On Aug 6, 2:08*pm, PD wrote:
http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm
Bryan Wallace: "There is a popular argument that the world's oldest
profession is sexual prostitution. I think that it is far more likely
that the oldest profession is scientific prostitution, and that it is
still alive and well, and thriving in the 20th century. I suspect that
long before sex had any commercial value, the prehistoric shamans used
their primitive knowledge to acquire status, wealth, and political
power, in much the same way as the dominant scientific and religious
politicians of our time do. So in a sense, I tend to agree with
Weart's argument that the earliest scientists were the prehistoric
shamans, and the argument of Feyerabend that puts science on a par
with religion and prostitution. I also tend to agree with the argument
of Ellis that states that both science and theology have much in
common, and both attempt to model reality on arguments based on
unprovable articles of faith. Using the logic that if it looks like a
duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, it must be a duck:
I support the argument that since there is no significant difference
between science and religion, science should be considered a religion!
I would also agree with Ellis' argument of the obvious methodological
differences between science and the other religions. The other
dominant religions are static because their arguments are based on
rigid doctrines set forth by their founders, such as Buddha, Jesus,
and Muhammad, who have died long ago. Science on the other hand, is a
dynamic religion that was developed by many men over a long period of
time, and it has a flexible doctrine, the scientific method, that
demands that the arguments change to conform to the evolving
observational and experimental evidence. The word science was derived
from the Latin word scientia, which means knowledge, so we see that
the word, in essence, is just another word for knowledge. An associate
of mine, Prof. Richard Rhodes II, a Professor of Physics at Eckerd
College, once told me that students in his graduate school used to
joke that Ph.D. stood for Piled higher and Deeper. If one considers
the vast array of abstract theoretical garbage that dominates modern
physics and astronomy, this appears to be an accurate description of
the degree. Considering the results from Mahoney's field trial that
showed Protestant ministers were two to three times more likely to use
scientific methodology than Ph.D. scientists, it seems reasonable to
consider that they have two to three times more right to be called
scientists then the so-called Ph.D. scientists. I would agree with
Popper's argument that observations are theory-laden, and there is no
way to prove an argument beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt, but at
the very least, the scientist should do more than pay lip service to
the scientific method. The true scientist must have faith and believe
in the scientific method of testing theories, and not in the theories
themselves. I agree with Seeds argument that "A pseudoscience is
something that pretends to be a science but does not obey the rules of
good conduct common to all sciences." Because many of the dominant
theories of our time do not follow the rules of science, they should
more properly be labeled pseudoscience. The people who tend to believe
more in theories than in the scientific method of testing theories,
and who ignore the evidence against the theories they believe in,
should be considered pseudoscientists and not true scientists. To the
extent that the professed beliefs are based on the desire for status,
wealth, or political reasons, these people are scientific
prostitutes."

The difference between science and religion is that science can be
tested by experiment and religion cannot. *That is why we have many
religions in the world but only one physics.

Einsteiniana can be called "dishonest religion". The fact that
religions explicitly admit mysticism makes them honest in a sense. The
conversion of water into wine is officially declared to be a mystical
event - you may believe or not but no priest would teach the world
that rational arguments can explain the miracle. However when
Einsteinians trap a 80m long pole inside a 40m long barn there is no
mysticism - the miracle is "deduced" etc. Human rationality has been
irrevesibly destroyed in this way.

Pentcho, if something actually happens in nature -- if it is
experimentally observed -- then it isn't a mystery. It is a fact. The
circumstance that you are surprised by the fact does not make it a
mystery. The circumstance that you cannot understand how that can be
does not make it a mystery.

Of course trapping a 80m long pole inside a 40m long barn is a fact
Clever Draper - what else could it be? But there is also a "disparity
between common experience and scientific knowledge" and this makes
such facts difficult to understand:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...C0A9629C8B 63
Brian Greene: "A hundred years ago today, the discovery of special
relativity was still 18 months away, and science still embraced the
Newtonian description of time. Now, however, modern physics' notion of
time is clearly at odds with the one most of us have internalized.
Einstein greeted the failure of science to confirm the familiar
experience of time with ''painful but inevitable resignation.'' The
developments since his era have only widened the disparity between
common experience and scientific knowledge. Most physicists cope with
this disparity by compartmentalizing: there's time as understood
scientifically, and then there's time as experienced intuitively. For
decades, I've struggled to bring my experience closer to my
understanding. In my everyday routines, I delight in what I know is
the individual's power, however imperceptible, to affect time's
passage. In my mind's eye, I often conjure a kaleidoscopic image of
time in which, with every step, I further fracture Newton's pristine
and uniform conception. And in moments of loss I've taken comfort from
the knowledge that all events exist eternally in the expanse of space
and time, with the partition into past, present and future being a
useful but subjective organization."

In Big Brother's world the "disparity between common experience and
scientific knowledge" is referred to as "The heresy of heresies was
common sense":

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
George Orwell "1984": "In the end the Party would announce that two
and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable
that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their
position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the
very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their
philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was
terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise,
but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two
and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the
past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist
only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?"

Pentcho Valev