memoryballhs t1_it39r4t wrote on October 20, 2022 at 4:50 PM

Reply to comment by dmarchall491 in [Peter Harrison] Why religion is not going away and science will not destroy it by BasketCase0024

Science is not a religion it's a method to approach problems. There is nothing to be advertised. The actually religion today is an ideology around success, capitalism, materialism and so on. The empirical evidence is only used to push one or another ideology. The scientific method is valueless and therefore useless as any kind of ideology. It's like saying "this awesome hammer I am using is my ideology"

Emmanuel Kant was against the vaccine because he thought it further increases the already big population. It's very cruel but based purely on facts.

The advertised new ideologies are individualized and group focused. Like the rise of conspiracy theories. Or calls to "follow the science". Also a ridiculous statement. Sabine Hossenfelder as a good video about that.

iiioiia t1_it3pzcl wrote on October 20, 2022 at 6:34 PM

> Science is not a religion it's a method to approach problems.

If you deconstruct it into its constituent parts, applying some abstraction in the process, I propose that one will find that people's psychological relationship with science is extremely similarly to that with religion.

Faith, or more accurately the cognitive processes that underlie it, are fundamental to human beings - it is our evolved nature. And simply declaring it to be gone does not make it go away - although, it can certainly make it appear as if it has gone away.

> The scientific method is valueless and therefore useless as any kind of ideology.

The scientific method has no volition, it must be implemented by humans....and humans loooooove their ideologies.

> Or calls to "follow the science". Also a ridiculous statement.

Now we're talking - but consider: what percentage of the people who subscribe to the ideology are able to realize and acknowledge that?

dmarchall491 t1_it3k199 wrote on October 20, 2022 at 5:55 PM

> Science is not a religion it's a method to approach problems. There is nothing to be advertised.

The method is what needs advertisement. When it comes to something like conversion therapy or abstinence-only sex education the issue is not if it's the morally right thing to do or not, but that it flat out doesn't work to begin with. It fails to accomplish the stated goal.

> Emmanuel Kant was against the vaccine because he thought it further increases the already big population. It's very cruel but based purely on facts.

Doubtful. High risk of child death tends to lead to more children, not less. This is exactly what happens when you don't follow the science, but instead cherry pick your science facts to drive your ideology.

Few problems are well enough understood that it's only the ideology that makes the difference. Most of the time people are either willfully ignorant to the science or the science just hasn't well enough understood the issue at hand.

memoryballhs t1_it3nzx8 wrote on October 20, 2022 at 6:21 PM

No. Science inherently can't give answers to questions on "what to do" It's not an answer machine. It just helps in fact seeking .

>High risk of child death tends to lead to more children, not less.

That's just a correlation, nothing more. Even trying to prove a direct causation is super difficult. Kant's objections against the vaccines were pretty en vouge at the time. And most importantly scientifically "correct". Whatever that means.

Law systems are not based on science. law systems are based on morale systems. Nothing in nature implies that the rule "do not kill" is inherent. It just makes morally sense.

You can build with scientific facts whatever death cult you want for example. First rule is to kill as much humans as possible. Try to use as much technology, organization and empirical evidence on how to kill a human as fast as possible and as many as possible. And so on. Oh wait. That's exactly what happened already in Germany 1940