Notice: This is the official website of the All Empires History Community (Reg. 10 Feb 2002)

  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Register Register  Login Login

Philosophical Traditions
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  <12
Author
  Share Topic Share Topic  Topic Search Topic Search  Topic Options Topic Options
Odin View Drop Down
Shogun
Shogun
Avatar

Joined: 04-Apr-2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 211 		  Quote Odin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Philosophical Traditions
    Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 00:07
Originally posted by Odin

Originally posted by Paul

Originally posted by Odin

I loathe Post-Modernism with every fiber of my being. As a scientist I find the notion that there is no such thing as truth to be rubbish.
 
Post modernism doesn't deny there's a truth, in fact it acknowledges there's more truth today than there's ever been in history.
 
In fact every for single thing in existance you can imagine there are at least a thousand truths around, all of them contradictary to one another.
 

Postmodernisn isn't interested in any of these truths, it's interested in analysing the mechanisms and justifications believers of one of these truths use to say theirs is the correct one and all others wrong.
 
So of course scientist don't like postmodernism, because postmodernism says to scientists; Prove it... That is not prove your truths using your methodology, but prove your methodolgy itself.
 
When a religious group finds a truth, they prove it using their methodology, revelation from god, scripture so on. Proving something with your own methodolgy is invalid, so you have to prove the methodology itself. Prove scripture, prove God.
 
Scientists believe they are in a special privilaged position that they should simply say "we're scientists" and be believed unquestioningly and be exempt from the scrutiny of methodology placed on other groups.
 
Postmodernists say to scientists when they find a truth, prove your methodolgy. Don't prove your truth using logic, impiricism and rationality, that's like a bible basher using god and scripture. Prove logic, rationalism and impiricism themselves, and show these are not simply mystical beliefs.
 
Your just using gobbly-gok (use of gobbly-gok is standard issue for you guys) to say there is no truth without actually saying it directly. The scientific method isn't comparable to religion. Religion is about blind faith in dogma, the scierntific method is a process of trial and error of competing educated guesses. It makes the least number of assumptions without going to the reductio ad absurdum that is postmodernism
 
To paraphrase Richard Dawkins: If you are on an airplane flying at 35,000 feet you better have faith in have engineers who use information gathered using the scientific method, if you go into a nose dive no amount of prayer to your god will help you.
"Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now."

-Arnold J. Toynbee
Back to Top
flyingzone View Drop Down
Caliph
Caliph
Avatar

Joined: 11-Dec-2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2630 		  Quote flyingzone Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 01:10
Even though science is the privileged way of knowledge in most of the contemporary cultures, it shouldn't be exempt from the same kind of rigour that social thinkers use to unravel the basis of power-knowledge in other institutions. By reading, for example, the ethnography of laboraties, the economics of pharmaceutical research, history of physics and psychiatry, one can uncover many hidden meanings that are not immediately evident to members of the scientific community themselves.
 
No one is saying that science is "wrong" because, while it CAN BE wrong here and there, ultimately it does work, as illustrated by Dawkins's quote. However, to say that a scientist, because of what he or she does, should be exempt from the hermeneutical examination of reality is very arrogant and pre-Kuhnian thinking. A scientist, like everyone else, comes to the scientific process with a lot of mental baggage, including values, ideas about the proper method, and a great deal of prior knowledge about what others have already claimed to have discovered. What one should conclude about science is that, it does have its subjective elements in it. It can come up with false answers. However, given the truth finding, testing mechanisms of science, our mistakes could be corrected. I have faith in science, more than anything else, as a process, but not as "the truth" itself.
 
Back to Top
Paul View Drop Down
General
General
Avatar
AE Immoderator

Joined: 21-Aug-2004
Location: Hyperborea
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 952 		  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2006 at 06:34
Originally posted by Odin

 
To paraphrase Richard Dawkins: If you are on an airplane flying at 35,000 feet you better have faith in have engineers who use information gathered using thescientific method, if you go into a nose dive no amount of prayer to your god will help you.
 
 
If you were a patient laying on an operating table about to be cut open. Would you rather have a surgeon using information gathered by universal method: trial and error, observation, experience, having done it before and visual data or would you prefer a surgeon using theorectical impiricism: I deduce this.. this and this.. which allows me to deduce this and hyphesize this.... we'll see if it's true now, pass the knife...
 
 
 
Originally posted by Odin

Your just using gobbly-gok (use of gobbly-gok is standard issue for you guys) to say there is no truth without actually saying it directly. The scientific method isn't comparable to religion. Religion is about blind faith in dogma, the scierntific method is a process of trial and error of competing educated guesses. It makes the least number of assumptions without going to the reductio ad absurdum that is postmodernism
 
This is a quasi religious reaction and statement, itself.


Edited by Paul - 29-Jul-2006 at 06:41
Light blue touch paper and stand well back

http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk

http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  <12

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Bulletin Board Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 9.56a [Free Express Edition]
Copyright ©2001-2009 Web Wiz

This page was generated in 0.078 seconds.