-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Do the Sciences Tell Us What the World is Really Like?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
Ultimately, I have no means to know whether there is a reality, or whether it conforms to human expectations, nor how consistently so, if at all.
I guess I just don't see the point of even attempting to claim things so clearly outside of my parameters.
Nor do I see that as any evidence for a deity nor as a big deal in any way.
WalterTrull
Godfella
No point my belaboring due to wildly different definitions. Evidence, I am.
Meaning?
This was incorrectly phrased.
Of course there are more microbes per pound than humans.
One pound of human isn't even a single human.
What you meant was more pounds of microbes than humans.
Helpful posts like this are prolly why I'm so loved here.
Last edited:
PureX
Veteran Member
That's because that's all the 'how' is good for: it's functionality. And that's the only question that science investigates; is the 'how'.
WalterTrull
Godfella
I don't need more evidence for my concept of God than that I exist. That you exist is wild and sooo expands the concept.
Do you see need for any evidence at all?
I concede what you are saying, but there is also something else of importance which leads back to the OP. If you aren't practicing scientific discipline then, yes, it only has the value of how for you. In other words yes it provides stuff and means to more stuff, but its also a kind of stuff on its own for those who can access it. It provides an intimate connection to the world that people can't get who don't understand how things work. The knowledge of atoms connects all matter together for you. It frees you from the mythology that fire and water are opposites. Knowing it is a privilege but actually testing it for yourself is a kind of vision. Science is two things, one a simple access to more stuff and the other, the discipline, is an experience like having a 6th sense.
That's quite an interesting opinion. Thank you for it.
Unfortunately, I'm not bright enough to understand your reasoning. That is, I believe I understand your point -- but not your reasons for your point.
In the first place, you seem to be using the term "prescriptive" in an unconventional way without quite defining what way that is. It's fine to define a term as you see fit, but it's a courtesy to then make explicit your definition of it if the definition cannot be easily reasoned out from context. In this case, I don't believe your usage of "prescriptive" can be reasoned out from context, let alone easily reasoned out.
I do agree with you that the sciences are descriptive.
But normally, "prescriptive" means that something is asserting what should or ought to be the case. I simply fail to comprehend how you can consider the question of "whether or not the sciences tell us what the world is like" to be prescriptive in that sense. After all, that's not the same question as "should or ought the sciences tell us what the world is really like." Perhaps you misunderstood the question?
As for your notion that it is "hubris" to think the sciences might be telling us what the world is really like, I think that, if we accept it is hubris, then we must to be consistent accept that any and all metaphysical speculations are hubris -- including both the speculation that there exists a mind-independent objective reality, and at least most speculations that there exists a deity or deities. All three cases rest -- or can rest -- on metaphysical speculation. So, are you prepared to say that thinking there's an objective reality is hubris? What about saying that most cases of thinking there's a god or gods are hubris?
At any rate, thanks for a moment's respite from the tedium of having nothing much to think about.
WalterTrull
Godfella
Oh dear. See, this is what happens. We talk past each other. I gave you my evidence.
Sorry, @Sunstone - I should have clarified the prescriptive/descriptive bit. It was a mnemonic shorthand used to make the concept easy to remember by that professor, and does bear more explaining.
When it's remarked "sciences are descriptive" it's saying that sciences describe the apparent world around us. This is meant to emphasize a few different things about the nature of the discipline Perhaps first and foremost, that it's observational. Science is about observing the world around us (usually with some sort of quantitative measurements) and assessing that information (usually with math and statistics). Experimentation helps refine our observations in various ways from there. Recognizing science as descriptive is also about noting that it is intended to be as impartial and objective as possible, as well as recognizing that total impartiality or objectivity is impossible (for reasons I think I went into well enough in the earlier post). This also means that sciences can't tell us what the world is "really like." Thinking that it can slides into being prescriptive.
To elaborate on that, "sciences are not prescriptive" is meant to convey it is not dictatorial nor dogmatic; that sciences are not in the business of telling anyone the world is "really like." Such a question is a philosophical one rather than a scientific one - more specifically it's an ontological question (which you go into in the OP with the contrast between realism and non-realism). I'm not sure I get to the "should sciences tell us what the world is really like" because the sciences don't tell us what the world is "really like." That's a prescriptive statement, which enters the realm of philosophy and religion. Bringing this up also helps deflate anti-science alarmists who think the sciences are trying to actively undermine their own narratives of what reality is "really like." Sciences aren't in the business of dictating dogma (aka, prescribing), but some get this impression and feel threatened by this or that observation.
Does that clarify? I don't know. My brain is going in directions and sometimes it doesn't know where it's headed.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response, Quintessence!
I am familiar with the customary or conventional distinction between "descriptive" and "prescriptive" statements. The distinction hearkens back about 300 years to David Hume, who is the first person credited with having made anything like it. Hume argued that we cannot coherently reason from what is the case to what ought to be the case. At least that's how he has come to be understood (there's actually a boring debate about whether he really did argue that -- he wasn't entirely clear on the subject). Consequently, severing descriptive statements from prescriptive statements is known as "Hume's Guillotine". Today, trying to reason from the one to the other is called the "naturalistic fallacy".
From what you've said, I cannot be entirely sure if your professor had in mind the customary distinction between descriptive and prescriptive statements, or rather another common distinction in the philosophy of science.
That other distinction is customarily expressed as the difference between describing something and explaining it. In a nutshell, some folks say science describes our observations, but does not explain them, while others say science both describes our observations and explains them. Scientific non-realists tend to take the former position, scientific realists tend to take the latter.
That's to say, the non-realists argue that scientific theories, etc do not tell us what causes our observations, and consequently, they do not explain those observations.
On the other hand, the realists claim that scientific theories, etc. do tell us what causes our observations, and consequently, they explain those observations. For the realist, our observations are caused by a mind-independent objective reality. That is, to them the sciences tell us what the world really is -- it's a mind-independent objective reality.
There are also numerous other positions besides strict non-realism and strict realism.
It seems to me possible that your professor was arguing against scientific realism's claim that the sciences explain our observations (because that claim amounts to a claim that the sciences tell us what the world really is) in order to undermine the normative or prescriptive claim that the sciences ought to explain our observations.
To be more precise, realists who argue that the sciences do indeed explain the world most often argue that is also precisely what the sciences ought to do. To say they do explain the world is not a prescriptive statement in the customary sense of "prescriptive", but to say they ought to explain the world surely is a prescriptive statement in that sense.
To me, it's pure bliss to discuss these things with you, but I realize I am probably boring you -- and anyone else who is reading this!
I am familiar with the customary or conventional distinction between "descriptive" and "prescriptive" statements. The distinction hearkens back about 300 years to David Hume, who is the first person credited with having made anything like it. Hume argued that we cannot coherently reason from what is the case to what ought to be the case. At least that's how he has come to be understood (there's actually a boring debate about whether he really did argue that -- he wasn't entirely clear on the subject). Consequently, severing descriptive statements from prescriptive statements is known as "Hume's Guillotine". Today, trying to reason from the one to the other is called the "naturalistic fallacy".
From what you've said, I cannot be entirely sure if your professor had in mind the customary distinction between descriptive and prescriptive statements, or rather another common distinction in the philosophy of science.
That other distinction is customarily expressed as the difference between describing something and explaining it. In a nutshell, some folks say science describes our observations, but does not explain them, while others say science both describes our observations and explains them. Scientific non-realists tend to take the former position, scientific realists tend to take the latter.
That's to say, the non-realists argue that scientific theories, etc do not tell us what causes our observations, and consequently, they do not explain those observations.
On the other hand, the realists claim that scientific theories, etc. do tell us what causes our observations, and consequently, they explain those observations. For the realist, our observations are caused by a mind-independent objective reality. That is, to them the sciences tell us what the world really is -- it's a mind-independent objective reality.
There are also numerous other positions besides strict non-realism and strict realism.
It seems to me possible that your professor was arguing against scientific realism's claim that the sciences explain our observations (because that claim amounts to a claim that the sciences tell us what the world really is) in order to undermine the normative or prescriptive claim that the sciences ought to explain our observations.
To be more precise, realists who argue that the sciences do indeed explain the world most often argue that is also precisely what the sciences ought to do. To say they do explain the world is not a prescriptive statement in the customary sense of "prescriptive", but to say they ought to explain the world surely is a prescriptive statement in that sense.
To me, it's pure bliss to discuss these things with you, but I realize I am probably boring you -- and anyone else who is reading this!
WalterTrull
Godfella
Aaaaaghhhhhh!!!!!!!!
Aaaaaghhhhhh!!!!!!!!
Strange. Very strange. That's exactly what everyone says when they hear I've been invited to a party they themselves are going to.
WalterTrull
Godfella
Hey look, Sunstone: You are obviously very bright,and very well educated. I wish you could just come off it and talk regular. I think you have some very interesting things to say.
I am always fascinated with this idea that there is some fundamental THING called "The Truth." It is a notion born in religion, and dependent upon the notion that there must be a "reason for everything."
The idea that there must be a reason for everything is, of course, spurious. The number one argument against that is "**** happens!" There is no deep, insightful "TRUTH" to be discovered from how the ichneumon wasp procreates. It's cruel to the caterpillar who basically gets paralyzed and eaten alive over an extended period of time. It just happens. That's how it works.
There's no deep, insightful truth to be discovered from the fact that plate tectonics shows us there will be earthquakes, and some of those earthquakes will cause tsunamis, and some of those tsunamis will drown innocent people in their hundreds of thousands. **** happens.
The sky appears blue to me because my eyes evolved on this world, under this sun, and it is an aid to the survival of all my ancestors whose lives are the reason I'm here. That's all...
Maybe it is not a big deal if we do talk past each other.
We have different expectations. That does not have to be an issue.
MonkeyFire
Well-Known Member
I wonder the same thing, and I find they don't want us believing...
PureX
Veteran Member
One does not have to practice science to acquire this sort of appreciation. It's the collected information that fires this sort of imaginative perspective. And some people achieve it even without the information, through meditative practices.