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"Science" and religion are both equally fallible because both are interpreted, disseminated, and perpetuated by man, which as we all know is about the most fall

"Science" and religion are both equally fallible because both are interpreted, disseminated, and perpetuated by man, which as we all know is about the most fallible thing there is. It's obvious and demonstrable that various religious institutions have had varying levels of corruption over the years as their power has waxed and waned based upon how much faith the people have in them. Why is it such a stretch to see that in this modern era where religion has been pretty much been given up on in favor of a more or less blind belief in whatever headlines tell us "scientists" now say, that once again, power and political motivations corrupt once-pure institutions? Imagine trying to convince someone of incredible religious conviction that their earthly Church demonstrably has repeatedly fallen victim to corruption over the years, only to have her respond to you with, "but that can't be; the Word of God is unquestionably infallible!" There shouldn't be any problem in holding both of those ideas ("the Word of God (Bible) is literally Gospel and infallibly true" and "absolute power corrupts man") in your head at the same time (if anything, the former explicitly reinforces the latter!), and you'd be hard-pressed to find a Catholic today that won't admit that their earthly Church hasn't gone through periods of incredible corruption and downright evil. Nobody's going to argue the validity of the scientific method, but when you look at the innate nature of man (demonstrated time and again over the course of all recorded history), it's easy to believe that modern "science" is just as corrupt as any other institution man has made at any point in time that rose to power in the minds of the people, i.e. "very"

saeranv 8y ago
Let's put it this way, do you feel a monarchy is as equally corruptible as a democracy? Both are institutions constructed by greedy, corrupt, stupid, fallible human beings. It's just that the latter has built in several mechanisms to address this. Like science. So over a long period of time, democracies have proven to be less corrupt then monarchies, and like-wise, science has proven to be less wrong then religion.
- adamrezich 8y ago
  Define "democracy." Purely democratic systems are absolutely fallible; mob rule is a thing man is prone to falling prey to in such systems. This is why basically nobody uses straight-up direct democracy today, especially in the age of everyone having read/write access to a global information network in their pockets at all times. But even putting that aside, and accepting for sake of the argument that the political system in use in countries such as the United States is a "democracy" ...still, yes. Did political corruption magically disappear overnight when we stopped being ruled by monarchs? Were all monarchies corrupt to begin with? "Democracy is to monarchy as science is to religion" is an incredibly muddled comparison that does not make much sense when you break it down. Modern Christianity would not be where it is today without Protestantism questioning core fundamental beliefs and then-current leadership. When does what is accepted as "Science" get to have its version of Protestantism, questioning not just the dogma of "settled science" (the most hilarious oxymoron of all time), but those who spread it to the masses as well? Why is it that Christians, even Catholics have no problem admitting to the fallibility of what they consider to be their holiest of institutions, yet atheists seem to believe that "science" is inherently always impossible to be anything but utterly pure use of the scientific method conducted with nothing but the utmost honesty, at every level? The motivations of man are not always pure, especially when in positions of power and/or authority. Even if you want to disregard religion entirely, at least take lessons from the history it has given us.
  - phs318u 8y ago
    You keep raising the straw man of "settled science" - who here, or in fact in the scientific community, believes this let alone proclaims it? Even in broader (non-scientifically literate) society, there are few people (in my experience) that believe science knows everything already. Science had its "protestant" moment - it was called the Enlightenment, and it result from questioning the dogma of settled knowledge as promulgated by religions through the infallibility of scripture.
    - adamrezich 8y ago
      I'm not going to list politically-charged examples because that's highly unlikely to lead to productive discussion and everyone here knows it. I'm not knowledgeable about philosophy or metaphysics but is there even anything approaching consensus on whether or not there even is a "knowledge ceiling" that an individual or even society could ever achieve? (If so, I'd love to know how anyone came to that conclusion lol) >Science had its "protestant" moment - it was called the Enlightenment, and it result from questioning the dogma of settled knowledge as promulgated by religions through the infallibility of scripture. You seem to have misunderstood the analogy I was making. I'm a practicing Roman Catholic, yet view Protestantism as having been a positive thing for Christianity as a whole, including Roman Catholicism. When is dogmatic belief in whatever passes for "science" these days going to be scrutinized? Systemic corruption of any sufficiently powerful institution of man is inevitable, and just because the scientific method is about as pure of a means of reasoning about the world around us as we can come up with and has led to profound advancements in technology and our understanding of our world... doesn't mean that everyone's just going to ignore the fact that using the now-widespread dogmatic belief in its infallibility is a pretty powerful means of achieving external political and personal goals unrelated to the pursuit of truth. It's naive to think otherwise.
      - phs318u 8y ago
        You keep bringing in disparate arguments as if they are part of the same thing - infallibility, knowledge ceiling, dogmatism - and also throwing in the odd barb - "whatever passes for science these days" (the answer to which, is "science!"). Yes, agreed that human systems have a tendency to corruption, however the scientific method at least has within it the seeds to "keep the bastards honest" (as we say where I come from). i.e. 1. Nothing stops you from learning and becoming a scientist. 2. Nothing stops you from attempting to repeat published experiments, or if you can't, then to point out why (which are likely to be faults in either the description or execution of the original experiment). In other words, there is transparency and a basis for objective comparison. Lack of transparency (either through gatekeeping or lack of detail) is considered a bad sign in science. That's what differentiates the scientific method, from say, the "political method", or "the religious method".
zaphod4prez 8y ago
Okay, here's where I see an important difference. Let's break it down into a few constituent parts. We have a thing (scripture / spiritual belief OR the scientific method as applied to the world). Then, nasty, messy fallible people who probably don't floss... do stuff with that thing: they teach it, they do it, they investigate it in their own messy wayd. And then regular joe-schmo's who aren't so involved in the doing-something-with-the-thing get reallll impressed by these doing-stuff people (priests/rabbis/gurus whatever OR scientists of all sorts). Okay, well here's the thing. I agree that everybody is messy and fallible. I agree that hand-wavy "Science people are right!" talk is wrong, imprecise and has potential to be harmful. At the same time, I believe in the scientific-method-applied-to-the-world. I believe in its power to reveal truth. I do not have that same belief in scripture-or-organized-religion-applied-to-the-world. And I think that's REALLY important. Of course people do stupid things and make mistakes, but when someone puts blind faith in people-trying-to-adhere-to-science, it scares me a lot less than when someone puts blind faith in people-trying-to-adhere-to-a-religion. In fact, I'd much rather people put blind faith in "scientists" than in... any other type of group, really, at least when it comes to revealing knowledge. Hopefully that made sense, if anyone has thoughts or disagrees, I'm more than happy to hear it.

saeranv 8y ago

Let's put it this way, do you feel a monarchy is as equally corruptible as a democracy? Both are institutions constructed by greedy, corrupt, stupid, fallible human beings. It's just that the latter has built in several mechanisms to address this. Like science. So over a long period of time, democracies have proven to be less corrupt then monarchies, and like-wise, science has proven to be less wrong then religion.

adamrezich 8y ago
Define "democracy." Purely democratic systems are absolutely fallible; mob rule is a thing man is prone to falling prey to in such systems. This is why basically nobody uses straight-up direct democracy today, especially in the age of everyone having read/write access to a global information network in their pockets at all times. But even putting that aside, and accepting for sake of the argument that the political system in use in countries such as the United States is a "democracy" ...still, yes. Did political corruption magically disappear overnight when we stopped being ruled by monarchs? Were all monarchies corrupt to begin with? "Democracy is to monarchy as science is to religion" is an incredibly muddled comparison that does not make much sense when you break it down. Modern Christianity would not be where it is today without Protestantism questioning core fundamental beliefs and then-current leadership. When does what is accepted as "Science" get to have its version of Protestantism, questioning not just the dogma of "settled science" (the most hilarious oxymoron of all time), but those who spread it to the masses as well? Why is it that Christians, even Catholics have no problem admitting to the fallibility of what they consider to be their holiest of institutions, yet atheists seem to believe that "science" is inherently always impossible to be anything but utterly pure use of the scientific method conducted with nothing but the utmost honesty, at every level? The motivations of man are not always pure, especially when in positions of power and/or authority. Even if you want to disregard religion entirely, at least take lessons from the history it has given us.
- phs318u 8y ago
  You keep raising the straw man of "settled science" - who here, or in fact in the scientific community, believes this let alone proclaims it? Even in broader (non-scientifically literate) society, there are few people (in my experience) that believe science knows everything already. Science had its "protestant" moment - it was called the Enlightenment, and it result from questioning the dogma of settled knowledge as promulgated by religions through the infallibility of scripture.
  - adamrezich 8y ago
    I'm not going to list politically-charged examples because that's highly unlikely to lead to productive discussion and everyone here knows it. I'm not knowledgeable about philosophy or metaphysics but is there even anything approaching consensus on whether or not there even is a "knowledge ceiling" that an individual or even society could ever achieve? (If so, I'd love to know how anyone came to that conclusion lol) >Science had its "protestant" moment - it was called the Enlightenment, and it result from questioning the dogma of settled knowledge as promulgated by religions through the infallibility of scripture. You seem to have misunderstood the analogy I was making. I'm a practicing Roman Catholic, yet view Protestantism as having been a positive thing for Christianity as a whole, including Roman Catholicism. When is dogmatic belief in whatever passes for "science" these days going to be scrutinized? Systemic corruption of any sufficiently powerful institution of man is inevitable, and just because the scientific method is about as pure of a means of reasoning about the world around us as we can come up with and has led to profound advancements in technology and our understanding of our world... doesn't mean that everyone's just going to ignore the fact that using the now-widespread dogmatic belief in its infallibility is a pretty powerful means of achieving external political and personal goals unrelated to the pursuit of truth. It's naive to think otherwise.
    - phs318u 8y ago
      You keep bringing in disparate arguments as if they are part of the same thing - infallibility, knowledge ceiling, dogmatism - and also throwing in the odd barb - "whatever passes for science these days" (the answer to which, is "science!"). Yes, agreed that human systems have a tendency to corruption, however the scientific method at least has within it the seeds to "keep the bastards honest" (as we say where I come from). i.e. 1. Nothing stops you from learning and becoming a scientist. 2. Nothing stops you from attempting to repeat published experiments, or if you can't, then to point out why (which are likely to be faults in either the description or execution of the original experiment). In other words, there is transparency and a basis for objective comparison. Lack of transparency (either through gatekeeping or lack of detail) is considered a bad sign in science. That's what differentiates the scientific method, from say, the "political method", or "the religious method".

zaphod4prez 8y ago

Okay, here's where I see an important difference. Let's break it down into a few constituent parts. We have a thing (scripture / spiritual belief OR the scientific method as applied to the world). Then, nasty, messy fallible people who probably don't floss... do stuff with that thing: they teach it, they do it, they investigate it in their own messy wayd. And then regular joe-schmo's who aren't so involved in the doing-something-with-the-thing get reallll impressed by these doing-stuff people (priests/rabbis/gurus whatever OR scientists of all sorts). Okay, well here's the thing. I agree that everybody is messy and fallible. I agree that hand-wavy "Science people are right!" talk is wrong, imprecise and has potential to be harmful. At the same time, I believe in the scientific-method-applied-to-the-world. I believe in its power to reveal truth. I do not have that same belief in scripture-or-organized-religion-applied-to-the-world. And I think that's REALLY important. Of course people do stupid things and make mistakes, but when someone puts blind faith in people-trying-to-adhere-to-science, it scares me a lot less than when someone puts blind faith in people-trying-to-adhere-to-a-religion. In fact, I'd much rather people put blind faith in "scientists" than in... any other type of group, really, at least when it comes to revealing knowledge. Hopefully that made sense, if anyone has thoughts or disagrees, I'm more than happy to hear it.