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The core argument seems to be that, since scientific analysis isn't a perfect tool, we ought to hedge our bets by also acting based on emotional reasoning. > T
by _Nat_ 7y ago
The core argument seems to be that, since scientific analysis isn't a perfect tool, we ought to hedge our bets by also acting based on emotional reasoning.
> The time has come to pause the second phase of the scientific revolution — to recover a more humble and skeptical approach to what the scientific method can achieve, to unite the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual dimensions of life, and to find our way back to our humanity.
- mattigames 7y agoThe number of red flags when people mention "spiritual" in any given argument is about as bad as someone talking about the Earth being flat or vaccines causing autism.
- DrAwdeOccarim 7y agoI know, completely agree. But one thing that struck me the other day, I read a tweet from some random person that got retweeted a bunch. It went something like this, "Don't shame me for looking to natural remedies/my doctor rolls my eyes when I tell him what my chiropractor suggests/my naturopath has never rolled their eyes at something my doctor has said." It made me sad also because so many people jumped in and said basically the same thing, how "western medicine" has failed us".
- brobdingnagians 7y agoModern medicine is wonderful for reducing deaths from childbirth, antibiotics, surgeries, etc. but for someone who has an "incurable" condition which stumps every doctor they've been to, imagine how frustrating it would be to be told every time that nothing can be done or every treatment just makes it worse? If someone else promised something, not based on rigorous scientific trials, it would be tempting to take it, or at least consider it. I can see why someone would consider things when desperate, or sees the side effects of some conventional treatments. And it stands to reason that there exist treatments unproven which work, otherwise medical research would have stopped long ago.
- vinceguidry 7y agoIt's not a bad thing to point out the failures of modern medicine or to choose to put your health in the hands of naturopaths. It is, indeed, effectively how the human race got along until modern medicine. The problem is in forcing your choices on others.
- lostmsu 7y agoForcing here is entirely via verbal induction of cognitive dissonance.
- vinceguidry 7y agoThen it's not really forcing. Cognitive dissonance != coercion.
- fipar 7y agoI agree, but my problem is the word, not the idea. The word is loaded, like 'mystical', or other words. I'll still use those words when speaking to the right audience, because I know they won't misinterpret me. That's why I can safely say "That live music show last night was a religious experience", for example. The point is, we're not rational beings, at least not exclusively. We're emotional beings, and even if, ultimately, emotions are accounted for by physical factors, there needs to be a way to reconcile our rational side (which includes science) with our emotional one. This include realizing that unbiased, fully-rational science is just impossible. Our biases, as part of our phenotype, are there because whatever caused them to emerge either helped enough ancestors survive, or at least did not get them killed before reproducing, so they're always going to be there. I'm sorry I'm ranting and again, I get what you're saying. I've been through enough experiences of accepting "spiritual" and other words in conversations with people I don't know well, where the other party shortly starts talking about alien abductions and astral traveling, that I know what you mean. But I've also been through enough conversations with people who think science is infallible and will eventually find a solution to everything and an answer to every question.
- fat_turdsicle 7y agoNo, not really even close. The only red flag I see is someone attempting to link something ridiculous like Flat Earth with something with actual scientific backing like vaccines causing autism.
- BaronSamedi 7y agoIn my view, at least part of the reason science has been so successful is precisely because it distanced itself from the emotional and spiritual. For those areas of life we have art and philosophy.