Re: Religion and Science -- RSQUBF discussion forum

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Date Posted: 08:01:01 05/27/04 Thu
Author: Tony Lang
Subject: Re: Religion and Science
In reply to: Tony Lang 's message, "Religion and Science" on 01:44:58 05/27/04 Thu

Yes we have had three very good replies on this important subject. I as you might have guessed am not a man of science and as you might have guessed there was some game playing in my letter.(constructive game playing of course) I was setting myself up in order to allow others to knock me down, which they did very competantly, doing an excellent job of educating readers like myself who come froma non scientific background.
Lets take the discussion on to a different level now that we have disposed of the nonsense that a shop assistant has the same authority as a scientist.
Chris sent in a letter The mind of a cult apologist.
This was going into the impure science of psychology. The article appeared to be doing a hatchet job on Cult Apologists but never the less it contained some useful information. In the replies of Mike and Chris we looked at the scientist as providers of evidence, theories, hypothasis's right or wrong.
I think that this article suggests that there can also be a more sinister side to so called science. Scientists are human. They can be paid for supporting certain views.
In the soviet era in Russia, Psychiatry stated that dissidents against a system so perfect as communism must be mad, and thousands of them were put in psychiatric hospitals. My own country justified Herbert Spencers phrase The survival of the fittest to justify social Darwinism,etc etc. Lets take an imaginary case that will have happened thousands of times. A scientist has spent a lifetime developing a theory that begins to look as if it is suspect. Are they going to suddenly say "I might be wrong and admitt to a lifetime of wasted work" Probably they will fight like hell to prove their suspect theories.
So I think that in the case of science there can be a lot of political, cultural, and financial pressures at work as well as the scientific ones. I am trying to take this discussion a stage further. Do scientists change their minds, or does an older generation die out and a different generation of thinkers with their new theories replace them. These are also important questions for the Christian.

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Replies:

Paradigm Shift -- Mike K., 09:55:19 05/27/04 Thu