User:Rwburden

RationalWiki claims to be a defender of the scientific method. I dispute that. The scientific method presupposes that the scientific investigator makes hypotheses and designs tests and judges the results with freedom of will and with the purpose to invent theories that allow us to more completely and accurately forecast what will happen. It further presupposes that the truth exists, is one, and governs everything that has happened, is happening, or ever will happen. Governs, but does not determine, because part of what happens depends on what we choose to do.

If we allow that the scientific investigator lacks free will, then there is no need to advocate the scientific method (for it is in that case something we either do or don't do automatically), and no basis for morality of any kind. If we admit that the scientific investigator has free will, then we have a strong justification for a religious idea which affirms the righteousness of the scientist's purpose, to make theories that allow us to more completely and accurately forecast what will happen. This religious idea can be stated as "the truth exists, is one, governs everything, its effects can be forecast with unlimited completeness and accuracy, yet the truth itself can never be known". This religious idea is presented by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in De Doctrina Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance), "On the Hidden God", and "On Searching for God", and it is a further development of the idea of Socrates and Plato that the presumption of knowledge is the main cause of ignorance.

Objection: If the scientific investigator lacks free will, we cannot conclude that there is no need to advocate the scientific method, for, if a person does not practice the scientific method automatically, perhaps that person can be coerced, or that person can be removed from the gene pool by castration or execution. Rebuttal: Coercion is not the same as advocacy, however, coercion must be opposed and prevented, because a person who makes hypotheses, designs tests and judges the results in order to avoid punishment is doing these things with an unscientific purpose, and the theories that result can only be expected to further obscure the truth. Likewise, if a government or an armed gang of racists decides to start castrating or killing people they consider to be unscientific, then the pursuit of science will be hamstrung by people attempting to prove that they are or that others are not scientific, and the passions of fear, hate, rage and revenge thus aroused will overwhelm rational decision-making.

Objection: the idea mentioned above is not a religious idea. Rebuttal: An omnipotent and omniscient God by any other name is still that. However, this idea is even more profoundly religious, because it implies that our practice of the scientific method will be rewarded with the ability to better forecast what will happen, which implies more control over what happens, and this benefit will pass on to future generations, while it requires us to always humbly acknowledge that we do not and cannot ever know the truth itself, and therefore are not and never will be omnipotent, and to revere and worship the God who created us with the freedom to pursue science and thereby to determine an ever-growing part of what happens by what we choose to do, and take care that we never kill, oppress, harm or intimidate anyone who has this scientific potential, but encourage all to develop it and express it to the fullest.

Objection: There is no need to worship or to thank God for what is in our DNA, as we will gain nothing by doing so. Rebuttal: Those who seek to intimidate and to dominate us, will first persuade us that we are no better than the beasts who lack the ability to practice the scientific method. The arguments that our enemies will use include (1) animals can do everything that we do in lesser degree and (2) science offers us at best only a temporary advantage which will end in catastrophe once the carrying capacity of our planet is exceeded. If we insist that there is a qualitative difference between human scientific and technological progress and the use of very primitive tools by apes, which apes employ without understanding how they work, and that the carrying capacity of our planet can, in effect, be expanded without limit through mastery of nuclear fusion, the exploration and development of extraterrestrial resources and eventual extraterrestrial colonization, our enemy will insist that the truth is multiple, or does not exist in itself, or, as Bertrand Russell insisted, will soon be known in its entirety with mathematical exactitude, therefore progress must either reach a limit or become circular. If, however, we are like Nicholas of Cusa, steadfast in our faith in and adoration of the God we do not and cannot know, we shall have a scientific renaissance that will never end, as we prove that Kurt Gödel is right and Bertrand Russell is not only wrong, but full of malice.