[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance
>joanna 123hop at comcast.net
>Sat Jun 11 20:13:50 PDT 2005
<snip>
>>The virtue of science is that it has made it unnecessary for us to 
>>have any hypothesis concerning God or gods or goddesses.
>
>Historically, that's very wrong. Modern science has its roots in the 
>devotio moderna and the high-middle age mystical 
>assertion/realization that God (order) is immanent in all of 
>creation and that God can come to be known through the unprejudiced 
>observation of his creation. The entire middle ages devoted itself 
>to the problem of how the infinite can be accessed through the 
>finite -- what issues from their effort is the  notion of functions 
>(ultimately enabling Calculus), the high regard given to observation 
>and expriment _rather_ than the blind  trust in authority.

As in the case of the clitoris, the contingent origins of science 
have little to say about what people do with science and how they do 
it now.  Today, any hypothesis concerning God or gods or goddesses, 
much less a highly particular belief that "God is immanent in 
creation" or that "God can come to be known through the unprejudiced 
observation of nature," is irrelevant to science.  Scientists are 
free to hold such a belief if they wish, but few of them do so 
anyway: "Leading Scientists Still Reject God" (at 
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050606/011942.html>).

"Near the end of his long life, Isaac Newton reached for a scrap of 
paper and scrawled down the date 2060 A.D. as the possible year in 
which the most dramatic events of the Apocalypse would begin to take 
place. . . . Newton was not only a passionate theist, but also a firm 
believer in the Bible and biblical predictive prophecy. Newton's 
omnipotent and omniscient God knows the end from the beginning and is 
thus able to reveal the future to humanity. For Newton, 'the holy 
Prophecies' of God's Word contain 'histories of things to come'.6 But 
these 'histories of things to come' are set out in symbolic and 
metaphorical language that demand exacting interpretative skills. 
This was a challenge that Newton took up with unflagging enthusiasm 
for the last fifty-five years of his life. " (Stephen D. Snobelen, 
"'A Time and Times and the Dividing of Time': Isaac Newton, the 
Apocalypse and 2060 A.D.," 
<http://www.isaac-newton.org/newton_2060.htm>).  It is not necessary 
to share Newton's religious belief in order to study the calculus, 
three laws of motion, theory of gravity, and so on.
-- 
Yoshie

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