[Buddha-l] science #3

[Dan Lusthaus]

Hi Bob,

I didn't misunderstand your point, I think, but you are right that I failed
to address it.

You do raise good points, in a fashion. If the grounding for science (or
anything) is something itself in principle ultimately unknowable, then such
a ground would indeed be nothing more than an illusory chimera. As an aside,
Husserl's proposal for addressing the crisis of European sciences was not to
defer everything to an unknowable entity, but, on the contrary, to develop
an even more rigorous epistemology that would do the job satisfactorily.

It is important to remember that the open-endedness of "science" as we have
currently become comfortable with it, is simply another version of this same
unknown foundation, since scientists are always to assume that however much
they know, it could always be wrong and must necessarily be perpetually open
for revision. That is another way of saying that what is ultimately going on
somehow, in some important sense, always remains beyond us. (the most
important difference might be that the scientist is perhaps more radically
open, since it could turn out that EVERYTHING is fundamentally wrong about
current theories, whereas the religious approach supposedly has a more sure
sense of where it would like to end up, though, it can be as radical in
openness as contemporary science if the religious scientist is sufficiently
bold and committed to knowledge).

Thus, if religion is understood as an imperative to knowledge (and not an
exhortation to devalue knowledge in preference to faith), in practical terms
it is not only the same as science the way we practice it today, but a
spiritual imperative as well.

So is the religious "ground" an improvement? If we think of the perennial
question we ask about our own sciences -- in science fiction movies and on
news shows whenever something controversial is made available by new
developments: atom bombs, cloning, in vitro fertilization, toxic-producing
engines that alter our weather and atmosphere. Is science a zone where
scientists should be able to do whatever they can, just because they can? Or
is there some sort of ethical obligation that comes with it and should
perhaps be regulatory (not in the sense that such and such is condemned and
banned for being "evil", but that part of what it means to engage in such
"research" involves thinking about its implications and thus engaging
responsibly)?

Let's remember the context for all this discussion is not what is involved
in the doing of science, since few if any of us on the list are practicing
scientists. It is about rhetorical strategies for counteracting the current
Christian Right mindset that is challenging science, and which scientists to
do not seem to have good answers for.

I didn't say that scientists necessarily do their science via an appeal to
authority (although that is more the case than the ideal image we foster
would encourage us to believe), but that when challenged epistemologically,
that seems to be their fall back position. I am merely suggesting that we
might diffuse some of that challenge by promoting this other idea of
science.

Otherwise, one feeds into the Christian Right mania, but playing the evil
goddless Other for them. One becomes locked in a self-perpetuating
reciprocal demonization -- they demonize science, scientists demonize their
superstitious ignorance -- and keep the battle going until one side becomes
the majority or seizes the power, or gets more violent. Recent red state
history should be a warning that this is not a healthy road to continue
traveling, not good for children or other living things, and not good for
science.

cheers,
Dan