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I have read US history and not once did religiously motivated dissent to scientific consensus result in the advancement of science or the advancement of any oth

I have read US history and not once did religiously motivated dissent to scientific consensus result in the advancement of science or the advancement of any other measure of human progress.

smsm42 12y ago
Religiously motivated dissent is, by a large measure, what started what became the US, and the importance of dissent is ingrained deeply in the ideological base of the US republic. Also, you can read on abolitionist movement and their religious motivations (science was playing racial theories with gusto at that time and continued for some time even after the slavery was abolished). So your rosy picture of triumphant march of science against the forces of darkness is somewhat misguided. But the point is not even that - the point is the cheerfulness with which people meet the proposition of quelling of the religious dissent is positively frightening.
- woodchuck64 12y ago
  Religious dissent has no empirical anchor. Religious truth endlessly changes and shifts amorphously with time and culture. Religions splinter and fragment, all the while furiously denouncing the other's moral depravity. Science, on the other hand, holds provisional truth, tests, makes predictions and steadily converges. As for slavery and racism, one would expect that social and cultural forces would be the primary drivers for beliefs about races. Only secondarily would religion and/or proto-science be used to justify those beliefs, unless or until either system developed rigorous empirical means capable of supporting or undermining those beliefs. Christians supported slavery by using biblical references to Ham's descendants being cursed to be servants. Attempts to use science to support racism and slavery were used as well, of course, but flawed in the way the practice of science itself was flawed at the time. Neither religion nor science can claim any credit for ending slavery, that credit can only go to evolving social views. Steven Pinker argues that increased empathy for slaves and moral revulsion for slavery was catalyzed by a number of best-selling autobiographies of slaves. The growth of empathy, the rejection of slavery and gradual but steady rejection of all forms of violence in societies is well documented in his "Better Angels of Our Nature".
  - smsm42 12y ago
    >>> Religious dissent has no empirical anchor. True. But what of it? Not everything in life should or can have an empirical anchor, it is only a tool, and with limited usability at that. >>> Religions splinter and fragment, all the while furiously denouncing the other's moral depravity. Not all religions denounce each other's moral depravity, far from it. As for splintering, so do scientific schools or art schools or sports teams or companies, what's wrong with that? It's the market of ideas, like any other. >>> As for slavery and racism, one would expect that social and cultural forces would be the primary drivers for beliefs about races. As if religion is something that is orthogonal to social and cultural forces instead of being integral part of it? If you read _why_ religious abolitionists were abolitionists, you'll see plenty of purely religious reasons for that. Of course, not all religious people were like that - there's dissent in science, and dissent in religion, people love to dissent and the question of racism was not an exception. >>> Attempts to use science to support racism and slavery were used as well, of course, but flawed in the way the practice of science itself was flawed at the time. Science at the time was no different than science today. It wasn't flawed in any specific way it is not flawed now, and we did not do anything different today than we did back then. People changed, and some things that were done back then are not considered fit to be done today. But it's not because science discovered something different - it's because the morals changed. And science has very little to do with morals, unfortunately. >>> Neither religion nor science can claim any credit for ending slavery, that credit can only go to evolving social views. Again, if you talk about social views, religion is much closer to what we understand by social views than science. >>> gradual but steady rejection of all forms of violence I would be hard pressed to find any scientific and empirically supported argument for rejecting violence and increasing empathy. In fact, if you look in the empirical examples from the nature, abhorrent violence and terrifying behavior is the regular occurrence. However, if you look at religions, you can find plenty of argument for empathy and non-violence. Of course, not in all religions, but at least you can find some sources for these ideas there, while you find very little in the empirical science. Same goes for other ideas that underly most of western society, such as Protestant work ethics, or rule of law, or concepts of law and justice, etc. You may dismiss the religion as stupid superstitions, but be careful not to throw out the whole civilization we're living in that was built on the same basis.
- peterashford 12y ago
  It wasn't religion dissenting with science though, was it? It was one bunch of religious people wanting to not be suppressed by another. The fact that Quakers went to the new land and started oppressing the natives is no triumph of religion over science.
  - smsm42 12y ago
    It was not a triumph of religion over science, and nobody said it was. What was discussed is oppressing of religious dissent and cheering to it from the commenters above.

I have read US history and not once did religiously motivated dissent to scientific consensus result in the advancement of science or the advancement of any other measure of human progress.

smsm42 12y ago

Religiously motivated dissent is, by a large measure, what started what became the US, and the importance of dissent is ingrained deeply in the ideological base of the US republic. Also, you can read on abolitionist movement and their religious motivations (science was playing racial theories with gusto at that time and continued for some time even after the slavery was abolished). So your rosy picture of triumphant march of science against the forces of darkness is somewhat misguided. But the point is not even that - the point is the cheerfulness with which people meet the proposition of quelling of the religious dissent is positively frightening.

woodchuck64 12y ago
Religious dissent has no empirical anchor. Religious truth endlessly changes and shifts amorphously with time and culture. Religions splinter and fragment, all the while furiously denouncing the other's moral depravity. Science, on the other hand, holds provisional truth, tests, makes predictions and steadily converges. As for slavery and racism, one would expect that social and cultural forces would be the primary drivers for beliefs about races. Only secondarily would religion and/or proto-science be used to justify those beliefs, unless or until either system developed rigorous empirical means capable of supporting or undermining those beliefs. Christians supported slavery by using biblical references to Ham's descendants being cursed to be servants. Attempts to use science to support racism and slavery were used as well, of course, but flawed in the way the practice of science itself was flawed at the time. Neither religion nor science can claim any credit for ending slavery, that credit can only go to evolving social views. Steven Pinker argues that increased empathy for slaves and moral revulsion for slavery was catalyzed by a number of best-selling autobiographies of slaves. The growth of empathy, the rejection of slavery and gradual but steady rejection of all forms of violence in societies is well documented in his "Better Angels of Our Nature".
- smsm42 12y ago
  >>> Religious dissent has no empirical anchor. True. But what of it? Not everything in life should or can have an empirical anchor, it is only a tool, and with limited usability at that. >>> Religions splinter and fragment, all the while furiously denouncing the other's moral depravity. Not all religions denounce each other's moral depravity, far from it. As for splintering, so do scientific schools or art schools or sports teams or companies, what's wrong with that? It's the market of ideas, like any other. >>> As for slavery and racism, one would expect that social and cultural forces would be the primary drivers for beliefs about races. As if religion is something that is orthogonal to social and cultural forces instead of being integral part of it? If you read _why_ religious abolitionists were abolitionists, you'll see plenty of purely religious reasons for that. Of course, not all religious people were like that - there's dissent in science, and dissent in religion, people love to dissent and the question of racism was not an exception. >>> Attempts to use science to support racism and slavery were used as well, of course, but flawed in the way the practice of science itself was flawed at the time. Science at the time was no different than science today. It wasn't flawed in any specific way it is not flawed now, and we did not do anything different today than we did back then. People changed, and some things that were done back then are not considered fit to be done today. But it's not because science discovered something different - it's because the morals changed. And science has very little to do with morals, unfortunately. >>> Neither religion nor science can claim any credit for ending slavery, that credit can only go to evolving social views. Again, if you talk about social views, religion is much closer to what we understand by social views than science. >>> gradual but steady rejection of all forms of violence I would be hard pressed to find any scientific and empirically supported argument for rejecting violence and increasing empathy. In fact, if you look in the empirical examples from the nature, abhorrent violence and terrifying behavior is the regular occurrence. However, if you look at religions, you can find plenty of argument for empathy and non-violence. Of course, not in all religions, but at least you can find some sources for these ideas there, while you find very little in the empirical science. Same goes for other ideas that underly most of western society, such as Protestant work ethics, or rule of law, or concepts of law and justice, etc. You may dismiss the religion as stupid superstitions, but be careful not to throw out the whole civilization we're living in that was built on the same basis.
peterashford 12y ago
It wasn't religion dissenting with science though, was it? It was one bunch of religious people wanting to not be suppressed by another. The fact that Quakers went to the new land and started oppressing the natives is no triumph of religion over science.
- smsm42 12y ago
  It was not a triumph of religion over science, and nobody said it was. What was discussed is oppressing of religious dissent and cheering to it from the commenters above.