He's talking about the concepts not the people to whom they may apply. And he's saying amoral not immoral. The statement: athesim is amoral, is true. The statement atheists are amoral is untrue. Same for science. Tony's just expressing it badly.

 

Amoral - Not admitting of moral distinctions or judgments; neither moral nor immoral. 2. Lacking moral sensibility; not caring about right and wrong.

Atheism per se is amoral also. What we can say about Atheists is that their atheism does not determine their morality since atheism does not come with a morality.

 

Well since you stated this, you tell us. Where is the science in putting people into a room and filling it with gas? It's no more scientific than nailing some to a bit of 2 by 4 and stringing him up.

 

Yep. Religion is immoral or moral but not amoral. Literature is immoral, moral and amoral.

@ Tony

 

It's quite obvious that the mass killing by gassing is much more efficient than nailing up each individual victim.

The ***** didn't just arrive at this by accident. They did loads of experimentation to arrive at using Zyklon B the way they did.

Besides the whole concentration camp system was horribly scientific. Food was allocated in such as way as to allow the Prisoner to live long enough to be useful but to starve eventually.

 

You stated 'The scientific world still (on the whole) relies on Popper's hypo-deductive model when conducting scientific enquiry'

I was trying to point out that there are many valid and unrefutable facts that under Poppers definition would be 'unscientific' yet they are widely accepted and used by scientists - i.e. not rejected because they are unfalsifiable.

I had a look around to see if I could find something that explains this better than I can and the best I could find was this:


http://science.martinsewell.com/falsification.html

 

What's your point? That science is amoral but that it can be used for immoral means or moral means. Yes it is. Religion as immoral and moral and can be used for moral and immoral means. Excellent. Next.

 

..and how does that make it amoral?

 

It doesn't, but it is. Science is amoral not immoral.

 

I never said it was down to the religion per se but a religion/ideology of fatalism makes it very easy for the individual to do evil because well....it's fatalism....the individual doesn't have a choice right...it's all God will!

Popper says Marxism promotes totalitarianism because the historical determinism (which is a fatalism) renders the individual and their choices irrelevent since history is governed by bigger material forces; the individual feels it is pointless to engage in democracy.

Presumably you disagree with Popper then? I mean what ideology/belief changes nothing about the way we act right? It's just window dressing?

 

Geezer said 'science is not amoral'- which I was addressing.

 

I understand that if we strip science back its basic meaning, science is neither moral or immoral and is nothing more that a set of data, laws and theories that is neither good nor bad. But what of the act of science, the carrying out of experimentation. If we take TDW's example, the scientific experimentation on Jews was not immoral?

The horrors perpetrated in the name of science is not too far removed from the horrors perpetrated in the name of religion.

 

The Final Solution was perpertrated by National Socialists in the name of National Socialism, not science. That scientific experimentation was used immorally is irrelevant, the immorallity stems from the notion that Jews ought to have been extirpated, not from the means of that attempted extirpation. I can't think of any "horrors" carried out in the name of science* - the same cannot be said of religious fundamentalism.

*There may have been horrors perpertrated by a scientist for scientific reasons but it wouldn't have been science that provided him or her with the moral mandate. Religious fundamentalism does provide that mandate.

 

No but it does demonstrate that your can't build a society on science only. Science is just a system of tools not a moral system.

 

It's a difficult one. Your mate Dawkins argues that morallity is innate and stems from reciprocity in the higher mammals - the idea that with or without religion or philosophy, human beings would instinctively know right from wrong because we've inherited genes from successful (in terms of natural selection) humans, and their success stemed from doing the 'right' thing by their kin. If this was true, humans could, theoretically, establish a society based on the material, pure reason and logic and nothing else. As to whether that would offer a richer human experience is clearly open to debate.

The other school of thought is that when human beings invented religion it was done out of necessity, to answer the questions about death, conciousness and the universe and so on before the development of the scientific method. Without it, we may not have survived. It may be the case that human beings 'need' religion now for the same reasons as they did then or because we've inherited the 'religious gene' or that there is a God and that the pineal gland is the antenna.

What we really need to do is procure that tribe without a time-concept and try out this idea if scientism. In the name of science. Would that be immoral?

 

Dawkins is a moron, the ***** and every other monster/genocider in history proves that a morality based on reason and rationality is not innate.

If you read Brave New World it's a depiction of a sciencistic society gone wrong.

If religion is a construct (as you seem to be arguing) then what is science!? Science is a human activity just like any other.

Personally I don't think science can access the truth any more than religion, it just describes truth in a different way. It's not 'right' per se, just useful.

 

It's acknowledged that the ****'s performed horrific scientific experiments on people. Eradication of Jews was never on the agenda for these scientists but the advancement of their scientific understanding of human biology. The Jews provided these scientists an opportunity for increasing scientific discovery of the human anatomy with a seemly endless supply of human subjects.

 

Now there is a refreshing outlook. Can't say fairer than that I reckon.

Les

 

What about all the atrocities committed in the name of religion? Morals aplenty, didn't prevent those atrocities.

Geezer

 

Do you feel that those doctors deserve praise for what they discovered in these experiments? How would you have felt if you were in line to be used in such a way.

They were prepared to perform actions on those people which they knew were dreadfully unpleasant for the subject and they did not care if the poor bloke died or not.

Children of course were included in all this.

Believe me, it is an eye opener to visit one of the concentration camps from WW2 and to read up exactly the sort of thing which was done to those poor prisoners.

One cannot take an abstract view of the behaviour of those monsters.

Les

 

Ok, so the question of whether it's ethical to carry out experiments on humans and what type of experimentation is or is not acceptable. Who or what provides the moral compass in deciding what is and what isn't ethical. The individual, his or her supervisor, his or her supervisor's ideological beliefs? It isn't science.

 

Fundamentalism.

 

You don't have to be a fundamentalist, the mainstrem Catholic Church has condemned millions to slow painful deaths by AIDs by telling Catholics on Africa that it's not ok to use contraceptives.

But, that was not my point, simply that atrocities are not the preserve of atheists, so why does TDW point them out as if to highlight a problem science and it's amorality?

Geezer

 

Scientific manuals, journals, lectures, studies, papers, etc. Scientists will seek guidence, read, digest, interpret and act upon what was written to support their ideas and theories. Much like those of a religious disposition to seek guidence, read, digest, interpret and act upon what was written in the bible, koran, teachings and sermons to support their beliefs.

 

It confuses me why people get caught up in the twists and turns of a story that has no more legitimacy than the flying spaghetti monster or an orbiting teapot or for that matter, Harry Potter or any other fairy stories. It is equal valid to argue the history of the fairy kings (ie ridiculous) as to argue theology (a whole industry founded on make believe).

People through conditioning and social programming somehow get caught up in the fable and lend it some validity through acceptance, when it deserves none

 

Don't be a demagogue, the Church didn't put a gun to these peoples heads and pull the trigger.

You may as well say car manufacturers condemn pedestrians to death.

Besides the contraception thing is an ethical dilemma.

 

Well this could go on and on. I'm of the view that the Catholic Church has abused its authority in that region and socialised susceptible people into accepting the notion that not using contraception, particularly condoms, is good. It perpetuates the animal cycle of birth and death and causes misery and diverts scarce resorces away from education and progressive healthcare. Women need to be liberated in that region, it would solve so many social issues. Allowing the spread of aids doesn't liberate women. This is a good example of religious fundamentalism.

 

According to Jung etc 'fairy stores' contain lots of truth just a different truth to scientific truths.

Does science not perpetuate through 'conditioning and social programming'. It always amuses me when scientists try and present their cause as somehow being outside of human activity, human flaws....it's dishonest.

 

I'd say it is a question of Church dogma, but if a Catholic wants to follow Church dogma that is their choice right?

 

Not if it's illiterate people being sold complete bollocks by very literate people. Choice is feint, I'd say. And it's theistically mandated social-engineering, it's not secular; religious text, not reason, has primacy. Religion and its appointed representatives are subordinate to philosopher kings, aren't they? And I didn't like Mother Teresa.