I have two kinds of opposition on this board.

On one side is the group that says what’s the big deal with pointing out the obvious. Of course Science has no morals/ethics/values, it not supposed to. That’s not its role. If you want that, look somewhere else. That’s like saying science doesn’t offer advice on Paris Hilton’s wardrobe selection. Of course not.

And on the other side are the ones who say Science tells us everything we need to know. If science can not provide convincing evidence, then it is imagination, folklore, pretend stuff.

Here is my position:

If you want the best knowledge and understanding, go for science every time. By best, I mean quantity and quality. If you want a lot of it, that is very dependable, go for science.

Here’s the catch.

Science does not even attempt to provide answers in some areas. There are areas out of the domain of Science. Sorry to break your bubbles, members of the second group.
Science can not do it all, is not supposed to do it all, does not try to do it all.

There are some posters who know, to a very high degree of certainty, that there are not absolute moral laws in the universe (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=78423).

They really have no doubt, except possibly to say, ’Well, anything is possible, yeah I guess it could be possible, with odds of like one in a million or one in a billion’.

To say they have a strong belief is, I believe, an understatement. By their statements, their conviction and resolution in this matter is extremely high. If I have it wrong, someone needs to speak up. I’m not saying everyone has this level of belief, but the vocal ones do.

In another thread I said I had knowledge of my family members, and the reply came back that is impossible, knowledge is a scientific term, and it is not reasonable I would have scientific knowledge of my family members.

So, here in this philosophy section, I am going to use the word “know” (and it forms), as being part of knowledge, in the philosophical sense. My Encarta says “general awareness or possession of information, facts, ideas, truths, or principles”.
I would want to modify this to say:

Knowledge: A specific awareness by an individual of things that are believed to be true, due to evidence that has convinced the mind.

This is of course a subjective usage of the word, but I want a term that applies to those things people believe to be true, with more conviction than the connotations of belief. I concede that in the end, this usage for knowledge I propose, is really only a belief.

It has been pointed out numerous times that there is no scientific proof. I do not want to deviate from that position in this thread. Therefore, I propose a special kind of knowledge, called scientific knowledge.

Scientific knowledge has, as its mind convincing evidence, acceptance by the scientific community. Science has show the probability of truth is so high, the scientific community overwhelmingly considers it true. Only the extremes in and out of the scientific community doubt the truthfulness.

So here is what we have.

What is the convincing evidence there are no absolute moral laws?
What is it that gives some individuals the knowledge that the conduct of the moral actions of individuals is relative to time or culture, and not absolute?

Most importantly, does anyone offer scientific knowledge their knowledge is 'better' than competing views?

That was an excellent question.

Most importantly, does anyone offer scientific knowledge their knowledge is 'better' than competing views?

I'd say that there are some here that write about different views about the general knowledge of science but none I have ever read claim that there's was a better way to look at whatever it was they were writing about....only a different view.

Scientific knowledge has, as its mind convincing evidence, acceptance by the scientific community. Science has show the probability of truth is so high, the scientific community overwhelmingly considers it true. Only the extremes in and out of the scientific community doubt the truthfulness.I quibble with that wording, which is in any case not your own but commonly used. Science doesn't have a good word to substitute for "true" in that sentence, which is an illustration of what I consider a big problem: Scientists don't put enough effort into communicating clearly with laymen.

When I state the principle in question, I borrow the language of the courtroom: "True beyond a reasonable doubt." This means that it is reasonable to assume the truth of science's canonical theories because so few of them are disproved, and so infrequently, that the scientific canon is in no danger of toppling. An analogy I gave in another thread is: It is not impossible that a skyscraper will fall over and squash you while you're waiting for a bus. But the probability of that is so low that it would be unreasonable for you to reorganize your life to avoid ever standing within the fall radius of a skyscraper. Even the WTC did not topple over.

To say, "the scientific community overwhelmingly considers it true," is a less precise way of saying, more appropriately, "all scientists agree that the probability of its falsification is so small as to be reasonably dismissed, but nonetheless some give it a higher probability than others."What is the convincing evidence there are no absolute moral laws?I'm one of the hard-core defenders of science on SciForums and even I don't agree that there are no absolute moral laws. In fact, on the contrary I say that science itself--the "soft science" of anthropology--yields one overriding absolute moral law: The maintenance of civilization is of overriding importance to our species, and any activities or conditions that impede that maintenance or, worse, reverse the advance of civilization must be reduced to the lowest level possible.What is it that gives some individuals the knowledge that the conduct of the moral actions of individuals is relative to time or culture, and not absolute?Paradigm Shifts. The definition of a paradigm includes a shift in morality. Steven Pinker explained it well. (See the thread "Are we living in the least violent times in history" in Human Science.) In the Mesolithic Era, when we were still a pack-social species, morality had to center on the survival of the pack. He offers a persuasive argument why Mesolithic people had to regard other packs as competitors for scarce resources and preemptively kill them or drive them away. Contrary to our romantic notions, murder was the leading cause of death of adults in hunter-gatherer societies. Today, after four Paradigm Shifts (Agriculture, Civilization, Industry, Electronics) the world economy produces a massive surplus instead of coping with scarcity and there is no more survival-based reason to protect resources from competitors; in fact there is every reason to trade and share. Morality can now expand to include all of humanity and we are indeed well on our way to becoming a herd-social species, using our uniquely massive and powerful forebrains to override our caveman's pack-social instincts with reasoned and learned behavior.

This is the reason that today, at the dawn of the Post-Industrial Era, I can say that anthropology yields the moral principle that civilization must be maintained. This principle implicitly underlies the moral code of every modern culture, although it is rarely if ever stated.Most importantly, does anyone offer scientific knowledge their knowledge is 'better' than competing views?I don't see how. Even my scientifically derived morality is based on the assumption that civilized life is "better" than Stone Age life. The vast majority of people believe that unconsciously, but unconscious beliefs are not based on "knowledge," e.g. religion, which is nothing but a system of instinctive archetypal beliefs that merely "feel" true. There are people who ponder this issue consciously and some of them insist that life was better in the Stone Age. I've a feeling they're not familiar with Pinker's statistic that 60% of them would have died at the hands of other humans and many of them would have been compelled to commit those murders, but in any case they're infatuated with the notion of a life without alarm clocks, freeways, hamburgers and cats.

I'm one of the hard-core defenders of science on SciForums and even I don't agree that there are no absolute moral laws.

Why did you never join in the threads where Enmos, Myles, Wes make the case that there are no absolute morals? It would have been interesting given the direction you are coming from. For example it kept being inferred that those defending the idea had to be religious in some way. I must say I cannot claim complete immunity from that. It sounds like you could. Keep your eyes out. I am sure it will come up again.