History of Science

[PoliticalChic]

1. 'The Enlightenment' has been given many differing definitions but it was, at its broadest, a philosophical movement of the eighteenth century which stressed human reasoning over blind faith or obedience and was thus in contrast with much of the religious and political order of the day, while also encouraging 'scientific' thinking. It was the belief that that reason can exist separate from civilization, and that ‘enlightened’ necessitates a repudiation of religion.
Philips, "The World Turned Upside Down"




2. The French invested 'reason' with the same dogmatic status as religion, creating a secular reflection of the Catholic Church. Reason, or nature, or the general will, became the civil religion. Thus authoritarianism was there from the time of the French Revolution.

a. Here, an interesting illustration of 'the religion of reason:'
" Has any reform been more futile? The Government’s arrogant discard of Christianity means that weeks have been extended to ten days instead of seven. The revision’s intent is to supplant the papal calendar with a uniform alternative of twelve months of thirty days each, based on the system of ancient Egypt.

Bibles themselves were torn up to make paper gun cartridges in the grim days of 1793, and now the biblical week has been guillotined, each month instead divided into three decades of ten days, with the year, with the year beginning at the autumn equinox and five to six holidays added to balance idealism with our solar orbit.

Not content with regimenting the calendar, the government has introduced a new metric system for weight and measure. There are even proposals for a new clock of precisely 100,000 seconds each day. Reason, reason!...The new calendar is the kind of logical idea imposed by clever people that completely ignores habit, emotion, and human nature and thus forecasts the Revolution’s doom."
From the novel “Napoleon’ Pyramids,” by William Dietrich





3. Auguste Comte argued that humanity progressed in three stages and that in the final stage mankind would throw off Christianity and replace it with a new “religion of humanity,” which married religious fervor to science and reason- even to the extent of making “saints” out of such figures as Shakespeare, Dante and Frederick the Great. Charles Forcey, “The Crossroads of Liberalism,” p. 15

a. For Comte, and the new scientific outlook, there could be no reference to the divine in any relation to understanding the natural world. Science would be accounted a failure if there was any but strictly material causes for any and all features of the natural world. In the 1840's, Comte's precis was that science progresses through three distinct phases.

1.) In the theological phase, it invokes the mysterious actions of the gods to explain natural phenomena, whether thunderbolts or the spread of disease.

2.) In a second, more advanced metaphysical stage, scientific explanations refer to abstract concepts like Plato's forms or Aristotle's final causes.

3.) Comte taught that science only reaches maturity when it casts aside such abstractions and explains natural phenomena by reference to natural laws or strictly material causes or processes. Only in this third and final stage can science achieve "positive" knowledge.
Stephen C. Meyer, "Darwin's Doubt," p. 20.





4. This dictum is so strong in the atheistic version of science today, that scientists who fail to follow it lose their standing, credentials, and careers, in the modern day version of the auto-da-fé, the Spanish Inquisition.

a. Without understanding the provenance, some, mistakenly, assign higher attributes to science than it deserves. Here is a noted scientist actually admitting that it is better to accept the absurd as scientific fact, than infract the above rule:

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs,” the geneticist Richard Lewontin remarked in The New York Review of Books, “in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories.” We are to put up with science’s unsubstantiated just-so stories because, Lewontin explains, “we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door!”


"...the patent absurdity..."
"...failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises...":
"...tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories."



Is this what one means when they celebrate 'science'?

Or has a mistake been made in following the French line?

Didn't the French Enlightenment/revolution Follow the American Enlightenment period?

The enlightenment period began in the 1600's and ENDED with the French Revolution, no?

Would there even be a USA without the Enlightenment?

American thinkers such as Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine...all driven by the Enlightenment...Reason over the church....

Would we even have a 1st Amendment if it were not for the enlightenment?

and would we have the laws of motion if it were not for sir Issac Newton, another Enlightenment thinker?

Good point. But our Founders got the religion part correct.. The French elitists got it wrong. Our founding was based on spiritual (but not wholly religious) beliefs in God.. That made us humble enough to NOT start whacking heads off of the dissenters.

In fact -- the hope of the Founders was for a separate moral superstructure to give us the strength of character to HANDLE all that enlightened freedom.. Today --- we don't measure up as well...

"Our founding was based on spiritual (but not wholly religious) beliefs in God.."

You might be interested in this:
http://www.usmessageboard.com/scien...cience-the-enlightenment-and-revolutions.html

 

[PoliticalChic]

Perhaps I combine too many trains if thought in one post in an effort to condence.

And many of my posts are written on one of these handy yet limited touch screen devices.

Back on subject I frequently give the Catholic church a difficult time for its actions previous to the era you are speaking of. The Protestants (Christians) are all over the place so they are more difficult to talk aboit as a group. Consider my Christian Scientist friends and their 6,500 year old earth and how different that is from the view of the more liberal Lutherans. Catholicism has its sects but at least as an entity it is easier to say "well in 1550 if you thought the earth orbited the sun the pope disagreed".

1. "And many of my posts are written on one of these handy yet limited touch screen devices.

And many of your posts are written under the influence of joy-juice.


2. "Back on subject..."

Au contraire.

You have yet to engage the subject.

I am confused by your lack of engagement to your subject here.

Lets take a simple part of the Catholic Church vs science debate.

The Earth orbits the sun.

In the 17th century this seemed to contradict Chronicles 16:30 and some other versus. So Galileo was locked up.

I view this as a point against the Catholic Church and for the enlightenment. Similar problems were coming up for the Catholic Church in all forms of science and they were slow to adapt.

Is there more to this movement to be debated?

"I am confused..."

No kidding.

 

[Toronado3800]

PC, I can give you an "anything can be taken too far" and sorta find common ground. To say we have gone too far? When I am debating CODIT (Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees) or the like I am frequently on the minority side even though I obviously feel I am right. Still I am not thrown in prison as the Catholic Church was doing.

Some issues like vaccinations draw a rougher response but that is because of the "obvious" risks of unvaccination compared to the debateable risks of vaccination.

What else.... You like the DDT issue. We went over a similar debate there but I find it difficult to believe you would like the New World Order omnipotent United Nations to compell the Eurooean Union into eating DDT treated food when the EU feels it is not safe. (If I recall that was esentially the debate).

 

[PoliticalChic]

PC, I can give you an "anything can be taken too far" and sorta find common ground. To say we have gone too far? When I am debating CODIT (Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees) or the like I am frequently on the minority side even though I obviously feel I am right. Still I am not thrown in prison as the Catholic Church was doing.

Some issues like vaccinations draw a rougher response but that is because of the "obvious" risks of unvaccination compared to the debateable risks of vaccination.

What else.... You like the DDT issue. We went over a similar debate there but I find it difficult to believe you would like the New World Order omnipotent United Nations to compell the Eurooean Union into eating DDT treated food when the EU feels it is not safe. (If I recall that was esentially the debate).

Today, most historians agree that the scientific outlook actually rests on fundamental concepts derived from the biblical view of nature. For example, no other culture, East or West, ancient or modern, came up with the idea of “laws” in nature. The concept appeared for the first and only time in Europe during the Middle Ages, a period when its culture was thoroughly permeated with biblical assumptions.
Pearsey, "Saving Leonardo," p.106.

a. According to historian Lynn White, the development of technology was inspired by the ‘spiritual egalitarianism’ of the Bible, which engendered “a religious urge to substitute a power machine for a man where the required motion is so severe and monotonous that it seemed unworthy of a child of God.”
Lynn White Jr. "What Accelerated Technological Progress in the Western Middle Ages?" in Scientific Change, ed. A. C. Crombie, pg.272-91

 

[flacaltenn]

PC, I can give you an "anything can be taken too far" and sorta find common ground. To say we have gone too far? When I am debating CODIT (Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees) or the like I am frequently on the minority side even though I obviously feel I am right. Still I am not thrown in prison as the Catholic Church was doing.

Some issues like vaccinations draw a rougher response but that is because of the "obvious" risks of unvaccination compared to the debateable risks of vaccination.

What else.... You like the DDT issue. We went over a similar debate there but I find it difficult to believe you would like the New World Order omnipotent United Nations to compell the Eurooean Union into eating DDT treated food when the EU feels it is not safe. (If I recall that was esentially the debate).

Today, most historians agree that the scientific outlook actually rests on fundamental concepts derived from the biblical view of nature. For example, no other culture, East or West, ancient or modern, came up with the idea of “laws” in nature. The concept appeared for the first and only time in Europe during the Middle Ages, a period when its culture was thoroughly permeated with biblical assumptions.
Pearsey, "Saving Leonardo," p.106.

a. According to historian Lynn White, the development of technology was inspired by the ‘spiritual egalitarianism’ of the Bible, which engendered “a religious urge to substitute a power machine for a man where the required motion is so severe and monotonous that it seemed unworthy of a child of God.”
Lynn White Jr. "What Accelerated Technological Progress in the Western Middle Ages?" in Scientific Change, ed. A. C. Crombie, pg.272-91

Did Lynn White ever try to sell that biblical findng to the Amish/Mennonites?
There'd be a lot less hand cranked butter in Penn....

 

[PoliticalChic]

PC, I can give you an "anything can be taken too far" and sorta find common ground. To say we have gone too far? When I am debating CODIT (Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees) or the like I am frequently on the minority side even though I obviously feel I am right. Still I am not thrown in prison as the Catholic Church was doing.

Some issues like vaccinations draw a rougher response but that is because of the "obvious" risks of unvaccination compared to the debateable risks of vaccination.

What else.... You like the DDT issue. We went over a similar debate there but I find it difficult to believe you would like the New World Order omnipotent United Nations to compell the Eurooean Union into eating DDT treated food when the EU feels it is not safe. (If I recall that was esentially the debate).

Today, most historians agree that the scientific outlook actually rests on fundamental concepts derived from the biblical view of nature. For example, no other culture, East or West, ancient or modern, came up with the idea of “laws” in nature. The concept appeared for the first and only time in Europe during the Middle Ages, a period when its culture was thoroughly permeated with biblical assumptions.
Pearsey, "Saving Leonardo," p.106.

a. According to historian Lynn White, the development of technology was inspired by the ‘spiritual egalitarianism’ of the Bible, which engendered “a religious urge to substitute a power machine for a man where the required motion is so severe and monotonous that it seemed unworthy of a child of God.”
Lynn White Jr. "What Accelerated Technological Progress in the Western Middle Ages?" in Scientific Change, ed. A. C. Crombie, pg.272-91

Did Lynn White ever try to sell that biblical findng to the Amish/Mennonites?
There'd be a lot less hand cranked butter in Penn....

You just watch your step, buster!!!

I vacation in Lancaster a couple a' times a year!

I even plan to grow that around-the-edge beard next time.

 

[orogenicman]

PC, I can give you an "anything can be taken too far" and sorta find common ground. To say we have gone too far? When I am debating CODIT (Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees) or the like I am frequently on the minority side even though I obviously feel I am right. Still I am not thrown in prison as the Catholic Church was doing.

Some issues like vaccinations draw a rougher response but that is because of the "obvious" risks of unvaccination compared to the debateable risks of vaccination.

What else.... You like the DDT issue. We went over a similar debate there but I find it difficult to believe you would like the New World Order omnipotent United Nations to compell the Eurooean Union into eating DDT treated food when the EU feels it is not safe. (If I recall that was esentially the debate).

Today, most historians agree that the scientific outlook actually rests on fundamental concepts derived from the biblical view of nature. For example, no other culture, East or West, ancient or modern, came up with the idea of “laws” in nature. The concept appeared for the first and only time in Europe during the Middle Ages, a period when its culture was thoroughly permeated with biblical assumptions.
Pearsey, "Saving Leonardo," p.106.

That's a load of crap. The Arabs during the dark ages and even the middle ages were far more advanced scientifically than the Europeans. Their grasp of mathematics and astronomy was far more advanced, as was their understanding of medicine and anatomy. In fact, European science in the middle ages and afterwards was, at its foundation, Arab science. Do I need to remind you that all of European mathematics is based on the Arab number system?

Perhaps you should read this:

Science and the Enlightenment (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science)

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Science-Enlightenment-Cambridge-Studies-History/dp/0521286190[/ame]

 

[PoliticalChic]

PC, I can give you an "anything can be taken too far" and sorta find common ground. To say we have gone too far? When I am debating CODIT (Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees) or the like I am frequently on the minority side even though I obviously feel I am right. Still I am not thrown in prison as the Catholic Church was doing.

Some issues like vaccinations draw a rougher response but that is because of the "obvious" risks of unvaccination compared to the debateable risks of vaccination.

What else.... You like the DDT issue. We went over a similar debate there but I find it difficult to believe you would like the New World Order omnipotent United Nations to compell the Eurooean Union into eating DDT treated food when the EU feels it is not safe. (If I recall that was esentially the debate).

Today, most historians agree that the scientific outlook actually rests on fundamental concepts derived from the biblical view of nature. For example, no other culture, East or West, ancient or modern, came up with the idea of “laws” in nature. The concept appeared for the first and only time in Europe during the Middle Ages, a period when its culture was thoroughly permeated with biblical assumptions.
Pearsey, "Saving Leonardo," p.106.

That's a load of crap. The Arabs during the dark ages and even the middle ages were far more advanced scientifically than the Europeans. Their grasp of mathematics and astronomy was far more advanced, as was their understanding of medicine and anatomy. In fact, European science in the middle ages and afterwards was, at its foundation, Arab science. Do I need to remind you that all of European mathematics is based on the Arab number system?

Perhaps you should read this:

Science and the Enlightenment (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science)

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Science-Enlightenment-Cambridge-Studies-History/dp/0521286190]Science and the Enlightenment (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science): Thomas L. Hankins: 9780521286190: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

3. And, of course, you lie like a rug.

Me: You've already admitted that I am correct, and there are no fossils that document the Darwinian myth of simple cells, leading to the trilobites and brachiopods.
You:" I have admitted no such thing. Lying for Jesus is still lying." http://www.usmessageboard.com/science-and-technology/308464-how-to-define-evolution-17.html

You, earlier: " PC, just because we haven't found the fossils of the earliest trilobites yet doesn't mean that they don't exist.... As for the brachiopods, there are suggestions of what group they had their origins, but again, the fossil record is as yet spotty. But PC, just like with trilobites, just because we have yet to find the fossils, does not mean they don't exist. Just because something is unknown doesn't mean that it is unknowable." http://www.usmessageboard.com/science-and-technology/308464-how-to-define-evolution-2.html

Pretty much evidence that you are a liar....and that engaging you in discussion is pointless.



Set off, slime.

 

[orogenicman]

Today, most historians agree that the scientific outlook actually rests on fundamental concepts derived from the biblical view of nature. For example, no other culture, East or West, ancient or modern, came up with the idea of “laws” in nature. The concept appeared for the first and only time in Europe during the Middle Ages, a period when its culture was thoroughly permeated with biblical assumptions.
Pearsey, "Saving Leonardo," p.106.

That's a load of crap. The Arabs during the dark ages and even the middle ages were far more advanced scientifically than the Europeans. Their grasp of mathematics and astronomy was far more advanced, as was their understanding of medicine and anatomy. In fact, European science in the middle ages and afterwards was, at its foundation, Arab science. Do I need to remind you that all of European mathematics is based on the Arab number system?

Perhaps you should read this:

Science and the Enlightenment (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science)

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Science-Enlightenment-Cambridge-Studies-History/dp/0521286190]Science and the Enlightenment (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science): Thomas L. Hankins: 9780521286190: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

3. And, of course, you lie like a rug.

If I am lying, then so is Thomas Hankins, renown science historian, and every other science historian who has ever written on the subject. But of course, that is what you believe - that it is all a big anti-Christian conspiracy. PC, take your pills before your brain falls out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals

 

[Unkotare]

Perhaps I combine too many trains if thought in one post in an effort to condence.

And many of my posts are written on one of these handy yet limited touch screen devices.

Back on subject I frequently give the Catholic church a difficult time for its actions previous to the era you are speaking of. The Protestants (Christians) are all over the place so they are more difficult to talk aboit as a group. Consider my Christian Scientist friends and their 6,500 year old earth and how different that is from the view of the more liberal Lutherans. Catholicism has its sects but at least as an entity it is easier to say "well in 1550 if you thought the earth orbited the sun the pope disagreed".

1. "And many of my posts are written on one of these handy yet limited touch screen devices.

And many of your posts are written under the influence of joy-juice.


2. "Back on subject..."

Au contraire.

You have yet to engage the subject.

I am confused by your lack of engagement to your subject here.

Lets take a simple part of the Catholic Church vs science debate.

The Earth orbits the sun.

In the 17th century this seemed to contradict Chronicles 16:30 and some other versus. So Galileo was locked up.

I view this as a point against the Catholic Church and for the enlightenment. Similar problems were coming up for the Catholic Church in all forms of science and they were slow to adapt.

1992, 31 October