Re: [asa] "Fight for the Life Of the Mind" by Alan Sokal

By MICHAEL SHERMER
> May 21, 2008
>
> http://www.nysun.com/arts/fight-for-the-life-of-the-mind/76744/ <http://www.nysun.com/arts/fight-for-the-life-of-the-mind/76744/> <http://www.nysun.com/arts/fight-for-the-life-of-the-mind/76744/ <http://www.nysun.com/arts/fight-for-the-life-of-the-mind/76744/> >
>
> ...
> There is progress in science, and some views really are superior to others, regardless of the color, gender, or country of origin of the scientist holding that view. Despite the fact that scientific data are "theory laden," science is truly different than art, music, religion, and other forms of human expression because it has a self-correcting mechanism built into it. If you don't catch the flaws in your theory, the slant in your bias, or the distortion in your preferences, someone else will, usually with great glee and in a public forum - for example, a competing journal! Scientists may be biased, but science itself, for all its flaws, is still the best system ever devised for understanding how the world works.
>
I would add emphasis to the last four words: *how the world works* or
even better yet, just the word: *how*, and then agree entirely with his
conclusion.

Question: Is it a necessarily negative property of religion that it is
vulnerable to his criticism of "hindsight bias" and "confirmation
bias"? A scientist constructing theories is rightly skeptical because
of an awareness of his/her own propensity towards these patterns. But
religious people thinking religiously or spiritually are not necessarily
trying to think scientifically, are they? Yes, Gideon put God through a
couple of observational tests, but by and large, that kind of thinking
seems to have been discouraged. Read and praise along with the
psalmist, and we are all about confirming and encouraging right
relationship -- discouraging wrong.

Another question: Does religion have a self-correcting mechanism of its
own that has been tested over longer eons? E.g. Let a system of
rituals or beliefs get out of hand or go off the deep end, and you
foment a reformation, even if you won't see it in your lifetime. If
religious beliefs or bodies of doctrine don't pass a kind of
"experiential test" over multiple generations, they lead to challenges
by reformers, do they not? Does this in any way hone our quest for
Truth (referring to Truth that transcends and includes scientific truth)?

--Merv

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Received on Sat May 31 17:20:37 2008