{"id":235,"date":"2013-11-14T17:48:53","date_gmt":"2013-11-14T17:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/?p=235"},"modified":"2013-11-19T18:48:31","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T18:48:31","slug":"scientism-i-no-benzene-in-hell-peewee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/?p=235","title":{"rendered":"Scientism I: “No Benzene in Hell, PeeWee”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"peeweeinthelab\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This will be the first of a number of posts on the \u201cScientism<\/em>\u201d debate. I almost hate to use that term \u201cdebate<\/em>\u201d as if the \u201cjury is still out<\/em>” on that, when I\u2019m really hearing Lewis Black in my head going: \u201cWhat jury, where!?<\/em>\u201d
\n\"Lewis<\/a><\/p>\n

I feel like I\u2019m being overly cautious in the provisional scientific way I\u2019ve been trained to speak, think, report… BUT \u201cand there\u2019s always a BIG BUTT<\/strong>, Pee Wee<\/em>\u201d I personally believe at this point I am convinced that not only is science the only way we have learned anything, but if there is anything that can be answered, it will be answered by science.<\/p>\n

And whatever things there may be about the world that \u201cscience can’t answer\u201d, it is an empirical question yet to be determined that is not decided a priori, even though in our folk psychology we pay lip service constantly to the mantra \u201cwell, science can’t answer everything<\/strong>.<\/em>\u201d
\nI am an unabashed SCIENTISMIST<\/strong>, if there is such a term. <\/p>\n

For an excellent purview of the ongoing discussion of the subject, go to Jerry Coyne’s blog “Why Evolution is True<\/a>“<\/em> and search “scientism”
\nOr go directly to one of the first posts in that long chain by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What other “ways of knowing<\/em>” are there anyway?
\nSuppose you thought of something really clever about the world, a true insight with real intricate detail to it. Stop at that point of purely rational thought, wholly unempirical, and ask yourself, as clever and as highly plausible as your idea may well be, how can it be knowledge without an empirical test of some kind? Until you find your idea actually describes or maps onto the real world, you have only an idea at that point, maybe even a good hunch, but nothing more.<\/p>\n

\"benzene\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Most of us know the legendary story of discovery of the Benzene ring structure by the chemist August Kekule’, where he daydreamed of a snake biting its own tail and it dawned on him that a circular chain structure would explain the properties of this aromatic compound. And that structure has been confirmed, it was correct, it fits, it maps onto the real world. But if it hadn’t, it would be one more plausible and clever, but ultimately wrong idea, and not an instance of new knowledge. You gotta collect the data, do the empirical test. Or there is no knowledge, just speculation.<\/p>\n

Now think of Hell<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"hell\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An Amazon search will get you over 30,000<\/strong> titles on Hell alone!!!
\nAnd this may not include all the multitude of theological works that may also have weighed in on the subject over the centuries… tens of thousands and more??
\nA multitude of authors have written on the subject, most profoundly, most authoritatively, but… and here comes the “BIG BUTT<\/strong> again Pee Wee<\/em>“…
\nTHERE IS NO DATA<\/strong>.
\nTHERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE<\/strong>.
\nNO-ONE HAS EVER<\/em> BEEN THERE<\/strong>.
\nNO EVIDENCE<\/strong> AT ALL OF SUCH A PLACE HAS EVER<\/em> BEEN DISCOVERED<\/strong>.
\nTHERE IS NOTHING<\/strong> TO TALK ABOUT!<\/p>\n

Theology has this problem with any and every thing it professes to investigate and discover. Without any empirical test, one person’s speculation is as unfounded as another. Which explains why there are, according to PEW Research: over 40,000<\/strong> different denominations of Xianity, each with its own untestable interpretation of Scripture, such as: musings about Hell, Gods attributes, angels, original sin, etc, etc ad infinitum, ad nauseum. There is no empirical test of theological musings to decide who is right or wrong, because they don’t describe or map onto the real world.
\nPeeWee or any of the 7 billion plus of us on the planet could go in the lab and confirm the structure of Kekule’s benzene ring.
\nBut not one person on earth has any unearthly idea, that may be called knowledge, about Hell.
\nMore on Hell and Scientism later.<\/p>\n

(747)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This will be the first of a number of posts on the \u201cScientism\u201d debate. I almost hate to use that term \u201cdebate\u201d as if the \u201cjury is still out” on Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,3,2],"tags":[82,80,77,58,81,79,78,76],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wearedone.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}