Re: throwing out the baby with the bathwater

Chris Cogan (ccogan@sfo.com)
Mon, 5 Jul 1999 14:25:48 -0700

> At 04:34 PM 7/4/99 +0800, you wrote:
> >Reflectorites
> >
> >Someone posted this on another list I am on. It's from M. Scott Peck,
"The
> >Road Less Traveled," (1978):
> >
> >"Another reason that scientists are so prone to throw out the baby
> >[religion] with the bath water is that science itself, as I have
suggested,
> is a
> >religion. The neophyte scientist, recently come or converted to the world
> >view of science, can be every bit as fanatical as a Christian crusader or
> >soldier of Allah. This is particularly the case when we have come to
science
> >from a culture and home in which belief in God is firmly associated with
> >ignorance, superstition, rigidity and hypocrisy."

Chris
As it should be, because it IS. Peck should not be criticizing scientists
and science, but those darn facts. When I walk down the street and someone
hands me a pamphlet, I hardly EVER look at it and read, "Accept Einstein
Into Your Heart and be SAVED!"

> I thought this was the weakest part of the book and I wasn't even involved
> in the evolution/creation debate when I read the book in 1979. Then, as
now,
> I thought he was dead wrong. There are just too many scientists who are
> religionists of one kind or another to say that science is thowing babies
or
> bathwater anywhere. Someone should take Peck to task for ignoring nuclear
> physics in his study of psychology. If he protests that nuclear physics
has
> nothing at all to do with pysychology, so what! He's just showing his
bias!

Chris
Science can be a religion in the sense that people can try to hold
"scientific" views on faith, and be dogmatic about them. But I think it
worth mentioning that science itself cannot be a religion. It is a body of
knowledge and an empirical method for discovering and validating that
knowledge and more empirical knowledge.

Saying that science can be a religion is like saying that mathematics can be
a religion. At best, it's misleading. Oftentimes, this kind of claim is much
worse; it is often dishonest. It is often an attempt to make religion seem
better by making science seem worse.