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Focus Group Adam and the God of Holes: Science is also religion, and religion is also science

There are of course border areas where the two can collide, that is, where the natural sciences and theological inquiry collide. But this also proves that the two cannot be sharply separated. The common area is the person.

In any case, the first proof in world history conducted using the scientific method in its today's sense is all linked to the names of Christian believers. On Saturday, September 19, 1647, in France, Florin Perrier measured how much the level of mercury would rise if he placed a glass tube in a container of mercury. He repeated the experiment four times, then later carried it out at a higher altitude, and found that the height of the mercury there was lower. Well, this experiment was conducted by the Catholic Perrier in a monastery, with the help of monks, at the request of the Jansenist Blaise Pascal, and at the suggestion of the Catholic Rene Descartes (at least according to Descartes).

Pseudoscience

It's also nice that Adam Nagy has a strong hatred for pseudoscience. Who wouldn't be? However, the main question is not whether we hate pseudoscience, to which everyone will answer yes, but what we consider pseudoscience. Today, there are clear ambitions, such as astrology, which is still accepted by many people, and, moreover, Galileo Galilei, considered one of the first heroes, heroes and martyrs of modern science, was among its distinguished practitioners. No, I do not mean astronomy, i.e. astronomy, but astrology, i.e. astrology. Galileo was referred to as a great astrologer. Of course, this does not diminish its advantages.

Among the first critics of astrology were the Fathers of the Church.

Such as Saint Augustine, as he was the one who introduced the doctrine of free will and was a supporter of determinism. Unfortunately, this does not change the fact that later believing Christians also accepted and even practiced astronomy – for example, Galileo.

The fact that astrology has now been exposed as a pseudoscience raises troubling questions. The most troubling question is not why so many people were still interested then and why they believed in it, but why you can make a good living from horoscopes. (That is, there are those who believe that astrology is not a pseudoscience after all, or they do not consider it a science, but they think it is true, damn it.) But there is phrenology (if… According to Wikipedia “The pseudoscience of measuring the human skull, which was particularly popular between 1810 and 1840”), or in the first half of the twentieth century, was considered a net continuation of progress Eugenics (human species pedagogy, khm), which has now been put on the pseudoscience rubbish heap not only because of the so-called development of science, in fact, not because of this in the first place, but because of its questionable ethical implications. However, there was only one institution consistently opposed to eugenics, which was ridiculed: the Catholic Church. Then there are Freud's theories about religion, the Oedipus complex, and the like, which, if not called pseudoscience, are at least considered superior despite their popularity.

Or there is, to give a more contemporary example, Richard Dawkins' meme theory, which has become popular (it was until a short time ago) and is considered scientific, even though Dawkins' memes are invisible, untestable, and cannot be precisely defined. It cannot be measured, nor can it be measured. As Nicholas Spencer has noted, although Dawkins is anti-religious, his memes are fundamentally divine. Philosopher Anthony O'Hare has observed that if such memes actually existed, it would be a denial of reflective consciousness. So

Modern Dawkins memes, despite their scientific reputation, can be found in pseudoscience articles and scientific religion at the same time. Oh, and Dawkins memes are not facts. They are more inhuman.

The more troubling question is that if astrology, physiognomy, eugenics, and many other things, are widely regarded as true sciences and dealt with by learned societies, then

Will it be the case that something so widely accepted as science today will turn out to be pseudoscience in a hundred or two hundred years?

Because no matter how shocking the question may be – since we are already doing real science – the possibility is open.

I'll just mention as a side note, as I lean back in my chair, that postmodernists are going to have to sweat a lot about pseudoscience, because it's within their own system

It would be difficult for them not to argue that the concept of pseudoscience is a social construct based on interest, but it is at least context-dependent.

– by which they essentially declare that the concept is arbitrary according to their custom. I mean, what I'm saying is that they have to act this way if they want to be true to themselves. Based on this, it does not become clear that something is pseudoscience, but rather it is declared as pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is built and activated, and is not discovered and revealed, but merely announced. But this is not my case. For my part, as a Thomist epistemologist, I believe in the knowability of reality (or even in its existence) more than postmodernists do. Furthermore, Nearchus also includes postmodernism among secular religions. After all, the premise of science is that the world operates on the basis of orderly and predictable laws, that it is accessible, that it can be investigated, and that it makes sense to investigate it at all.

God of holes?

Adam Nagy brings up the concept that what we don't know yet, we fill with God. He's right that we don't know much about the world yet, he says “The church has the answer to everything, and has a hard time accepting that it doesn't know anything.”And fills the gaps with beliefs.

This is the concept of the “God of holes,” and this concept is also strongly criticized by Christian theologians. Doctrines do not fill areas that are still obscure to the natural sciences, but they are a completely different field.

But there is also another concept, compatibilism, which is about the fact that current scientific findings and fashions are quickly incorporated into theology, or even read into the Bible or incorporated into arguments in favor of religion. It's all well and good, but only when this scientific data is contradicted or contradicted will there be a problem. Jackie SaniszloThe Benedictine philosopher of science criticized compatibilism frequently.

The Church has answers for its own area, in which it knows a lot. But nurturing the natural sciences is not the task of theology, and theology does not fill the shrinking gaps in the natural sciences. Also, the natural sciences are not specialized in theological issues. Even Stephen Hawking is unauthorized. Doctrines do not fill areas not yet explored by the natural sciences; the two areas are quite different. So Adam the Great's “god of holes” is also wrong from a Christian point of view, and religion is no substitute for lack of knowledge.

As for the relationship between Christianity and science, which is complex and not black and white, I would like to mention two points. According to Edward Grant, Christianity had always fundamentally supported science, and the Christian Middle Ages created the prerequisites for the scientific revolution of modernity. (The foundations of modern science in the Middle Ages and their religious, institutional and intellectual contexts(Cambridge University Press, 1996, 168-206.) According to J. L. Heilbronn

The Catholic Church provided more financial and social support for astronomical research over the six centuries before the Enlightenment than any other institution.

(The sun in the church – cathedrals as solar observatories(Harvard University Press, 1999, 3.)

Speaking of works on the history of science: Cobbett, Grant and Heilbronn's authors are from the natural humanities, examining its philosophy and history. They publish in scholarly journals and books, and the last two volumes have been published by well-known university publishers. So, as a humanities scholar, let me protest against the view that only natural science is true science.

The Bible and the natural sciences

That the church always adapts science to the Bible is not true either. There have been times like this, and other times when interpretation of the Bible has been adapted to current scientific findings. Nicholas Spencer puts it this way Magisteria – the intertwined history of science and religion In his work, he argues that during the so-called “Scientific Revolution” (which did not actually exist as such), the Church actually defended the old science (Aristotelian science) against the new. In this era, for about two hundred years, science was often measured according to the Bible, but in the preceding and following 1,500 years, there was no such precise measurement. (Except for some Protestant trends).

After looking deeply into the church, churches, or religions, Adam Nagy then says he understands the “cognitive dissonance” that makes people feel like they need religion. Well, there is simply no such cognitive dissonance.

Then he asks questions about the scientific basis of the Bible, which he does not understand at all. However, archaeologists generally consider the Bible to be reliable, but the Bible has always been interpreted in several ways, depending on the type of book it contains, e.g. The moral symbolic interpretation is crucial from the beginning. 4-5. Saint Augustine, who lived at the turn of the century, also discusses the correct interpretation of the Bible with the scientific knowledge of the time In his analysis of Genesis. Jackie Saniszlo according to The first chapter of Genesis is not about the creation of physical reality at all, but rather about a moral appeal to the chosen people to keep the Lord's Day without work. However, I particularly recommend his writings to those interested in the relationship between religion and science.

The questions raised by Adam Nagy on the podcast have long been answered by theologians.

I thought that the question of the relationship between religion and natural sciences was long overdue old: Obviously both are meaningful and have their own areas of competence. But I thought wrong. So you can “believe” in science from me in any sense. Adam concludes his analysis with common sense. Common sense is important. Let's just say that recently scientists do not believe in its existence. I think there is. Paul Feyerabend Philosopher of science and Michael Oakeshott And also an English philosopher That's what he thoughtthat common sense, everyday perception is also a completely legitimate way of perception. We would be in trouble if it wasn't for that. So I don't “believe” in science either, but I accept it, and that's something I have in common with Adam Nagy. The reasons are different.

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