Mediocre Consensus-Science At Work: Hubristically Whistling In The Intergalactic Dark - Printable Version +- Bring4th (https://www.bring4th.org/forums) +-- Forum: Bring4th Studies (https://www.bring4th.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: Science & Technology (https://www.bring4th.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=5) +--- Thread: Mediocre Consensus-Science At Work: Hubristically Whistling In The Intergalactic Dark (/showthread.php?tid=15061)

Mediocre Consensus-Science At Work: Hubristically Whistling In The Intergalactic Dark - Dekalb_Blues - 12-30-2017 ~ Extract from Chapter 13, "Extraterrestrial Science (Could Aliens Overcome Our Limitations?)" in Nicholas Rescher, The Limits of Science (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, rev. ed. 1999; orig. ed. Univ. Calif. Press, 1984), p. 197-98: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Synopsis (1) Might another, astronomically remote, alien civilization surpass our human science and become "scientifically more advanced" than we are? (2) A negative answer is indicated: the "science" of alien beings is bound to be very different from ours. (3) A critique is made of the uniformitarian thesis that since there is only one world that all intelligent beings share, there is bound to be only one uniform science. Even though there might well be enormously many intelligent civilizations in space, the probability that any have our scientific posture is negligibly small. (4) It only makes sense to speak of being "more advanced" or "more backward" than another when the parties are engaged in a common journey. This is hardly likely to be so in the present case. (5) Cognition is an evolutionary product that is bound to attune its practitioners to the local peculiarities of their particular ecological niche in the world order. (6) We must assume that their intellectual journey of reasoned inquiry will take them in an altogether different direction. Our science is limited by the very fact of being our science. It is thus far-fetched to suppose that an alien civilization might be scientifically more advanced than we. 1. Could Science in Another Setting Overcome the Limitations of Our Human Science? The preceding chapters have argued that natural science — our science as we humans cultivate it here on earth — is limited and imperfect and is bound to remain so. It thus becomes tempting to wonder whether an astronomically remote civilization might be more scientifically advanced than we are. Is it not plausible to suppose than an alien civilization might overcome the limitations of our science and manage to surpass us in the furtherance of this enterprise? On first thought, the question seems very clear-cut, for, as one recent discussion put it: "[A]ny serious speculations concerning the capabilities of intelligent biological life and automata must take into account technical societies that may be millions or even billions of years more advanced than our own." 1 [1. Roger A. MacGowan and Frederick I. Ordway 3d, Intelligence in the Universe (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1966), 248.] However, this seemingly straightforward matter is actually one of great complexity. This complexity relates not only to the actual or possible facts of the matter but also — and crucially — to somewhat abstruse questions about the very idea that is at issue here. To begin with, there is the question of just what it means for there to be another science-possessing civilization. Note that this is a question that we are putting — a question posed in terms of the applicability of our term, science. It pivots on the issue of whether we would be prepared to recognize the product of their activities as constituting a (state of a branch of) science. At the very least, this requires that we be prepared to recognize what those aliens are doing as a matter of forming beliefs (theories) about how those things work in the world and to acknowledge that they are involved in testing these beliefs observationally or experimentally and applying them as (nonhuman) persons, duly equipped with intellect and will, and we must then enter upon a complex series of claims with respect to their beliefs and their purposes. . . . [etc., etc.] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ An unintentionally revealing (and comical) example of the "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy [among many other blithely-performed intellectual missteps], showing the  calibre of culture-bound thought unthinkingly applied by many of our professional "scientists" (indigenous Earthlings all — but are they representative of the true Earthling?) to this important subject. This particular fallacy (named by the late Anthony Flew, a leading atheist, scientific positivist, logician, and philosopher of religion of the 20th century, in his 1989 book Thinking About Thinking) is a way of reinterpreting evidence in order to prevent the refutation of one's position. Proposed counter-examples to a theory are strategically dismissed as "irrelevant" solely because they are counter-examples, but purportedly because they are not truly addressing what the theory is actually about. In folk parlance, this is the dirty trick of moving the goalposts mid-game (whenever the opposing team seems about to actually score a goal) and ignoring that team's indignant response to this as merely the kind of poor sportsmanship only shown by disgruntled, chronic sore-losers . . . https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/No_True_Scotsman  Flew, toward the end of a long academic and professional career of working to show that "Divinity" is but a primitive genetic holdover, a psychoanalytically-explainable sociobiological human need for a Super-Alpha Leader trumped up as something more awesome & flattering, and religious faith merely the delusive and rationality-destructive concomitant to this irrational but dumb-animal-logical need, found himself at last persuaded by a preponderance of rigorously scientific evidence to fundamentally and radically change his lifelong non-deist stance. Interestingly — and predictably — his more hyper-rational peers in professional science and academia could only assign this tremendous volte-face to the onset of senile dementia (thereby saving their own presumably forward-facing collective face, at least in their own eyes and those of their scientificultic followers).  Theirs is the same type of basically paranoid, fearful mentality feverishly manning the hyper-rationalist ultra-skeptic barriers upholding what amounts to the Basic Secular Divinely-Dispensational Truth Of Human Provinciality, namely: We Are Alone In The Universe & Thus Lord Of All We [Positivistically-Scientistically-Quantifiably] Survey.      POSTSCRIPT ADDENDUM Ah, but wait! Inevitably, inexorably, reflexively — and completely rationally, logically — a challenger appears!  Picking one example of this, almost at random: "Arguing About Religious Identity and the No True Scotsman Fallacy" Robert Anderson, University of Notre Dame Australia, Australia The European Conference on Ethics, Religion & Philosophy 2017 Official Conference Proceeding You see, it turns out that (wait for it!) . . . no true Scotsman would wield the No True Scotsman Fallacy against someone who fundamentally and unyieldingly disagrees with him on the point in contention! Why? Well, basically the argument goes like this (and follow me like a leopard here along the tricky bits as we fly willy-nilly through various domains of unintentionally comical naiveté): a. Because a non-true Scotsman would logically have to disagree with a true Scotsman's point, therefore . . . b. If someone disagrees with said true-Scotsman's self-evidently true-and-valid statement that he's so ungainsayably made (because he's so self-evidently a true Scotsman, remember!), then of course . . . c.  The non-true Scotsman is no true Scotsman, Q.E.D. — and thus he and his fatally-biased argument are rendered moot, the whole point of the operation ab ovo. Amen. Joy reigns supreme in Mudville. Roll credits. But . . . but . . . why?! you may still wail, 'way out there in the Outer Darkness Of Willfully Impertinent Obstinacy, selfish unregenerate Sinner Against The Fershlugginer Verities that you are! Well, because [allow yourself to be dragged screaming and kicking around the logical circle of self-righteously-blithe dismissal again, as vicious-cyclically as needed, ad infinitum, until you realize in a blinding flash of True Enlightenment that Resistance (to uncredentialed, self-appointed "True Scotsmen") Is Futile]. You're welcome, in a truly Scots fashion.