> Apparently we have a disconnect, Miles. i don't think science is a very useful rhetorical tool,
> at least if science is narrowly conceived as biology results. Most people haven't a clue about
> what biologiy results mean, given the dismal state of science education, appeal to science is
> for rhetorical purposes just appeal to Authority!
I have an anecdote: last year, a doctor gave a lecture in one of my classes. He argued that HIV isn't the cause of AIDs. Even though I know next to nothing about science, and presumably the doctor knows plenty, I knew he was wrong. How? Authority. (From what you wrote below, it appears that you may allow for such indirectly justified empirical knowledge.)
-- Luke
> What science is necessary for is not rhetoric, but knowledge. There is no other way of
> attaining reliable empirical knowledge. None. Zip. Zero. If people "learn" something by
> "tradition" for which there is no controlled empirical support, no possiibility of indeoendent
> test, or other marks of science, they don't know it. They just believe it. If this sounds Western > Imperialist, ethnocentric. and contemptuous of alternative ways of knowing, you betcha
> booty. Galileo et al stumbled on the right way to find things out.
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