Science and the Demise of Philosophy

Science and the Demise of Philosophy
robertpriddy.com

Wholly oriented towards investigating and changing the material world, science rejects anything related to practical self-discovery or spiritual truth. In this lies the crisis of the widespread modern intellectualism that swears itself to science; it is incapable of investigating, understanding or dealing with human purposes, eternal values, spiritual realities or the challenges of the meaning of life. On the contrary, science relativises values and makes a private matter of them, thereby undermining them and consequently a moral and good society too. Discovery of new truths about the human soul and destiny will remain beyond its scope until the extent of ignorance about this is better appreciated and much wrong physicalistic thinking about the constitution of the human being is more widely discredited. Only when science is put firmly in its place for what it really is, a study of physical reality by physical means chiefly for material and economic ends, will the crisis be overcome.

As far as I can tell, Priddy isn't saying anything the deconstructivists haven't already; and by that I mean the same hollow self-justifying outcries that have dominated the humanistic part of C.P. Snow's Two Cultures since, well, since Wordsworth. If Priddy and his ilk could ever dream up an alternative which would "put science in its place," I'd be happy to hear it, but so far, science makes progress regardless of whether or not we have the words to describe its journey. It's a simple fact that the humanistic vanguards apparently have a very hard time coming to terms with.

But it's hard not to dismiss "even investigative and creative reason have largely been blinkered so as to concentrate it overwhelmingly upon the observable world" as whining that people care more about learning from reality than from nonsense made up on the spot.

This is only true if you believe the brain will remain forever inscrutable. If we come to a complete understanding of how the brain works, we will be able to answer all these questions (at least as far as they relate to humans) far more completely than any amount of introspection ever will.

Actually, now that I look at it, this guy's entire argument can be boiled down to "consciousness is not a physical phenomenon and is therefore outside of science". He could have said so using a lot fewer words, but then it would be too easy to disagree with him.

* It was consistent with most observations and experiments done thus far.

* It offered an explanation for known issues which were being grappled with at the time, i.e. the observation of speed of light in moving reference frames.

* It built on existing work and showed Einstein's familiarity with the state of physics at that point.

* It was possible to understand how the theory could be tested, even if the technical skills of the time were inadequate.

Compare this to most crackpot theories we see today: they may be inconsistent with previous observations. They claim to debunk "establishment" theories rather than attempting to grapple with new problems. And they are often constructed so they cannot be falsified, even postulating improved experimental techniques.

So if you see a new theory which claims to explain something like high-Tc superconductivity but requires advances in technology to be testable, it is probably a good-faith effort. But if you see a theory which claims to revolutionize physics by means of an unobservable energy field with no plausible experiments, you're probably looking at a crackpot. Bonus points if the author says "Einstein is WRONG!" in a press release.