[MD] Dawkins a Materialist

[david buchanan]

Ian said:
I guess my overly aggressive tone was really aimed at DMB who repeatedly 
refuses to accept that science is "just" a belief system too, and others in 
our audience who do not see as you do (and say DM and I do) that "science" 
is no longer the simple causal objective system it was 100 years ago.

dmb says:
When did I ever say, or even imply, that science is a "simple causal 
objective system"? When did I ever refuse to accept that science is a belief 
system? Never, that's when. As we all know, scientific objectivity is one of 
Pirsig's central targets. My repeated point is simply that scientific 
beliefs are not based on faith. Yes, science uses assumptions and starting 
points. Yes, scientifc beliefs are beliefs. I'm just saying that those 
assumptions and beliefs are not based on faith, but on evidence. Your whole 
case seems to be predicated on the notion that "faith" and "assumption" mean 
the same thing, but they don't. The assumptions of science are used and 
tested and modified continuously but faith-based beliefs run screaming from 
such scrutiny. How can you fail to see the difference? If the assumptions of 
science were immune to criticism the way religious dogma has been, then 
Pirsig could not have proposed an alternative and we wouldn't be able to 
discuss it, but he did and we do.

Or think about it this way. The scientific method is basically just a formal 
procedure designed to carefully examine certain kinds of experience. 
Traditionally, because of the assumptions of SOM, sensory experience was the 
only kind that counted. Pirsig alters this narrow conception of what counts 
and experience and so alters what counts as valid empirical evidence. But 
the principle remains the same. Great value is still placed on the idea that 
knowledge begins in experience and that it can be tested by experience. This 
does not destroy science, it improves it. This does not deny the superiority 
of rationality over traditional beleifs, it expands the notion of 
rationality. These modifications make it much harder to exclude mystical 
experience, but it does NOT put faith-based or untested beliefs on equal 
footing with evidence, rationality, science or anything of the sort.

Thanks
dmb

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