Science As Religion

Nice to see things like this at Slate. Everyone who “marched” yesterday should read it. Didn’t like the “science deniers” reference in last graf, though.

[Tuesday-morning update]

The “March For Science” failed, as demonstrated by its own signs:

Time to brush up on your social science, Science Guy. You too, Astrophysicist Dr. DeGrasse Tyson. You too, all ye faithful March for Science marchers, all ye believers in Truth, Science, and the Objective Way. Beware your own version of science denial. The idea has not developed “somehow”, “along the way”, that belief is informed by more than just what science says. Modern humans have always interpreted the facts based on deep values and meanings, affective filters imbuing the facts with an emotional valence that plays a huge part in determining what ultimately arises as our view of THE TRUTH.

Tyson and others are profoundly (and willfully) ignorant of philosophy. Belief in an objective reality is a critical element of the scientific method, but it’s just a belief, not the “truth.”

8 thoughts on “Science As Religion”

  1. Quite the thoughtful article. But not the only one I see in the leftist media. That, I assume, is why Rand reads them.

  2. The scientific method itself is already under constant attack from within the scientific community

    It isn’t science. It’s politics, which is about ‘getting your way.’

    Who is it that focuses on getting their way? Children. This is all about adults abdicating their responsibility.

  3. I read at another site that some pro-life people attended and carried signs with photos showing the development of fetuses in the womb. They were not well-received.

    1. People always say you don’t need to be religious to be a good person, and I agree, but then there are those who say good people can’t be pro-life. You don’t have to be religious to respect life and science shouldn’t be free of ethics.

  4. The best part about the ‘March for Science’ is the complete lack of understanding just what makes up scientific principles and the scientific method. Look at the signs and you see (a) lots of ‘pie in the sky’ thoughts, straight out of fairy tales and/or (b) purely political messages – which are completely non-scientific.

  5. Time to brush up on your social science, Science Guy. You too, Astrophysicist Dr. DeGrasse Tyson. You too, all ye faithful March for Science marchers, all ye believers in Truth, Science, and the Objective Way. Beware your own version of science denial. The idea has not developed “somehow”, “along the way”, that belief is informed by more than just what science says. Modern humans have always interpreted the facts based on deep values and meanings, affective filters imbuing the facts with an emotional valence that plays a huge part in determining what ultimately arises as our view of THE TRUTH.

    The author beat around the bush a bit. It isn’t that the “enlightened tribe” needs to realize how other people can think different thoughts but that the “enlightened tribe” needs to understand how their own thoughts are formed. But when people view themselves as a few rungs up on the evolutionary ladder, understanding their own foibles of human nature really isn’t that important.

    The marchers are not self aware. They don’t get to claim science for themselves and excommunicate everyone who disagrees with them from appreciating science. The march was explicitly political and had zero to do with science.

    1. The article itself falls into that pit. He thinks he knows the truth, but that others do not share his viewpoint for purely psychological reasons. His point seems to be that getting through to those operating under a sense of illusion requires recognizing the science of perception.

      He doesn’t seem to suspect for a moment that it might be he who is operating under a sense of illusion.

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