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What's completely senseless to me is how absolutely proponents of the scientific world-view reject it's similarity to religious culture. To me it looks exactly

What's completely senseless to me is how absolutely proponents of the scientific world-view reject it's similarity to religious culture. To me it looks exactly the same, and this article while excellent and amusing fits perfectly in that dominant theme of science as a above and apart from mythology. Here's an amusing quote: “Mr. Peale’s animals reminded me of Noah’s Ark, into which was received every kind of beast and creeping thing in which there was life. But I can hardly conceive that even Noah could have boasted of a better collection.” The idea that a there is a golden age of pure truth and reason against which the forces of chaos rallied is as old as time. That itself is the myth of excoriation by which we organize classes of the cognoscenti: there are those who know the original truth and those who do not. I think rather than pit reason and truth against the circus of spectacle we have to embrace the latter as the former and include everyone in the know, with a laugh.

thotsBgone 6y ago
Hacker News is not a humanities essay.
- tehchromic 6y ago
  Hahahaha! Ok, I'll fall in line and quit thinking along humanist lines, sir! ;)
  - thotsBgone 6y ago
    It's not your thinking I have an issue with, it's your masturbatory writing style.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't be a jerk in HN comments. "Be kind." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
pdonis 6y ago
> proponents of the scientific world-view reject it's similarity to religious culture. To me it looks exactly the same Really? I think you are confusing the scientific worldview, which is diametrically opposed to religious culture--religious culture says certain beliefs are declared to be not open to question at all, no matter how much your intelligence wants to question them; the scientific worldview says all beliefs are open to question, no matter how much you think they're right--with pronouncements made by particular scientists to lay people, which often do seem like certain beliefs are being treated more like religious beliefs.
- tehchromic 6y ago
  Respectfully I'd say you've underscored my point. Your statement that "scientific worldview, which is diametrically opposed to religious culture" is itself a dogma, which is one of the features of religion you claim to have surpassed as a scientific person. It is true that modern society contains pretty fundamentally opposed religious vs scientific factions. My point isn't to take sides but to point out that what you are calling religion is some kind of oppositional faction defined by rejecting scientific fact. It wasn't always the case. But you should judge the nature of religious culture objectively and scientifically, not by it's worst modern manifestations. Religious reality was originally and for thousands of years the only reality, and it's proponents would have argued as strongly against any alternating philosophy, just at you proclaim that scientific realism is reality and reject any other. My argument is that scientific culture resemblance to religious culture isn't coincidence, it's the nature of belief in social systems. Meanwhile science culture could learn worlds from religious culture which in my view was very much a science of authority and social unification. That's to say that religious cultural realism was more effective at generating belief and that's because it was a science of generating belief.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > Your statement that "scientific worldview, which is diametrically opposed to religious culture" is itself a dogma No, it isn't, it's a description. I described what I mean by "scientific worldview" and by "religious culture". It should be evident from my descriptions that the two things I described are diametrically opposed. I think my descriptions have fairly captured the two world views in question. If you disagree, by all means make an argument; but just calling my descriptions "dogma" is not an argument. > which is exactly the feature of religion you claim to have surpassed as a scientific person I have made no such claim. I explicitly contrasted the scientific worldview with the behavior of individual persons. I also said nothing about "surpassing" anything. > My point isn't to take sides but to point out that what you are calling religion is some kind of oppositional faction defined by rejecting scientific fact. Again, if you disagree with my description of "religious culture", by all means make an argument for a different description. My description certainly does not describe all aspects of religion; but I think I have focused in on a key aspect that makes religious culture different from the scientific worldview. > Religious reality was originally and for thousands of years the only reality The level of historical ignorance in this statement is staggering. A true statement would be that humans have had religions for as far back as we have historical evidence. But that is a much, much weaker statement than your claim here. > just at you proclaim that scientific realism is reality and reject any other I have said no such thing. I have no idea what you are responding to, but it isn't anything I said. > scientific culture resemblance to religious culture isn't coincidence Before you start making claims about why such a resemblance exists, you first have to establish that it exists. You have not done that.
cle 6y ago
I don't understand this argument. Because science enthusiasts show a similar zeal as religious enthusiasts, then science itself is a circus of spectacle? That makes no sense to me. I'm struggling to understand how science as a method for building knowledge is invalidated by the behavior of zealots.
- tehchromic 6y ago
  Wwll, same for religion. What I'm saying is, what's wrong with a circus? I think they are pretty interesting.
Aperocky 6y ago
This is a false equivalence. When someone say they believe in Science, it means they subscribe to fact and evidence based reasoning. And that if there are evidence or facts that overturns their current belief, they'll gladly accept it. There are no such equivalence in religion.
- tehchromic 6y ago
  True in a very general sense, although you'd have to exclude religions where such things are allowed to say that accurately. Agreed that this is the dominant narrative in global culture. However my point is that science appears to be fairly poor at building universal belief, which is something religion excelled at with scientific precision. There are advantages and disadvantages to both cultures. One disadvantage is organizing ourselves around something like global climate change where scientific consensus is near unanimous, but the culture at large is very slow to heed. Religion is very good at getting masses of people to do what they are told regardless of their best interest. Look at the American religious voter for example. My point is that if science is more than a methodology, if it is a cultural spectacle, then it's probably wise for us all to admit that it is in fact very much like a religion. I am saying that science as a cultural reality can benefit from dropping the claim to be better than, or something other than a religion. Don't stone me for saying so.
  - edmundsauto 6y ago
    > science appears to be fairly poor at building universal belief, which is something religion excelled at with scientific precision Can you elaborate on this? What, exactly, is this universal belief? On your statement of scientific precision -what do you mean by "scientific" and "precise"? I'm trying to follow what you're saying in this discussion, but it's difficult because we do not share the same definitions. EG, you seem to be using science in place where I would use "process for iterating to meet a goal". To me, science is trying to prove yourself wrong a million ways, so you can sort of accept that the null hypothesis is wrong. Put another way - I would be ecstatic to see undeniable objective proof of a deity. Religious believers would not be similarly happy to have one of their core beliefs destroyed. The difference is religious beliefs are fragile to disorder; scientific beliefs are anti-fragile.
shrimp_emoji 6y ago
Yeah, science is just like religion, scientists are the clergy, and meta-analyses in the current literature are the scripture. But here are some important differences[0]: 1 The willingness to admit ignorance. Modern science is based on the Latin injunction ignoramus – ‘we do not know’. It assumes that we don’t know everything. Even more critically, it accepts that the things that we think we know could be proven wrong as we gain more knowledge. No concept, idea or theory is sacred and beyond challenge. 2 The centrality of observation and mathematics. Having admitted ignorance, modern science aims to obtain new knowledge. It does so by gathering observations and then using mathematical tools to connect these observations into comprehensive theories. And then trying to repeat faked or fluke results 3 The acquisition of new powers. Modern science is not content with creating theories. It uses these theories in order to acquire new powers, and in particular to develop new technologies. 0: https://medium.com/ceoeducation/notes-on-sapiens-a-brief-history-of-mankind-26e35553bd7d https://medium.com/ceoeducation/notes-on-sapiens-a-brief-his...
- tehchromic 6y ago
  Agreed. What I'm saying to ask tho is what are the strengths if religion? Because science is failing us very seriously in certain cultural regards.

thotsBgone 6y ago

Hacker News is not a humanities essay.

tehchromic 6y ago
Hahahaha! Ok, I'll fall in line and quit thinking along humanist lines, sir! ;)
- thotsBgone 6y ago
  It's not your thinking I have an issue with, it's your masturbatory writing style.
dang 6y ago
Please don't be a jerk in HN comments. "Be kind." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

pdonis 6y ago

> proponents of the scientific world-view reject it's similarity to religious culture. To me it looks exactly the same Really? I think you are confusing the scientific worldview, which is diametrically opposed to religious culture--religious culture says certain beliefs are declared to be not open to question at all, no matter how much your intelligence wants to question them; the scientific worldview says all beliefs are open to question, no matter how much you think they're right--with pronouncements made by particular scientists to lay people, which often do seem like certain beliefs are being treated more like religious beliefs.

tehchromic 6y ago
Respectfully I'd say you've underscored my point. Your statement that "scientific worldview, which is diametrically opposed to religious culture" is itself a dogma, which is one of the features of religion you claim to have surpassed as a scientific person. It is true that modern society contains pretty fundamentally opposed religious vs scientific factions. My point isn't to take sides but to point out that what you are calling religion is some kind of oppositional faction defined by rejecting scientific fact. It wasn't always the case. But you should judge the nature of religious culture objectively and scientifically, not by it's worst modern manifestations. Religious reality was originally and for thousands of years the only reality, and it's proponents would have argued as strongly against any alternating philosophy, just at you proclaim that scientific realism is reality and reject any other. My argument is that scientific culture resemblance to religious culture isn't coincidence, it's the nature of belief in social systems. Meanwhile science culture could learn worlds from religious culture which in my view was very much a science of authority and social unification. That's to say that religious cultural realism was more effective at generating belief and that's because it was a science of generating belief.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Your statement that "scientific worldview, which is diametrically opposed to religious culture" is itself a dogma No, it isn't, it's a description. I described what I mean by "scientific worldview" and by "religious culture". It should be evident from my descriptions that the two things I described are diametrically opposed. I think my descriptions have fairly captured the two world views in question. If you disagree, by all means make an argument; but just calling my descriptions "dogma" is not an argument. > which is exactly the feature of religion you claim to have surpassed as a scientific person I have made no such claim. I explicitly contrasted the scientific worldview with the behavior of individual persons. I also said nothing about "surpassing" anything. > My point isn't to take sides but to point out that what you are calling religion is some kind of oppositional faction defined by rejecting scientific fact. Again, if you disagree with my description of "religious culture", by all means make an argument for a different description. My description certainly does not describe all aspects of religion; but I think I have focused in on a key aspect that makes religious culture different from the scientific worldview. > Religious reality was originally and for thousands of years the only reality The level of historical ignorance in this statement is staggering. A true statement would be that humans have had religions for as far back as we have historical evidence. But that is a much, much weaker statement than your claim here. > just at you proclaim that scientific realism is reality and reject any other I have said no such thing. I have no idea what you are responding to, but it isn't anything I said. > scientific culture resemblance to religious culture isn't coincidence Before you start making claims about why such a resemblance exists, you first have to establish that it exists. You have not done that.

cle 6y ago

I don't understand this argument. Because science enthusiasts show a similar zeal as religious enthusiasts, then science itself is a circus of spectacle? That makes no sense to me. I'm struggling to understand how science as a method for building knowledge is invalidated by the behavior of zealots.

tehchromic 6y ago
Wwll, same for religion. What I'm saying is, what's wrong with a circus? I think they are pretty interesting.

Aperocky 6y ago

This is a false equivalence. When someone say they believe in Science, it means they subscribe to fact and evidence based reasoning. And that if there are evidence or facts that overturns their current belief, they'll gladly accept it. There are no such equivalence in religion.

tehchromic 6y ago
True in a very general sense, although you'd have to exclude religions where such things are allowed to say that accurately. Agreed that this is the dominant narrative in global culture. However my point is that science appears to be fairly poor at building universal belief, which is something religion excelled at with scientific precision. There are advantages and disadvantages to both cultures. One disadvantage is organizing ourselves around something like global climate change where scientific consensus is near unanimous, but the culture at large is very slow to heed. Religion is very good at getting masses of people to do what they are told regardless of their best interest. Look at the American religious voter for example. My point is that if science is more than a methodology, if it is a cultural spectacle, then it's probably wise for us all to admit that it is in fact very much like a religion. I am saying that science as a cultural reality can benefit from dropping the claim to be better than, or something other than a religion. Don't stone me for saying so.
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  > science appears to be fairly poor at building universal belief, which is something religion excelled at with scientific precision Can you elaborate on this? What, exactly, is this universal belief? On your statement of scientific precision -what do you mean by "scientific" and "precise"? I'm trying to follow what you're saying in this discussion, but it's difficult because we do not share the same definitions. EG, you seem to be using science in place where I would use "process for iterating to meet a goal". To me, science is trying to prove yourself wrong a million ways, so you can sort of accept that the null hypothesis is wrong. Put another way - I would be ecstatic to see undeniable objective proof of a deity. Religious believers would not be similarly happy to have one of their core beliefs destroyed. The difference is religious beliefs are fragile to disorder; scientific beliefs are anti-fragile.

shrimp_emoji 6y ago

Yeah, science is just like religion, scientists are the clergy, and meta-analyses in the current literature are the scripture. But here are some important differences[0]: 1 The willingness to admit ignorance. Modern science is based on the Latin injunction ignoramus – ‘we do not know’. It assumes that we don’t know everything. Even more critically, it accepts that the things that we think we know could be proven wrong as we gain more knowledge. No concept, idea or theory is sacred and beyond challenge. 2 The centrality of observation and mathematics. Having admitted ignorance, modern science aims to obtain new knowledge. It does so by gathering observations and then using mathematical tools to connect these observations into comprehensive theories. And then trying to repeat faked or fluke results 3 The acquisition of new powers. Modern science is not content with creating theories. It uses these theories in order to acquire new powers, and in particular to develop new technologies. 0: https://medium.com/ceoeducation/notes-on-sapiens-a-brief-history-of-mankind-26e35553bd7d https://medium.com/ceoeducation/notes-on-sapiens-a-brief-his...

tehchromic 6y ago
Agreed. What I'm saying to ask tho is what are the strengths if religion? Because science is failing us very seriously in certain cultural regards.