🚀 go-pugleaf

Steve Coile wrote:
>>Science is just a way of deriving underlying mechanisms from the evidence.
> 
> 
> Science speculates on underlying mechanisms but is concerned with
> data rather than human solutions. As such, it can correlate information
> from staged experiments and fabricated models, but these rarely address
> anything related to practical human problems.

Right.

Engineering does that.


>>Far better to have public policy based on a view of the world derived
>>from evidence, than on tradition, superstition, or demagoguery.
> 
> 
> I have no interest in superstition or demagoguery, but the evidence
> clearly shows that scientific materialism has destroyed the meaning
> of life that tradition offered.
> 
> The destructive power of science is not limited to two devastating World
> Wars, nuclear weapons, and the rape of the environment. Advocates of
> scientific primacy like to associate science with morality but can only
> argue that the redeeming virtue of science lies in its potential ability
> to provide material comfort and plenty for all, and bring about an
> increasing equality of human condition. Such misguided notions are just
> another example of our own lack of purpose and consequent moral bewilderment. 

Using words like "moral bewilderment" is both religious and demogoguery

I subscribe to _Nature_, which is a peer-reviewed journal in which one 
sees all sorts of research. Yet the editorial slant of _Nature_ is 
pretty much the opposite of what you describe. Indeed, they constantly 
express concern over Global Warming and the need for energy sources 
alternative to those which are flooding the atmosphere with greenhouse 
gases, and practically every issue contains what amounts to a paen for 
carbon sequestration. Unlike various superstitious people who seem to 
have the attitude "Once we cut down all of the trees, then Jesus will 
come again" (former Secretary of the Interior James Watt, under Reagan) 
or the demagogues who deny clear scientific evidence of man's 
contribution to Global Warming, the scientists clearly percieve that our 
climate changes are primarily anthropogenic in nature. The vast majority 
of the body of evidence supports that view and only fringe lunatics 
dispute it at this point.

If anything, science is lending credence to the theory that things are 
_not_ allright, and rather than getting better are getting worse. If 
public officials and opinionistas were to start espousing the scientific 
viewpoint, perhaps more people would stop breeding like rats, demanding 
foods that either deplete resources or concentrate likely sources of the 
next pandemic; well-informed people whose information guided their 
decisions would be looking for the next generation of hybrid/alternative 
transportation rather then buying SUVs that get 10MPG and cost $120.00 
to fill up for the week's driving. Instead, appeals to emotion and 
irrationality are what put people with college degrees behind the wheel 
of 2-ton 4x4s that they never drive anywhere except in the city. Perhaps 
if they'd spent more time in science classes instead of art-history 
courses, they'd be able to think clearly enough to make sane choices.

It's not science that made those choices, indeed it would tend to argue 
against them. It's very easy to support a hypothesis of "waste not, want 
not".


-- 
http://thomashardman.com/ Centrist, Moderate, Republican in Maryland
	A true Conservative isn't about to let
	the enemies of America ruin his streams for Trout.