The picture of science of which I have so far only hinted may be sketched as follows. There is a reality behind the world as it appears to us, possibly a many-layered reality, of which the appearances are the outermost layers. What the great scientist does is boldly to guess, daringly to conjecture, what these inner realities are like. This is akin to myth making.
Popper Selections, p. 122.
In the context of the current discussion Popper's statement above uncovers the flaw in his humanism, and his understanding of science, that's in the cross-hairs of the entire examination since he implies that it's the modern humanistic scientists who boldly guess, daringly conjecture, what the inner realities of the world are like. He ends up implying that this bold guessing, and daring conjecture, is kin folk to the myth-making of the ancient religious orders when nothing is further from the truth. They come from completely different fathers.
My thesis is that what we call “science” is differentiated from the older myths not by being something distinct from myth, but by being accompanied by a second-order tradition---that of critically discussing the myth. . . In critical discussions which now arose there also arose, for the first time, something like systematic observation. . . Thus it is the myth or the theory which leads to, and guides, our systematic observations----observations undertaken with the intention of probing into the truth of the theory or myth. From this point of view the growth of the theories of science should not be considered as the result of the collection, or accumulation, of observations; on the contrary, the observations and their accumulation should be considered as the result of the growth of the scientific theories.
Conjectures and Refutations.
This is the fly in Popper's ointment. In the quotation of Popper penultimate to the one above, Popper claims that humanistic science is a kin, blood brother, to myth-making, which myth-making he states at all times to be the true ground and foundation of scientific theory. But we know that the ancient myth-makers (and Popper himself points this out) use theories of the "good" and "true" as the systematic prism through which to judge our natural observation as not being honest enough with us to reveal a layer of truth hidden in them, and by them, a layer of truth that can only be accessed through scientific (versus natural) observation.
Without this theo-logical system of what is "good" and "true" all that's left for the humanistic scientist is bold conjecture, daring guesses, based either on nothing but imagination, or on natural observations, both of which Popper is adamant can lead to nothing like fruitful scientific endeavor. On page 131 of
Conjectures and Refutations, Popper says, "
Our scientific theories are instruments by which we try to bring some order into the chaos in which we live so as to make it rationally predictable." And the instrument that theology and ancient mytho-theology used was concepts like the "good" and the "true."
Copernicus studied in Bologna under the Platonist Novara; and Copernicus' idea of placing the sun rather than the earth in the centre of the universe was not the result of new observations but of a new interpretation of old and well-known facts in the light of semi-religious Platonic and Neo-Platonic ideas. The crucial idea can be traced back to the sixth book of Plato's Republic, where we can read that the sun plays the same role in the realm of visible things as does the idea of the good in the realm of ideas. Now the idea of the good is the highest in the hierarchy of Platonic ideas. Accordingly the sun, which endows visible things with their visibility, vitality, growth and progress, is the highest in the hierarchy of visible things in nature.
Conjectures and Refutations, p. 187.
All mythology and theological thought function by using systematic ideas of what is good, true, in a theo-logical ordering of reality, with, for instance, the highest good acting as the axis, or center, around which lesser things revolve:
Now if the sun was to be given pride of place, if the sun merited a divine status in the hierarchy of visible things, then it was hardly possible for it to revolve about the earth. The only fitting place for so exalted a star was the centre of the universe. So the earth was bound to revolve about the sun. This Platonic idea, then, forms the historical background of the Copernican revolution. It [the Copernican revolution] does not start with [natural] observations, but with a religious or mythological idea.
Ibid.
My thesis is that what we call “science” is differentiated from the older myths not by being something distinct from myth, but by being accompanied by a second-order tradition---that of critically discussing the myth. . . In critical discussions which now arose there also arose, for the first time, something like systematic observation. . . Thus it is the myth or the theory which leads to, and guides, our systematic observations----observations undertaken with the intention of probing into the truth of the theory or myth. From this point of view the growth of the theories of science should not be considered as the result of the collection, or accumulation, of observations; on the contrary, the observations and their accumulation should be considered as the result of the growth of the scientific theories.
Ibid. p. 127.
Humanistic science has no myth other than deterministic evolution, Darwinism, with which to question their natural observations. And since Darwinism is consistent with natural observations, which is its power, nothing in Darwinian evolution, and its deterministic process, leads a scientist to question his natural observations. On the contrary, his natural observations, the thing Popper claims cannot lead to scientific endeavor, not only are the basis for Darwinism, but it's precisely the veracity, or fidelity, of natural observations, that give Darwinism any value as a theory.
In total contradistinction to the foundational humanist scientific theory, Darwinism, which, contradicting Popper's theory of the evolution of science, uses natural observation as the basis for the theory, and natural observations as the justification for the accuracy of the theory (Darwinism is literally a theory that allegedly proves our natural observations are correct), the two men whom Popper and his humanist peer Einstein called the greatest scientists of all time, Kant and Newton, followed Popper's claim that true science, far from arising from natural observations, and being justified by them, flies in the face of natural observations.
The comparison between Kant and Newton, vs. Popper and Einstein, could hardly better serve this thread of thought (and specifically ideogenous-mover's statements above) since Kant and Newton were devout Christians who stated for the record that their scientific inquiries were from start to finish founded in systematic attempts at proving the veracity of the Bible (and its Christian mythology), even though, completely antithetical to Darwinism, the biblical theories Kant and Newton proposed appear, at first natural glance, or second, or third, or a thousand natural glances, absolutely absurd, and utterly incommensurate with natural observation or perception.
In the thread titled,
Popper's "Systematic Observations, I quoted one of Popper's associates, Oxford Professor of Philosophy, Bryan Magee, who sums up the fundamental, diametrical distinction between a theory like Darwinism that attempts to justify the veracity of natural perceptions, and thus a natural, deterministic cosmos, versus theories that by their very nature fly in the face of natural observations and the belief that we live in a deterministic world:
One thing that has always struck me forcefully about this doctrine of Kant's is that it legitimates important components of a belief which he had held since long before he began to philosophize, namely Christian belief. It is a standard part of the traditional Christian faith that time and space and material objects are local characteristics of this human world of ours, but only of this world: they do not characterize reality as such . . .
Confessions of a Philosopher p. 249,250.
Professor Magee, parroting Popper, states that not only is it Kant's religious mythology that he (Kant) is using as the concept through which he will criticize and analyze his own lyin eyes, his natural perceptions, but, since Kant's Christian belief is that the world delivered up by natural observations is a facade, illusory, a chimera, and that in truth, Christian truth, this false world of natural observations is only a layer, or localized perception, of a larger reality that's the truth and not a visual facade, it would seem like critical, logical, reasonable, argumentation and experimentation, would mercilessly and fatally wound poor old Kant and his unjustified (by natural observations) mythology, i.e, his outrageous and unjustified mythological belief that the world we experience is merely a facade.
But what he [Kant] did, unmistakably (and unremarked on to an extent that has never ceased to astonish me), is produce rational justification for many aspects of the religious beliefs in which he grew up [Christian belief]. . . it is as if he then said to himself: "How can these things be so? What can be the nature of time and space and material objects if they obtain only in the world of human beings? Could it be, given that they characterize only the world of experience and nothing else, that they are characteristics, or preconditions, of experience, and nothing else?" In other words, Kant's philosophy is a fully worked out analysis of what needs to be the case for what he believed already to be true [according to his pre-existing religious theory].
Ibid.
What's Popper and Einstein's humanistic understanding of the world which they subject to the critical analysis of logic and experimentation? Darwinism and humanism: the belief in either determinism, or an in-determinism that refuses to engage the "free will" in-determinism implies since this "free will" will, in Popper's own understanding of the situation, leads to the need to think about theology, theo-logic, and, in Popper's own words, and I quote, "Divine Grace."
People who do not agree with determinism are usually viewed with suspicion by rationalists who are afraid that if we accept indeterminism, we may be committed to accepting the doctrine of Free Will, and may thus become involved in theological arguments about the Soul and Divine Grace.
Conjectures and Refutations, p. 123.
Until the likes of Popper and Einstein willingly, and seriously, become involved in theological arguments about the Soul and Divine Grace, they will remain mere water-boys, towel carriers, hernia examiners, for the likes of Kant and Newton. Today we have enough wet nurses to feed and water the work of Kant and Newton. What we need now, more than ever, as we approach the very nearing of the Kingdom of God, are more Kants, more Newtons, more genuine scientists, while, alas, our world is peopled mostly by water-boys, wet nurses, and charlatans gallivanting as "experts," "scholars," and finding too ready and willing an audience for their godless humanism and charlatanism.
John
