The Scientific Worldview
A worldview/weltanschauung is a particular take on the world at large, shaped, it seems, by what one regards as truths which are then adopted and become a system of beliefs that bear on our attitude, our behavior, broadly on our relationship with ourselves and the world beyond our selves.
To give you a taste of the essence of what a worldview is I suggest we look at theists and, the opposite, atheists. Clearly these two camps see the world very differently and it shows in the way they live their respective lives - theists plan for an afterlife and do what's prescribed by whatever religion they happen to believe and atheists don't.
Another such worldview is the scientific worldview. The scientific worldview is one built around so-called scientific truths.
As I see it, the scientific worldview has acquired a special status in the modern world - like the joke that ends with the line, "the boss is always right", the prevailing opinion is that "science is always right". Perhaps this privileged position is not unearned - it has repeatedly proven itself over the centuries since Copernicus kickstarted the scientific revolution.
Perhaps I made a mistake, I don't know, but I was in the midst of a discussion and water came up as a topic. I unwittingly made the remark that aqua = water = H2O and then it dawned on me that though people may disagree on what water is in terms of its role in a given worldview, people seem reluctant to disagree that, according to chemistry (science), water is H2O? This is clear proof, in my opinion, that the scientific worldview receives such respect that it even serves as an arbiter in disputes between competing worldviews.
This state of affairs in re the scientific worldview begs an explanation and the one that comes to mind is that scientific claims are considered incontrovertible truths, very unlike claims made by other worldviews.
My question is whether this is acceptable or not? Why?
To give you a taste of the essence of what a worldview is I suggest we look at theists and, the opposite, atheists. Clearly these two camps see the world very differently and it shows in the way they live their respective lives - theists plan for an afterlife and do what's prescribed by whatever religion they happen to believe and atheists don't.
Another such worldview is the scientific worldview. The scientific worldview is one built around so-called scientific truths.
As I see it, the scientific worldview has acquired a special status in the modern world - like the joke that ends with the line, "the boss is always right", the prevailing opinion is that "science is always right". Perhaps this privileged position is not unearned - it has repeatedly proven itself over the centuries since Copernicus kickstarted the scientific revolution.
Perhaps I made a mistake, I don't know, but I was in the midst of a discussion and water came up as a topic. I unwittingly made the remark that aqua = water = H2O and then it dawned on me that though people may disagree on what water is in terms of its role in a given worldview, people seem reluctant to disagree that, according to chemistry (science), water is H2O? This is clear proof, in my opinion, that the scientific worldview receives such respect that it even serves as an arbiter in disputes between competing worldviews.
This state of affairs in re the scientific worldview begs an explanation and the one that comes to mind is that scientific claims are considered incontrovertible truths, very unlike claims made by other worldviews.
My question is whether this is acceptable or not? Why?
Comments (45)
:sad:
This is absolutely NOT the prevailing opinion, especially among scientists.
Yeah, no it's the opposite, some scientific theories are only considered 'the best theory we currently have' so long as there is no data to the contrary... and people are constantly and actively looking for data that might not fit those theories.
Over the years a number of theories have passed that test so many times, that people have come to consider them 'incontrovertible truths'. Which is why they currently have the authority they do. There's nothing wrong with that in itself, I'd say.
What maybe is a problem, to be charitable to your post, is that because of these succes, science has gotten an aura that might be abused and a bit overused at times. Abused for example in political discourse or pseudo-sciences, and overused maybe in cases like morality where it's isn't entirely clear that the scientific method necessarily would be a good method for it.
Quoting TheMadFool
The Copernican Revolution certainly changed our worldview from a central position to an outlying position. I would give kudos to Galileo for starting the Scientific Revolution in that he laid out the rules of the scientific method which is basically a cohesion of Rationalism and Empiricism.
With an understanding that we live in a shared world that follows the same rules for all of us then there should be some similarities in how we experience the world. Quantum theory may be trying to explain the calculus of how we are both experiencers of the world as well as active participants in the world simply by experiencing it. Our experiences are caused and are then causes of events in the world.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
Isn't that part of the scientific method?
I think what we're getting at is that the scientific method is open-minded. It accepts that present scientific explanations might not always be the best, and that there might be a better explanation. This explains why science is the default method - because it simply accepts any testable hypothesis that has been tested numerous times and still has predictive power. Every time you use your smartphone you are testing the science that the technology is based on.
So the only qualifier is that the hypothesis is testable by every human being (even on other organisms in the biological sciences). If it isn't, how can we say that what we know is useful for other human beings?
Yes it is.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I don't disagree, but I think what OP is getting at is not so much the scientific method itself, but how it is received and use more widely in our societies.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I wouldn't say every human being, because testing a theory can become very technical and expensive, but you need to be able to verify it with empirical data, yes.
Quoting Harry Hindu
In the last statement, the quote, there's the indication that when science gets it right it does get it right and there can be no dissent unless you want to be called a lunkhead.
A hypothesis is a scientific opinion. It becomes fact after it has been tested by numerous human beings numerous times.
Quoting TheMadFool
So is the question then how do you know you have the right answer even after making all possible mistakes? I guess it determines how you define how you arrive at right answers as opposed to wrong ones. I think there's a thread somewhere around here about that.
Exactly, science has the reputation of being the purveyor of, as you put it, facts. Why is it in this exalted position?
Well yeah, if it has been tested countless of times over years, than maybe they have a point in calling dissenters lunkheads. It's like running your head into a wall over and over again, that IMHO qualifies as lunkhead behaviour.
Because the knowledge the scientific method delivers has proven itself to be reliable on countless occasions.
What's not reliable, and very much in question, is the degree to which human beings can successfully manage new knowledge. If I have a very reliable method of growing potatoes, it doesn't automatically follow that therefore I should eat as many potatoes as I can, as fast as I can.
What's confusing about science is that the methodology is very rational, but our relationship with that methodology is not.
And why should they disagree? Is there some alternative that makes more sense?
Generally speaking science is true or close to the truth. But truth about what? About primitive aspects of the physical world. Science and mathematics are primitive and can't answer the more sublime ontological questions about being and meaning. Lately scientists have had the temerity to pronounce upon all manner of things that are, let's face it, above their pay grade. Dawkins & Co. making philosophically juvenile remarks about God, religion and spirituality etc. It is amusing, even comical. Dawkins is not a good philosopher. Hawking is far far worse. Very often scientists making comments about greater things are like mechanics, who presume their knowledge about engines, entitles them to pronounce upon literature. It don't work that way.
Quoting jgill
For me the problem is not about science versus religion, per se. It is about knowledge and about ways to knowledge. Some people claim that the only acceptable kind of knowledge is primitive, intellectual, verifiable knowledge that can be shared and 'proved'. Others say there are other ways to knowledge (eg consciousness). The question is: is science the only way to knowledge? That's really what the division is about.
Let's separate natural water (with minerals and salts) and laboratory water (H2O).
Further, the balanced formula for laboratory water:
H2O + H2O <-> H3O+ + OH- (water + water to and from ammonium ion and hydroxide ion)
Couldn't agree more. Well said.
The problem is that scientists have done an excellent job of providing us with all kinds of goodies, and so naturally they have acquired significant authority. And most people most of the time on most subjects don't think things through for themselves but look for some source of authority to reference. So when anyone who has accumulated a lot of authority says something, a lot of folks are going to simply nod and agree.
When it comes to science, this is a very dangerous business. While scientists are very sophisticated about developing knowledge, they tend on average to be quite unsophisticated about our relationship that knowledge. And so they typically use the authority they have earned by developing knowledge to sell us a simplistic primitive theory that more knowledge is always better.
It's entirely reasonable to debate how much knowledge we can successfully manage. But it's ridiculous to assume that human beings can successfully manage any amount of knowledge delivered at any rate. Sooner or later, somehow or another, we're going to pay dearly for blindly clinging to such notions.
The usual setup is to compare Objective Facts (science) to Subjective Faith (religion). But religious believers don't accept that their Faith is mere opinion. Instead, they think their information comes from the highest authority, by direct revelation to prophets such as Jesus and Mohammed. Ironically, where all scientists can agree on the chemistry of H^2O, few religions can agree on what makes the water in a church font more holy than water in a well.0
I suppose it was the universal acceptance of such pragmatic natural Facts that promoted mundane Science to its "exalted position" as the sole arbiter of truth about the world of here & now. Unfortunately, Jesus and Mohammed --- whose pronouncements are taken as "incontrovertible" --- are not nearly so unanimous in their "opinions" about the supernatural world. :cool:
So, you think the scientific worldview is, to say the least, closer to the truth than other worldviews?
Quoting Harry Hindu
So, you too share the same sentiment; the scientific worldview is, let's say, at the top of the list of worldviews i.e. it's the best one?
Quoting Nuke
What do you mean?
Quoting EnPassant
Why are these other worldviews, you mentioned religion, fading away while science seems to flourishing?
Quoting EnPassant
Yes. What other paths to knowledge are there?
Quoting Gnomon
:up:
Yes I do, but I want to say that other worldviews don't necessarily have a whole lot to do with truth. That's not their primary function, I don't think. They're usually more metaphorical than literal.
Why are there more atheists in this day and age than in the past? What makes people give up a religious worldview, if not that it's about being grounded (in facts/truths)?
Because Chistianity had Truth as one of its core values and ate its own tail... in short :-).
Also because the Christians lost their power over the state, so now they can't force everyone in society to be at least nominally Christian.
Someone said that if a fellow says three clever things, he is considered a genius. Scientists have become the high priests of the materialistic world view and their authority concerning primitive truths makes people think they are an authority on all kinds of matters.
Quoting TheMadFool
Many are now turning against the materialistic philosophy. I guess the people who are not really religious were always there, they are just coming out of the closet.
Quoting TheMadFool
Consciousness. Many say that knowledge about spiritual reality and God can enter the mind, directly. This is the real division: the materialists say that only the intellect is a way to knowledge. Others say consciousness is also a way. The materialists reject this, often by putting up a woo argument.
There is also a difference between the kinds of knowledge we are talking about. Science is concerned with primitive knowledge about material things. Consciousness is concerned with knowledge about life and being.
Science develops knowledge. True.
More knowledge is automatically better. False.
Knowledge needs to be combined with wisdom. That's where 'religion' comes in.
Wisdom will never be able to keep up with knowledge. Knowledge grows exponentially, while wisdom grows incrementally at best. Thus, the gap between wisdom and knowledge (ie. power) grows ever wider, ever faster.
Religion brings wisdom? Tell that to a young girl being stoned to death for becoming pregnant. :worry:
Quoting EnPassant
Science vs consciousness? Scientists are not conscious? :roll:
It is an interesting topic in philosophy generally and philosophy of science in particular. At issue are some of the foundational moves made by, and on the basis of works by, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton, in particular. And one of them is the analysis of scientific problems in mathematical terminology based on measurement of the so-called 'primary qualities' of mass, velocity, acceleration, and so on. Concomitant with this was the designation of other qualities - color, taste, appearance - to the realm of secondary qualities which are said to be in the mind of the observer. And also concomitant is the emergence of the dichotomy between facts and values, as famously articulated by David Hume, which ultimately comes down to the fact that no analysis of what measurably so, can be used to justify what ought to be. Finally there was Descartes' division of mind and body, physical and mental, as separate realms or domains.
That was the modern 'scientific worldview' in a nutshell (although it has begun to shift). But the basic issue is that a methodological axiom, which is, only to deal with what can be known and measured mathematically, has morphed into a metaphysical attitude, which is only that which can be known by those means is real. That reached it highest (or lowest) point with the Vienna Circle positivists. Again, that kind of extreme positivism has fallen out of favour, but it's still implicit in a lot of modern thinking.
So the point is the extent to which the scientific worldview is based on 'objectification', or the definition of the problems of philosophy only in terms of that which is amenable to objective measurement (hence the constant appeal to 'objectivity'). I've recently been reading some of Schrodinger's later philosophical works on that, specifically his chapter on The Principle of Objectification, in his 'What is Life'? It seems to me he (and Heisenberg) in particular became very much aware of the implicit assumptions behind objectifification, as a consequence of the radical discoveries they were both involved in the early 20th century. That marks a point where the modernist assumption of the separation between observer and observed began to crumble. And with it your neat divisions between subjective and objective, fact and value.
Quoting Marchesk
It seems that facts are not on the side of some worldviews e.g. religious ones. Religion was so prominent in history primarily because, as Marchesk pointed out, it had "power over the state" and probably had a very "effective" thought police corps. Once the power waned, religion lost control over people who, quite naturally, began to question religious doctrine and looked to other forms of acquiring knowledge of our world - rationality and empiricism. Naturalism began to overtake revelation and this trend is continuing to the present day.
The question is, are some worldviews so out of step with facts that they're doomed to go out of fashion as people gather more and more information? Alternatively, is it a must that worldviews always have to conform to facts? I mean religion these days has the reputation of being out of touch with reality and to that extent undesirable but that doesn't detract from its history as the most popular worldview for over two thousand years now. Isn't this proof that worldviews needn't always be fact-based?
Quoting EnPassant
You make it look like humans are devolving into lower and lower states of intelligence. Why do you call scientific truths, "primitive truths"? As far as anyone can tell, science is the new kid on the block and that kid seems to be leading the vanguard in our quest for knowledge.
Indeed, factoring in our monumental ignorance, despite our loud claims that humans have accumulated vast amounts of knowledge, it would be prudent and a sign of wisdom on our part to not be so quick to dismiss nonscientific domains e.g. religion, spirituality, etc. as nonsensical hogwash.
It seems people conflate science with rationality; not surprising since science is the poster boy of rationality. However the two are different. All science is rational but not all that's rational is science. I say this because, if memory serves, Thomas Aquinas and perhaps other religious figures too put in a great deal of [rational] effort to prove the existence of an immaterial spiritual dimension. Science, by and large, belongs to the materialistic tradition and outright rejects the spiritual and immaterial, which is fine so far as the physical world is at stake but is an impoverished outlook once we reckon possibilities, possibilities of things beyond what our senses can perceive.
It was easier to say the universe was created in 7 days in a time where we had no clue how the world came to be.
They need to be facts based insofar that makes them convincing enough for people to belief in, I suppose.
That's why some religious people go through all the trouble of reworking the creation story into intelligent design. That at least has some semblance of being in accordance with scientific findings.
Quoting TheMadFool
So, the answer is a "yes"? Thanks.
No technically the answer is, no.... if only a yes or no answer will do :-). They need to "appear" to conform to facts... not they have to conform to facts.
Why "go through all the trouble" unless it's a pressing concern?
I don't mean primitive in a cultural sense I mean it in a physical, abstract sense. Science and mathematics are involved with the most basic primitive truths about the physical world and about abstraction. If society is a passenger liner, scientists are down in the engine room. The distinguished guests are in the upper decks, listening to opera and discussing more evolved things.
You are being a little selective in your portrayal of religion. I'm talking about religion properly understood, in particular mysticism. People need to be intelligent and moral about how they practice religion.
Quoting jgill
Some of them are more conscious than so called religious people. I'm talking about consciousness of spiritual reality.
Aah! Makes sense. Would the distinguished guests be keeping an ear out for strange sounds coming from the engine room?
Quoting TheMadFool
So, the answer is "no".
Not sure what you mean. What I'm saying is that science is about the nuts and bolts. But there's more to life and being than primitive truths. Of course it is possible for scientists to think in less primitive, reductive ways but I think that a reductive, scientific mind-set, by itself, cannot answer ontological questions convincingly.
So far anyhow, that's why we are in the fix we are in. Maybe the future will be better than this.
Because science is so inextricably bound to the modernizing of medicine and augmenting of recreation, maybe many have a notion that its advancement in general is directly proportional to standard of living. Lurking beneath this assumption is the pernicious manipulation of materialistic categories to obscure introspective or traditionally "spiritual" truths we must acknowledge if social life is to be adequately cohesive, fulfilling, nonnihilistic, conscientiously and effectively activist.
The political corruption of religion that hypocrisized its doctrines swung the pendulum more towards radical sense-perceptual empiricism with its upstart intellectual integrity and away from spiritual solidarity in communities of the West, but this didn't become conquest until the advent of massive medical, surgical and entertainment technology improvements. In the present day, recently won, 20th century scientific authority has become our corruptedly dominant institution of cultural imperialism, with materialism being one of its go to hypocritical doctrines of ideological control. Seems that whenever a paradigm meets with massive success, it inexorably transforms into a huge bane to the population from an engendering of excessive faith.
I think science is undeniably indispensable, but the synergy of power and dogmatizing can always be a problem.
Isn't this just another pernicious idea? To find comfort in fiction rather than in facts? Of course one is sometimes pushed to make a difficult choice - enjoy in a fool's paradise or a suffer in a wise man's hell?
The issue at the height of Western political religiosity during the Middle Ages was its fomentation of mob mentality that undermined activist solidarity by instigating irrationality and violence, as in crusades, pogroms, persecutions, rampant superstition, and leadership's promotion of concepts anathema to fact-based, collectivized, common sense objectivity. This could only work for so long since oppressed majorities always hold the true power, and when the situation inevitably became unsettled enough, large-scale upheaval ensued, the Reformation.
The 21st century issue is a compromising of activist solidarity in populations that are being atomized by both financial mechanisms and a consumerist enculturation stimulating citizens to place more value on wealth than either the health of their communities or the cognitive actualizing of individuals via dissemination of accurate information, also a cause of much irrationality and violence. Could we again reach Reformation-level unrest if social participation continues to be foiled?
Even if you don't care about the deconstructive psychologism and only want basic fact, it seems apparent we've got a long-standing problem that might actually be solvable with enough analysis. This could probably be a dissertation, I don't claim to have that level of knowledge, but a perspective worth considering I think.