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imma compromise both of y'all and say that science is often followed by people in a matter similar to religions, however both are in principal, very different.

like most people think Pollack and Rothko are cut from the same fabric, when it couldn't be further from the truth.

D.o.S. wrote:The larger culture surrounding the ideas behind the method are often spun into something that, to my mind, approximates a religion.

So ... that and your own defintiions of things that don't match anyone else's makes it true does it?
How much time have you actually spent in the larger culture surrounding science? How much time in a lab for example?

I love all the unfounded assumptions and assertions made by people with no scientific background, no scientific experience, and usually pretty much no scientific knowledge about what science is and scientists are based almost entirely on watching star trek.

Religion is about revealed truth and authority figures. Science is all about the opposite. Open enquiry, nothing is sacred -- even the central dogma of molecular biology is not ... it's been updated, the details have been filled in since the discovery of RNAi and siRNAs and there's way more to it than Francis Crick imagined in the 60s.


Science is as much like a religion as not-stamp-collecting is like a a pebble-dashed driveway.

devnulljp wrote:

D.o.S. wrote:The larger culture surrounding the ideas behind the method are often spun into something that, to my mind, approximates a religion.

So ... that and your own defintiions of things that don't match anyone else's makes it true does it?
How much time have you actually spent in the larger culture surrounding science? How much time in a lab for example?

I love all the unfounded assumptions and assertions made by people with no scientific background, no scientific experience, and usually pretty much no scientific knowledge about what science is and scientists are based almost entirely on watching star trek.

Religion is about revealed truth and authority figures. Science is all about the opposite. Open enquiry, nothing is sacred -- even the central dogma of molecular biology is not ... it's been updated, the details have been filled in since the discovery of RNAi and siRNAs and there's way more to it than Francis Crick imagined in the 60s.


Science is as much like a religion as not-stamp-collecting is like a a pebble-dashed driveway.

I'm just pointing out sociologic similarities between the cultures of a pair of cultural institutions. If you don't think science is a cultural institution, that's cool.

And, uh, as for my credentials, I have regular associations with bio-med lab types. Mostly the ones operating in and around Cambridge, MA. But, you know, that's all right, since your presupposition is that I don't know what I'm talking about.

I suppose we'll ignore the vehement fanaticism from staunch supporters of either. That's obviously not another similarity.

The Scientific community has a religion the same way Texas highschool football is a religion. Both of those phenomena interact with "real" religion in similar ways.

as if, e.g, the "the science is SETTLED" advocates of anthropogenic global warming don't conduct themselves in precisely the manner of a religious cult, complete with concealed dicta for the inner faithful, manipulation of data to fit the dogma, blind acceptance of dogma by the followers, anathema and excommunication from "science" of contrary opinion, etc.? or the MADD folks, who really are verging on neo-Prohibitionists now? or the incredibly exaggerated claims made about "second-hand smoke"? or the people who insist that DDT never killed a single bird? science-based causes can be just as narrow-minded and inhospitable to contrary opinion as any other ideology. the scientists of the day didn't love Darwin, and it wasn't because of religion; it was because he screwed up their entire paradigm. they laughed at Wegener when he propounded plate tectonics, and kept right on laughing until the US undersea surveys decades later showed the underwater seams right where Wegener said they'd be. they laughed at pretty much every significant advanced idea in the earth sciences in the last 100 years. they've tried to dismiss every significant advance in paleontology since Marsh and Cope. it's gone well beyond proper scientific skepticism, to the very kind of hidebound stubborn resistance to change that followers of Scientism like to accuse of others. even disciplines of the mind can have mindless followers.

great post.
we can conclude now that the people are the problem, not the activities they engage.

alexa. wrote:great post.
we can conclude now that the people are the problem, not the activities they engage.

i love that such a simple conclusion ALWAYS takes so long to come to in discussions of x ideological institution vs y ideological institution.

alexa. wrote:great post.
we can conclude now that the people are the problem, not the activities they engage.

Exactly.

Read back through this thread to reaffirm that statement.

alexa. wrote:great post.
we can conclude now that the people are the problem, not the activities they engage.

dude you rock

dubkitty wrote:as if, e.g, the "the science is SETTLED" advocates of anthropogenic global warming don't conduct themselves in precisely the manner of a religious cult,

So there's a cult that forms a hypothesis that the earth is getting slightly warmer due to human actions, goes out and takes CO2 readings from ice sheets that are traceable to the year, determines that the rise in temperature seems to be related to CO2 in the air, and that our sudden, even greater rise in temperature can be linked to our increased CO2 (and methane) emissions over the past few decades?

Sign me up! When's the human sacrifice?!

But, really, I think it's a bit of a logical fallacy to equate the actions of the past quite so strongly with the actions of today. Today things can be reviewed and tested quite quickly to determine their legitimacy, where as that wasn't nearly as possible 100 years ago-- or even 50. And the technology facilitating this gets better all the time.

And you can't equate a few rigged studies with the entire scientific community. Anyone can hire "scientists" to find what they want-- but real findings will be heavily reviewed and tested.