Ch 7.2 - Science God
"Modern science is based on the principle: give us one free miracle and we will figure out the rest." - Rupert Sheldrake
Narrative: Our universe can be deconstructed through experimentation. Every wonder we see before us, Science God can explain. We can run you through a mass spectrometer and know what you're made of. We can clone you from your DNA. We can look through a telescope and see the Big Bang happened, and now we are just red-shifting along for a ride in an ever-expanding universe. You're the logical result of a bunch of equations. Trust science. Don't you believe in science? It's all entirely rational, and nothing is remarkable about this world, its life, or life itself. There is no soul. You're just an organized collection of atoms.
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a. Hard Science
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Scientific ->
Sci enti fic (Latin) -> Know that it is fiction (English)
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.” - Mark Twain
"The blind man who only touches the elephant's tail, thinks an elephant is a snake, and no amount of reason will convince him otherwise." - Unknown
"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which least is known." - Francis Jeffrey
"The pinnacle of science is being able to independently replicate experiments." - Unknown
“To say a stone is falling to earth is obeying a law is to say it’s a man and maybe even a citizen.” - CS Lewis
”All that I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all that I have not seen.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned". - Richard Feynman
"The average man can't prove most of the things
That he chooses to speak of
And still won't research and find out
The root of the truth that you seek of" - Patience by Damian Marley & Nas
"If the theory doesn't match the observations, its wrong." - Feynman
"Science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel amongst themselves." - Isaac Asimov
“Science isn't meant to be trusted. It's meant to be tested.” - Unknown
"For one thing science doesn't do settled opinions, and for another they are all wrong." - Corbyn
"Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain." - Feynman
"You must always be willing to truly consider evidence that contradicts your beliefs, and admit the possibility that you may be wrong. Intelligence isn't knowing everything, it's the ability to challenge everything you know." - Unknown
"Further, it will not be amiss to distinguish the three kinds and, as it were, grades of ambition in mankind. The first is of those who desire to extend their own power in their native country, a vulgar and degenerate kind. The second is of those who labor to extend the power and dominion of their country among men. This certainly has more dignity, though not less covetousness. But if a man endeavor to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe, his ambition (if ambition it can be called) is without doubt both a more wholesome and a more noble thing than the other two. Now the empire of man over things depends wholly on the arts and sciences. For we cannot command nature except by obeying her." - Francis Bacon
"Unless science is controlled by a greater moral force, it will become the Antichrist prophesied by the early Christians." - Charles Lindbergh
b. Social Science
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“If it has the word science in it's title it's not science. Math is science. Physics is science. Chemistry is science. Economics is at best a pseudo-science. Environmental Science is not science. Social Sciences aren't science either. We need to separate science and state the way we separate church and state.” - Unknown
”Auguste Comte's hierarchy of the sciences, also known as the ‘Great Chain of Being,’ was developed in the 19th century. It proposed a hierarchical order of scientific disciplines based on their complexity and generality. The degree of scientific consensus is highest in the physical sciences (bottom of the pyramid), lowest in the social sciences (top of the pyramid), and intermediate in the biological sciences.
Social Sciences
Psychology
Biology
Biochemistry/Cellular Biology
Chemistry
Physics/Astronomy/Geosciences
Quantum Mechanics
Logic/Math
The purest form of science is logic, closely followed by mathematics (a theorem is a mathematical statement that can be proven true using logic).
The other sciences are significantly less pure. A distant second, third, and fourth are physics (mathematics backed by observation), chemistry, and biology. Scientific laws describe a narrow set of conditions (e.g., Newton's Laws of Motion & Gravitation, Boyle's Law, and Periodic Law). Theories are more expansive descriptions that describe natural phenomena (e.g., Heliocentric Theory, Theory of General Relativity, Theory of Evolution). Both theories and laws should never be held to be unimpeachably true. The only thing that can prove science wrong—which it does all the time—is more science, which is why it's so awesome. It's automatically self-improving. Repeated successful predictions using scientific theories are how scientific laws are made. Actual science is observable, measurable, and repeatable.
Lastly, there are the social’ cannot cope with human goals and values in any scientifically predictable way. Nor can the scientific method be used to determine which goals are values are better or worse.” - Unknown
"Physicists and engineers gave us jets, cell phones, and satellites. Computer scientists gave us computers, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Social scientists gave us implicit bias training, postmodernism, & privilege-checking. I hope we can do better." - Unknown
”Theology is the apex of the science.” - Unknown
“We place no reliance On virgin or pigeon; Our Method is Science, Our Aim is Religion.” - Aleister Crowley, Eight Lectures on Yoga. Crowley invented the religion Thelema and was a known Satanist.
c. Scientists
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"When someone who calls themselves a Scientist or an Educator prostitutes their profession to pander to a political ideology, they are no longer a professional but a partisan political activist. If they are in a position of responsibility, they should be summarily fired from it. This is a particularly acute problem in education and mental and internal medicine, but the contagion reaches as far as astronomy, physics and even mathematics." - Unknown
"Where science gets in trouble is when it meets politics." - Unknown
"I tried to follow the science, but it kept leading me back to the money." - Unknown
”Scientists warn that the world could run out of conspiracy theories by 2025 if they keep coming true at the current rate." - Unknown
"Some of you think you're listening to 'science,' when you're actually listening to paid promotional ads by trillion dollar industries that make up their own science... and the majority of that science benefits them, not you." - Unknown
"The information is there to see. Look it up… Why look up their made-up data when you can make up your own?" - Unknown
"Five out of six scientists have proven that Russian roulette is harmless." - Unknown
"97% of Scientists agree with whoever is funding them. The other 3% are banned from social media." - Unknown
"The best part of the post 2020 era is that the time of blind faith and trust in people who carry titles and have letters after their name is finished. Discernment, intuition and critical thinking is now compulsory." - @joelratidi
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts" — Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
"let's not bother deferring to studies and THE SCIENCE, that is just dressing your opinion with an air of authority" - Unknown, <---This. It's a copout. Think for yourselves.
"You can only have ten people at your house because... science. You can only have one child because... science. You can only have 1 lb of red meat per week because... science. You can only drive 10 miles each day because... science. Science can be used to justify anything. Because remember, science is a tool. Humans can find evidence or data to support whatever claim they want to make. Start with first principles. What is your foundation? What are you not willing to give up, regardless of what science says? Start there." - Unknown
"When you take a position that is at odds with the scientific clerisy, your life becomes a living hell." - Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
"The basic premise is that if you don't have protection and academic freedom in the hard cases, when a faculty member has an idea that's unpopular among some of the other faculty – powerful faculty, or even the administration … If they don't protect it in that case, then you don't have academic freedom at all." - Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
"Science is what it is. It takes humans to distort it." - Unknown
“We have to move at the speed of science. Well, what is the speed of science? Cars move in mph. Boats move in knots per hour. Science moves in dollars per second.” - Unknown
"What is science? People talk glibly about science. What is science? People coming out of a university with a master's degree or a PhD you take them into the field and they literally don't believe anything unless it's been in a peer reviewed paper. It's the only thing they accept. And you say to them, let's observe, let's think, let's discuss - they don't do it. It's just, is it in a peer reviewed paper or not? That't their view of science. I think it's pathetic. Going into universities as bright young people they come out brain dead not even knowing what science means. They think it means peer reviewed papers, etc. No! That's academia. And if a paper is peer reviewed it means everybody has thought the same therefore they approved it. An unintended consequence is when new knowledge emerges, new scientific insights, they can never, ever be peer reviewed. So we're blocking new advances in science that are big advances. If you look at the breakthroughs in science almost always they don't come from the center of the profession, they come from the fringe. People see it differently. The finest candlemakers in the world could not even think of electric lights. They don't come from within they often come from outside the breaks. We're going to kill ourselves because of stupidity." - Allan Savory on Science being replaced by Scientism in schools
"The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.” - Michael Crichton
“Science is NEVER democratic because a single person asking the right question can overturn all the experts. Science is not based on consensus, it is based on what is provable and repeatable, whether the bulk of the people want it to be that way, or agree it is that way, or not. Of course, over time, what is provable and repeatable becomes the consensus, but that is not what makes it correct and certainly not what makes it science. When a new theory is proposed, if it is correct, it is correct even if 99.9999% of the experts think it is wrong.” - Unknown
"Scientists who support silencing opposing voices are actually priests." - Unknown
"Science requires skepticism. Religion requires belief." - Unknown
"We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic.” – David Russell
"Just a reminder that when you ask 'for a source.' You are demanding that someone obtain consensus from the managerial class before seeking truth. Peer review isn't empiricism. It isn't rationalism. It's pure and simple consensus from managerial technocrats. If I'm gardening and I make an observation and note it, that's empiricism. If I apply logical and cogent thought to my garden, that's rational. If I use my inner eye to gather some principles from the garden, that's intuition. Citing a peer a reviewed source is just PMC approval. Contrary to popular belief, peer review is a *recent* intrusion on science. Seminal discoveries from general relativity to the shape of the double helix were not peer-reviewed. Peer review is the way PMCs control science." - Unknown
"Guide to Science Vocabulary in 2023:
CT = Intentionally studied the wrong thing
expert = salesperson
FDA approved = oh, sh*t
follow the science = don't follow the money
meta study = opinion laundering
not FDA approved = hmm, maybe
peer reviewed = coin flip
pro science = anti-science" - Unknown
d. Problem Science
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"10 dogmas: The Default Worldview
1) universe is like a machine - people are lumbering robots/brains are genetically programmed computers
2) matter is unconscious
3) laws of nature are fixed - constants were fixed at the big bang
4) total amount of matter and energy always the same - never changes in quantity
5) nature is purposeless
6) biological heredity is material
7) memories are material - they are stored materially in the brain
8) mind is inside your head - just brainwaves
9) psychic phenomena are impossible - mind inside head and all evidence is illusion
10) mechanistic medicine is only kind that works - alternative therapies can’t work" - Rupert Sheldrake, from his banned TEDx Talk - The Science Delusion on the dogmatic assumptions inhibiting scientific inquiry.
Sheldrake believes every dogma is questionable and the laws of nature may not be fixed. Big G - gravitational constant varies by 1.3% (depending on when measured, the machine used, and location). The speed of light was fixed by definition in 1972 by meteorologists (people who study constants), even though observations still vary. Genes may be overrated (account for proteins that are made, not shape or form, or behavior).
He also believes the most unsolved problem is the nature of the human mind because thoughts don’t seem to be inside the brain. What you see is inside your mind but not inside your head. For example, people and animals can somehow can feel each other’s gaze.
Finally, he introduces a concept he calls morphic resonance. Rats learn a trick quicker once the first one learns it. Crystals and new compounds get easier to make as you make more. Everything in nature has a collective memory.
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