average temperature of the planet will be definitely warmer than today.
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
Yes we should be alert. However, if anti-science thinking like yours permeates the American body politic you can be absolutely sure that that "scientific-technological elite" will be Chinese and European. Keep in mind during the time you are referring to the US has gone from first in science and mathematics education to 29th. If you think your hardy, independent band of scientific tinkerers each huddled in his garage is going to win the race for scientific and technological superiority your future is about as delusional as your ideology.
You obviously don't study much biology do you? Do you have any idea of how rapidly ecosystems are now changing in response to global warming and that given the current pace of change, virtually every ecosystem on the planet will shift to an entirely new one within 300 years? Do you have any idea what will grow in Texas as the ecosystem shifts from one of grasslands to a far hotter and much more arid one like that of the central Sahara?
"The climate is always changing, but human activities might be making it change faster, or to a greater extent, than plants or animals (including humans) can adapt without severe stress or hardship."
When one recognizes that the global mean temperature is rising about 100 times faster than at any point in earth history it becomes evident that human extinction is a very real possibility. For the slow, this recognition will take longer.
"The problem occurs when people start making policy based on fear. "
You mean like when we have to invade Iraq because we don't want the "smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"?
People do all sorts of things out of fear, creating religion because of a fear of death is one of them. You are, however, right problems do come from it and this is precisely why we need to exercise what little reasoning skills we have to avoid it and precisely why we need to recognize that climate change is now primarily human induced and with 7 billion people on the planet pumping more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere it only stands TO REASON that we need to begin to do something about it lest we all soon get very uncomfortably warm and in a few hundreds years time make it almost impossible to find something to eat.
Sounds to me that your reality is so confusing that it has left you baffled and unable to clearly explain what it is you are talking about. The concept of "god" simply has no meaning to scientists, it can mean anything or nothing and hence provides no expectation of any particular outcome. To put it simply, "god" is irrelevant to science as science has no use for such a poorly defined notion.
Religion concerns faith, while faith has no place in science. To say they are not mutually exclusive is wishful thinking at its most vulgar.
"so I'm not sure why people still invoke this claim as support for their position."
Perhaps its because you never read any of Jefferson's writings concerning what he actually thought about the religious.
Just out of curiosity, how did you determine it was a "he"?
Nonsense. Science can often and easily demonstrate that a contradiction exists, permitting one to conclude that either one or both of two contradictory statements can not be true. How such contradictions are to be interpreted depends of course entirely on additional observations.
Science would say no such thing because it can't. There is no "evidence" one way or the other, because the concept of god can not be sufficiently defined to make it a concept with sufficient meaning or relevance to make any testable assertion that could be disproved with an observation. Hence, the notion of calculating a meaningful or likelihood function that could in some undefined way be evaluated for such a nebulous concept is little more than a fool's errand.
"It is a fact that God exists."
"It is a fact that god doesn't exist."
Does it really matter? In either case, its quite irrelevant to science.
The difference is that in religion and sophism fact is taken on faith. In science fact is derived from observations.
"Skeptics doubt, however, the AGW claim that all or most of the current warming trend is man made or that there's anything we can do to change what's happening."
Perhaps this is because the so-called "skeptics" are generally unaware of the fact that humans produce about 300,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually, whereas all the world's volcanoes only produce about 220,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. Consequently, they don't seem to recognize that credible alternative theories concerning the origins of the increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which reflect infrared radiation, are lacking.
Have you ever heard a skeptic explain why all the world's glaciers are melting, if its not getting warmer? Neither have I. I suspect it is because their ideology forces them into skepticism rather than being able to make the observations they need to see the reality that confronts them.
"why should you care what they do or do not believe in?"
Perhaps it is because when you put enough people together, regardless of what they think, they have the potential of screwing things up for everybody. You might say its symptomatic of being human.
"Science can deal with all the domains that religion deals with."
This is not the case. Science can only deal with questions that have answers that are amenable to observation, whether direct or indirect. Since the entire concept of god has no definite meaning or any meaning at all, there is no observation that can be made with regard to such a concept. The entire concept of god is immaterial to science. Its irrelevant.
Science is no more an abstract concept than gravity or evolution are and none are religions, because none require faith to sustain them, only observation from the natural world.
"There is no such thing as correct."
Therefore by your argument 2+2 = 5?
" since it has been proven a few decades ago that the human mind is in fact incapable of rational thinking."
are you suggesting that no mathematical proofs exist? Where is it written?
Yes, but even they will soon find themselves getting uncomfortably warm in the summer. Denial has its limits.