Is Science a value system?

Discussion in 'The Cesspool' started by Magical Realist, Jan 15, 2015.

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  1. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Are certain values advanced by science over others? Whether it should or not, typically it often seems too. The way people use science as a banner for some agenda such as atheism, skepticism, positivism, and environmentalism, you'd think being scientific equated to being somehow more noble and stoic than the normal human being. A certain elevation of science as the hard-earned suffered-for cause of truth. But why should that be so? Is science REALLY the sole means of discerning truth in our experience? And how does one determine the validity of these values presupposed by scientific progress? Certainly not scientifically...
     
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  3. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Science has helped rid the world of many scourges, such as the ruling overall might of the church.
    It has revealed reality over myth, and given us on Earth a truer perspective of ourselves.
    Try living in a world without science and we would be back in the dark ages.
    Which answers your last questions about validity and the invalid answer you then gave yourself, "not scientifically"
     
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  5. river

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    Science could be and should be a total
     
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  7. river

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    Science is Holistic

    At least it should be
     
  8. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    You're saying because we have accrued certain benefits for our civilization via science, that justifies it scientifically? No..you can't justify a value scientifically. A value is a moral judgment. Science deals only in facts. Unless ofcourse you are using science as some sort of religion. Which would then be scientism and not science. Is that what you are advancing here? The using of science as some sort of ideology or moral agenda for improving the world?
     
  9. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    I'm saying what I said, and not what you chose to put in my mouth.
    Now I have made a few points....You have a problem with them, then discuss each of them.
    [1]Science has helped rid the world of many scourges, such as the ruling overall might of the church.
    [2] It has revealed reality over myth, and given us on Earth a truer perspective of ourselves.
    [3]Try living in a world without science and we would be back in the dark ages.
     
  10. river

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    Science has become the modern , church

    What reality and what myths ?

    True

    But science generally is mainstream thinking , which is limiting
     
  11. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    So iow you have no scientific justification for science. Just some lifestyle improvements that you are particularly fond of, like not having to go to church, not having myths around, and not being in the dark ages, although life was actually doing quite well even prior to that during the Roman empire. What about those branches of science that DON'T improve our lives, like astronomy or theoretical physics? Should we quit funding Hubble or Cern because science isn't improving our lives in THOSE pursuits?
     
  12. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Astronomy hasn't improved our lives?
    I'll leave it to you then, after such a thoughtless, baseless assumption.
     
  13. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Science is a tool for searching for truth. It is very effective in situations where it can be used. It's not applicable for everything.

    When people have a problem with "science" they generally really have a problem with the truth or with facts getting in the way of whatever they had going on before "science" upset their cart.

    The arguments against science seem to me to be mainly those of shooting the messenger or just simply arguments against knowledge and in favor of remaining ignorant because it's somehow blissful for them.

    Magical Realist, if I might ask, what was your real motivation for this post. What specifically is your issue with science as you see it? Do you have an issue with knowledge for some reason? Knowledge for its own sake has no value for you unless it improves your life?
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2015
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  14. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    How has astronomy improved your life? Do tell..
     
  15. river

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    Seattle

    What is the value of stagnant thinking ?
     
  16. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not religious so I wouldn't know.
     
  17. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I made it pretty clear. That science used as a value system is no longer science. It may be an ideology, or a belief system, or a metaphysical position, or a political cause. But it isn't science. My problem is with people who use science to enforce their values or world view on others--a sort absolutism of empiricist methodology enshrined in the sacred Scientific Method. That doesn't seem to me to be very scientific. Science prides itself in being an objective form of knowledge, and one unswayed by personal subjective biases. And yet too often it is really just a tool to accomplish some moral agenda that people have.
     
  18. river

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    Science is corrupted
     
  19. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Who is using science as a value system? It's a tool as I pointed out.

    The other things that you are talking about aren't science. I've noticed on this board and in particular in religious discussion that many people speak of science as if it were an organization rather than a tool.

    It's like a politician being upset with economics because they don't like the conclusions of a particular economic study. The problem isn't with the study.

    The problem is that the facts didn't give in the results that they were hoping for.

    So, to answer the title of this thread, no, science isn't a value system. Some people may base their value system in part on facts derived from the scientific method rather than from belief in the supernatural but that doesn't make "science" a thing, a value system or anything more than a tool.

    "Science" is just the scientific method. If someone has a problem with science then they need to discuss what it is about the scientific method that they find fault with.
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2015
  20. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    What you believe or think is like dust in the wind. It does not, and will not matter in the grander scheme of science and the continued good it has done and always will do.
    The scientific method and peer review in general will attest to that.
     
  21. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    How Astronomy Benefits Society and Humankind:
    bySHANNON HALLonNOVEMBER 11, 2013


    Industry

    — Your iPhone’s camera is a charge-coupled device (CCD) — an instrument, which converts the movement of electrical charge into a digital value. Originally developed for astronomy, CCD’s are now used in most cameras, webcams and cell phones.

    The computer language Forth, originally developed for the 36-foot telescope on Kitt Peak is now used by FedEx to track packages.

    AT&T uses IRAF — software written by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory — to analyze computer systems.

    Kodak film, originally created by astronomers studying the sun, is used extensively by the medical and industrial industries, photographers and artists.

    Aerospace

    — Space-based telescopes have advanced defense satellites, which require identical technology and hardware.

    — Global Positioning System satellites rely on astronomical objects — quasars and distant galaxies — to determine accurate positions.

    Energy

    — Technology gained from imaging X-rays is now used to monitor fusion — where two atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus — that may prove to be our answer for clean energy.

    Medicine

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Magnetic resonance imaging utilizes aperture synthesis – first an astronomical technique and now a medical technique.

    Astronomy struggles to see increasingly faint objects; Medicine struggles to see things obscured within the human body.


    Aperture synthesis — the process of combining data from multiple telescopes to produce a single image seemingly created from a telescope the size of the entire collection — first developed by a radio astronomer has been used for multiple medical imaging tools, including CAT scanners and MRIs.


    Building space-based telescopes requires an extremely clean environment in order to avoid dust particles from obscuring the mirrors or instruments. Similar methods and instruments are now used in hospitals and pharmaceutical labs.


    International Collaboration

    — Collaboration also inspires competition. The Space Race — a competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration — landed Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin on the moon.

    Astronomy is a collaborative effort. In 1887 astronomers from around the world pooled their telescope images in order to create the first map of the entire sky. Today, astronomers travel around the globe to attend conferences, learn from one another, and utilize telescopes elsewhere.

    Everyday Life

    — Airports utilize advances in technology designed for astronomy. X-ray observatory technology is used in X-ray luggage belts. A gas chromatograph — an instrument designed for a Mars mission — is used to analyze luggage for explosives.

    — Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time” has sold over 10 million copies. Carl Sagan’s television series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” has been watched in over 60 countries.

    Humankind

    “Perhaps the most important reason to study astronomy is that astronomy seeks to satisfy our fundamental curiosity about the world we live in, and answer the ‘big’ questions,” Dr. Rosenberg told Universe Today. “How was the universe created? Where did we come from? Are there other intelligent life forms?”

    Every advance in astronomy moves society closer to being able to answer these questions. With advanced technology — increasingly complex CCDs and larger ground- and space-based telescopes — we have peered into the distant, early universe, we have searched for habitable worlds, and we have come to the conclusion that we, ourselves, are stardust.

    “Astronomy constantly reminds people of two seemingly contradictory things. First that the universe is infinite and we are of but the tiniest fraction of importance. And Second that life is rare and precious. A home as beautiful and unique as earth does not come often. We must protect it.”

    An upcoming version of this paper will not only cover the tangible aspects of astronomy discussed here, but also the intangible aspects of astronomy.

    The paper has been accepted has been published on the International Astronomical Union website and is available for download here.


    http://www.universetoday.com/106302/how-astronomy-benefits-society-and-humankind/


    And most Importantly and my own thoughts, it has helped us recognise our non special, insignificant part we are within the Universe.
    We have gone from being a Flat Earth, in a geocentric Universe revolving around us, to a heliocentric solar system, situated in the outer suburban arms of an average galaxy, part of an even more average group of galaxies, within a web/wall of galaxies all under gravity's domination, within an observable Universe a paltry 96 billion L/years in diameter, being a part of a Universe incomprehensible in size and probably near infinite.
     
  22. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    So yes astronomy/Cosmology has undeniably benefited human society, and only a complete dummy would deny that.
     
  23. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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