[Osx-nutters] The separation of church and state.

[David Cake]

At 12:08 PM +0100 5/12/07, Mark Smith wrote:
>On 05.12.2007, at 09:32, David Cake wrote:
>
>>  At 8:23 AM +0100 5/12/07, Mark Smith wrote:
>>>
>
>>>  You cannot be a real dyed-in-the-wool scientist and really believe in
>>>  anything of this type.
>>
>>	Depends what you mean by 'belief'. I agree that if someone
>>  says 'and this is not open to doubt, because I have faith', then they
>>  are unscientific.
>
>I'd simplify it further:
>
>If someone has faith, they are being unscientific. It doesn't matter 
>whether, or not they acknowledge that the basis of their faith is, in 
>principle, "doubtable". (You would have to agree that a scientist is 
>bound to acknowledge this.)

	Well, no.
	I might be pretty damn certain that, say, Pride and Prejudice 
is the most important novel written in English, or Hamlet is the most 
important play. I can even acknowledge that other peoples opinions 
may differ, that its ultimately subjective, but dammit, I'm pretty 
sure that I am correct anyway. Doesn't make me unscientific - its not 
a question on which science can usefully provide an answer.

	Some spiritual matters are much the same - science simply 
doesn't provide an answer. If you utterly convinced of the validity 
of, say, Kants moral philosophy, or the intrinsic evil of capitalism, 
that doesn't make you unscientific to me (though a little eccentric).

	Being 'scientific' doesn't mean applying the scientific 
method to unfalsifiable questions to which science can never provide 
a useful answer, quite the opposite, IMO. Being 'scientific' means 
having a keen sense of which questions are unscientific, but says 
nothing about how you should answer such unscientific questions.
	(and yes, this is basically the Stephen Jay Gould 
'non-overlapping magisteria' view point).
	Cheers
		David