Scientific
Truth
A storm-wracked island in a sea of superstition
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"The Death Of Epistemology: Anti-Vaccine Expert (And Playboy Model) Jenny McCarthy"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-death-of-epistemology-anti-vaccine.html***
We are living through
"The Death of Epistemology."
The Scientific Method -- our
best probabilistic tool for determining Truth -- has fallen prey to "The
Faithful."
By "The Faithful,"
I mean those prowlers "on the outskirts of The Obvious" who seek
"exceptions" to "general rules" in order to
"prove" there are no "real truths" other than Sacred
Scripture -- be it Jewish, Christian or Islamic.
In the view of "The
Faithful," "God's Truth" not only trumps all other
"truth" but belittles both. (In no more than 20 years,
"faithful" belittlement of anthropogenic global warming will seem as
absurd as the pulpit-preached assertion that slavery was The Will of God.)
The Faithful's obsessive
insistence on Absolute (And
Absolutely Rigid) Truth, is a passion intrinsically inimical to the
probabilistic nature of scientific truth.
Rigid Truth reveals the
perfectionism of American neo-Puritans ever zealous to overturn
widely-applicable truths (truths that can be corroborated statistically) in
order to posit "exceptions" -- no matter how slight and dubious -- as
divinely-ordained New Truths.
These "religious
opinions" constitute an "Epistemological Caliphate" in which
doctrinal and dogmatic assertions tower over scientific truth.
Intellectually colonized by
this "Epistemological Caliphate," Paul Ryan proudly declares: "I
don't believe in the validity of some polls."
Why? Because his
"chosen" polls -- which is to say his non-rigorous truths -- are
considered "scripture." According to the received idiocy, there is no
need for terrestrial truths when Celestial Truth is on our side.
A few days ago, a Floridian who keeps Sean Hannity updated on both presidential candidates' recent
appearances in Florida, made a revealing slip after Hannity expressed disbelief
that an Obama event attracted 15,000 people. Without missing a beat, his
Florida informant chimed in: "I don't think the crowd was as big as it
was."
Immediately, she
"corrected" herself: "I don't think the crowd was as big as
reported."
Once we have accounted for a
reasonable amount of partisan "spin," either "facts mean
something," or we find ourselves adrift in the same "Sea of
Superstition" that typified the world before the advent of Scientific
Method.
For several centuries the
Scientific Method -- vigorously advocated by America's Founding Fathers, under aegis of The European Enlightenment -- has been our only tool for exiting the swamp of superstition in order to reside on newly-formed "Islands of Rationality."
In this regard, I encourage
you to read my earlier post, "Is Perfectionism A Curse? Paul Ryan Tells
The Truth."
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/paul-ryan-tells-truth.html
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/paul-ryan-tells-truth.html
Notably, science makes
tremendous leaps by using "theories" and their technological
applications. The "Theory of Relativity" (which is NOT a Law) undergirds much of the
modern world.
Nevertheless, "The
Faithful" pretend that "theory" is not enough; that only
inerrant Truth will do.
Tragically, the history of
"inerrant Truth" is the cornerstone of Pascal's insight that "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
On the other hand, scientists
-- largely operating on theoretical foundations based on probability -- are able to accomplish feats
like the following.
It takes time for societies to exhaust their accumulated “cultural capital."
However, the assault on
Reason and Scientific Method is so far advanced that -- absent the revival of
Rationality -- we risk the re-normalization of witch hunts,
"crusades" and "inquisitions."
Aquinas would be appalled. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/01/st-thomas-aquinas-natural-law-and.html
Aquinas would be appalled. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/01/st-thomas-aquinas-natural-law-and.html
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Arguing against those who said that natural philosophy was contrary to the Christian faith, (Aquinas) writes in his treatise "Faith, Reason and Theology that "even though the natural light of the human mind is inadequate to make known what is revealed by faith, nevertheless what is divinely taught to us by faith cannot be contrary to what we are endowed with by nature. One or the other would have to be false, and since we have both of them from God, he would be the cause of our error, which is impossible."
"Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World"
by John Freely
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"Thomas Aquinas And Islam"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/05/thomas-aquinas-and-islam.html
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