InvisibleBlack
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika
I like the way you put this. It makes a lot of sense to me. I also like how you dissociate science from critical thinking. I hadn't looked at it that way before but it makes a whole lot of sense.
Some of the most stubborn, blinkered, hidebound, dogmatic, one-track assholes I've ever met have come from academia. Arguing with them is exactly like trying to debate a religious fanatic. To them "science" - as in their personal view of the world - IS their religion. This realization brought me around to the idea that it's not "religion" or "science" - it's more the person and how they view the world.
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika
In fact, I like your whole post. Merci :-)
Tish! That's French!
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika
I need to reflect on this some more as I now have more questions than when I started, which is a good thing :-)
I think for some people it's a good thing and for others, it's not. I think that's actually at the heart of the debate. One of the problems with basing your worldview on the scientific method is the acceptance that you'll never be "sure" about anything. Everything is open to revision. Nothing is certain. The best you can have is the "currently accepted model" of how things are. Every idea has to be considered and validated.
That's easy to say until someone comes along and tells you the entire races are genetically inferior or that homosexuality is a mental illness or something similar. The "scientist" doesn't reject these ideas out of hand but instead goes and sees if they are empirically valid. "Dogma" says they're just wrong and you must reject them immediately.
I also think that some people need a level of certainty to the world and the concept that everything that everyone knows and believes could just be flat out wrong leaves them feeling adrift in a chaotic world. Simple and straightforward rules provide a level of order and comfort and following them unquestioningly allows a certain amount of moral certitude and a sense of "safety" in the world. Something that contradicts the accepted model is then threatening since it not only questions the validity of a single belief but puts their whole worldview/model at risk.
One of my favorite quotes is from Isaac Newton:
"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
To him, the "undiscovered great ocean of truth" wasn't intimidating - it was exciting. For me, that's what's at the core of a "great" scientist. The wonder and joy of discovery. The excitement that comes from realization of new potentials, new awareness, of expanding existing boundaries. The fact that this can be done endlessly is a source of inspiration and not despair.
The sense of wonder doesn't necessarily have to come from complex lab work - I'm sure that someone having a flash of satori, or seeing the grandeur of a new land while traveling, or any of a hundred other such moments would have the same joy of discovery and sense of their world expanding. Hell, just reading a good book and having to stop and think because the author made you see something in a different way or offered you a concept you'd never considered before has that same feeling.
Other people reject the "undiscovered great ocean of truth" and look for a simple playbook to move through the world with. That playbook can be a religion with rigid rules, or the blind acceptance of current scientific theory.
_____________________________
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
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RE: Critical Thinking & Logical Deduction Are Becoming ... - 
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