The new priests, popular scientists

[Connery]

Cox has created a new deity and where he himself is to be thought of as "the chosen one" it is borne from ego, self will and a social ineptitude. The scientists are merely doing jobs they have a skill set for, indeed, they are trusted servants administering to the needs of the society which provides them with sustenance and the means to perform their chosen occupation.

"The crucial question, though, is who is doing the worshipping. Cox and co make much of their own humility in the face of natural marvels. They express wonder and we are meant to follow suit.But it's too easy for the meekness we feel in the face of extraordinary facts to blur into deference towards popular scientists themselves, with their public profile and their privileged access to those facts. Like priests, they occupy an elevated position in relation to the phenomena they admire. While putting on a good show of being amazed, they function as powerful gatekeepers to a mystical beyond. Cox may not look like a boffin, but it's telling that he's always called professor."
Prof Brian Cox: physicist or priest?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Yes Bags... and there's the point of the discussion again. Religion requires unquestioning faith. Science is mutable, and able to sustain a direct hit to popular thinking. Nothing is written on stone tablets.

Science is so mutable that scientists, when presented with the incontrovertible fact that the Big Bang theory falls apart when we compare it to the actual universe, they invent something that is completely undetectable so that they don't have to come up with a new theory.

Really?

Well, I suppose it's a little better than condemning someone to eternal damnation for even posing the question, right?

See there's enforcement behind religion - believe as we believe or suffer excommunication, damnation, or even execution.

If there's disagreement among scientists, they all go off trying to prove their own theories. If the logic and reasoning behind the initial theory is sound, they eventually come back to it after learning more about the subject. No one gets stoned for believing differently than the norm - at least as long as politics is kept out of the process. Both acceptance and non-acceptance of a theory comes with logic and reason which are not absolute and are open for interpretation and even modification. This can't be said for religion.

Scientists are people, just like preachers and priests. People are stubborn, petty, and unrealistic.

When Edison had a disagreement with Tesla he electrocuted an elephant in the zoo in Coney Park.

Marsh actually bribed Cope's team to get his hands on the results of the digs first.

Semmelweis discovered that washing hands before assisting in birth actually saves lives, the entire medical community rejected this profound truth.

More recently, we have the fact that a French team discovered the the HIV virus, asked for help from an American team, which announced the discovery a year later.

Condemning religion, or science, because of the actions of people, just makes you look like ignorant and petty.

 

[oldernwiser]

Science is so mutable that scientists, when presented with the incontrovertible fact that the Big Bang theory falls apart when we compare it to the actual universe, they invent something that is completely undetectable so that they don't have to come up with a new theory.

Really?

Well, I suppose it's a little better than condemning someone to eternal damnation for even posing the question, right?

See there's enforcement behind religion - believe as we believe or suffer excommunication, damnation, or even execution.

If there's disagreement among scientists, they all go off trying to prove their own theories. If the logic and reasoning behind the initial theory is sound, they eventually come back to it after learning more about the subject. No one gets stoned for believing differently than the norm - at least as long as politics is kept out of the process. Both acceptance and non-acceptance of a theory comes with logic and reason which are not absolute and are open for interpretation and even modification. This can't be said for religion.

Scientists are people, just like preachers and priests. People are stubborn, petty, and unrealistic.

When Edison had a disagreement with Tesla he electrocuted an elephant in the zoo in Coney Park.

Marsh actually bribed Cope's team to get his hands on the results of the digs first.

Semmelweis discovered that washing hands before assisting in birth actually saves lives, the entire medical community rejected this profound truth.

More recently, we have the fact that a French team discovered the the HIV virus, asked for help from an American team, which announced the discovery a year later.

Condemning religion, or science, because of the actions of people, just makes you look like ignorant and petty.

Bags, you're starting to shift on the subject again. It wasn't science that electrocuted an elephant, or paid a bribe, or stole the discoveries of someone else. That was people - and people are nasty sometimes.

Your OP claims that we shouldn't be worshipping scientists - I agree, but then again, I don't see anyone else actually paying them homage either. You claim that we ought not worship science either - I agree, but then again, science isn't religion. That science is able, on it's own to "subsume" (which I assume that you mean the Oxford definition: include or absorb (something) in something else) a sense of worship is just a little preposterous - especially in light of what's already been said: science doesn't need adherents in order to function and scientists are regularly proven wrong more times than they are proven right.

It seems that the whole argument is about people turning away from religion to embrace science. It's amusing really. Since it was people who created religion (science found the portion of the brain which actually rewards spirituality... go figure) in order to explain their lives. Maybe people are just begining to evolve again, turning away from superstitions and seeking answers from a more responsive (and I would argue, more credible) source.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Really?

Well, I suppose it's a little better than condemning someone to eternal damnation for even posing the question, right?

See there's enforcement behind religion - believe as we believe or suffer excommunication, damnation, or even execution.

If there's disagreement among scientists, they all go off trying to prove their own theories. If the logic and reasoning behind the initial theory is sound, they eventually come back to it after learning more about the subject. No one gets stoned for believing differently than the norm - at least as long as politics is kept out of the process. Both acceptance and non-acceptance of a theory comes with logic and reason which are not absolute and are open for interpretation and even modification. This can't be said for religion.

Scientists are people, just like preachers and priests. People are stubborn, petty, and unrealistic.

When Edison had a disagreement with Tesla he electrocuted an elephant in the zoo in Coney Park.

Marsh actually bribed Cope's team to get his hands on the results of the digs first.

Semmelweis discovered that washing hands before assisting in birth actually saves lives, the entire medical community rejected this profound truth.

More recently, we have the fact that a French team discovered the the HIV virus, asked for help from an American team, which announced the discovery a year later.

Condemning religion, or science, because of the actions of people, just makes you look like ignorant and petty.

Bags, you're starting to shift on the subject again. It wasn't science that electrocuted an elephant, or paid a bribe, or stole the discoveries of someone else. That was people - and people are nasty sometimes.

Your OP claims that we shouldn't be worshipping scientists - I agree, but then again, I don't see anyone else actually paying them homage either. You claim that we ought not worship science either - I agree, but then again, science isn't religion. That science is able, on it's own to "subsume" (which I assume that you mean the Oxford definition: include or absorb (something) in something else) a sense of worship is just a little preposterous - especially in light of what's already been said: science doesn't need adherents in order to function and scientists are regularly proven wrong more times than they are proven right.

It seems that the whole argument is about people turning away from religion to embrace science. It's amusing really. Since it was people who created religion (science found the portion of the brain which actually rewards spirituality... go figure) in order to explain their lives. Maybe people are just begining to evolve again, turning away from superstitions and seeking answers from a more responsive (and I would argue, more credible) source.

How did I shift on the subject? If you go back and read the OP, which I actually posted, you will see it is talking about how some scientists are turning into preachers. For some obscure reason, probably having something to do with your belief in science as the ultimate arbiter of truth, you started trashing religion instead of actually dealing with the actual subject. There is not a single word in there about worshiping scientist, and no implication that that is a problem. The problem is, to be concise, worshiping science.

You then attempted to argue that scientists try to prove their own theories, implying that because they are better than religious people, they would never stoop to attacking people who disagreed with them. I decided to provide a few examples of scientists actually resorting to condemning people, stealing credit, and backstabbing each other in order to advance their won agenda. Frankly, the examples I posted are the tame ones, Owen and Darwin were involved in a public flaming match that set the study of evolution back for decades. They even published pictures of each other to make their points, this is one of my favorites.

The thing you are missing is that science is not able to do anything, science is a tool. Just like we do not have hammers that pick themselves up and build houses, science cannot pick itself up and figure out what the atomic stricture of a benzene ring. People do all of that.

Which brings me to the thing you got completely wrong, I never said science is subsuming religion. What I said, and I quote, is"This is not a gripe about science being a religion, it is about scientists who, instead of teaching science, try to give the impression that science is capable of subsuming the sense of worship that religion creates. We should not be worshiping science, or the people that explain it to us."

In other words, you are arguing against a position I never had, and actually making my case for me when you argue that scientists are different, and that they never get involved in petty squabbles. This is the same attitude that had toward the officials of the church for centuries.

Welcome to the new laity.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

I don't know, maybe I'm not seeing it the same way you are. Or perhaps I'm simply not understanding you.

Although I'm not familiar with Brian Cox specifically, I think that the role played by "popular scientists" is an important one. The article you linked to seems to correlate encouraging a sense of wonder with "worship", which I don't follow.

A sense of wonder at the complexity of Nature isn't overstepping into Religion's "sacred ground", so to speak.

 

[Bill Angel]

I don't know, maybe I'm not seeing it the same way you are. Or perhaps I'm simply not understanding you.

Although I'm not familiar with Brian Cox specifically, I think that the role played by "popular scientists" is an important one. The article you linked to seems to correlate encouraging a sense of wonder with "worship", which I don't follow.

A sense of wonder at the complexity of Nature isn't overstepping into Religion's "sacred ground", so to speak.

For persons of my generation (I was a physics major in college, graduating in 1970) Richard Feynman was the most prominent physicist who attempted to encourage a sense of wonder at the discoveries made by science. Here is a quote from his well received Lectures on Physics.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars— mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is 'mere'. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination— stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern— of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?

A Quote by Richard Phillips Feynman on science, beauty, mystery, and wonder | The Gaiam Blog

 

[theDoctorisIn]

I don't know, maybe I'm not seeing it the same way you are. Or perhaps I'm simply not understanding you.

Although I'm not familiar with Brian Cox specifically, I think that the role played by "popular scientists" is an important one. The article you linked to seems to correlate encouraging a sense of wonder with "worship", which I don't follow.

A sense of wonder at the complexity of Nature isn't overstepping into Religion's "sacred ground", so to speak.

For persons of my generation (I was a physics major in college, graduating in 1970) Richard Feynman was the most prominent physicist who attempted to encourage a sense of wonder at the discoveries made by science. Here is a quote from his well received Lectures on Physics.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars— mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is 'mere'. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination— stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern— of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?

A Quote by Richard Phillips Feynman on science, beauty, mystery, and wonder | The Gaiam Blog

My uncle took classes under Feynman at Caltech. He's told me some amazing stories.

 

[Bill Angel]

Here is a nice video based on an interview with Richard Feynman. He accepts the concept of "awe" in response to the beauty of nature, but also rejects the validity of traditional religious beliefs.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E]THE FEYNMAN SERIES (part 1) - Beauty - YouTube[/ame]

 

[PaulS1950]

I fail to see where he rejects the validity of anything for anyone - including himself. He says that he doubts - that it is difficult to "believe" in a limited view that is the faith that he was taught. At no time does he say that religion is wrong or even false. He simply pointed out that he finds beauty that extends from the total view and continues into the microscopic view. He finds beauty in what makes the flower a flower as well as the visual beauty of the flower as a whole.
He sees the beauty in the universe in the macro-cosmic view as well as in the micro-cosmic view. He sees things that most people do not - and continues to see the beauty even at the cellular level and beyond. How better to appreciate "creation" than to more fully understand it?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I don't know, maybe I'm not seeing it the same way you are. Or perhaps I'm simply not understanding you.

Although I'm not familiar with Brian Cox specifically, I think that the role played by "popular scientists" is an important one. The article you linked to seems to correlate encouraging a sense of wonder with "worship", which I don't follow.

A sense of wonder at the complexity of Nature isn't overstepping into Religion's "sacred ground", so to speak.

I am pretty sure the article made the point that not all popular scientists are doing this. Is it possible you haven't come across the guilty people? After all, you admit you are unfamiliar with Cox. You should consider listening to him before you totally reject the premise.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

I don't know, maybe I'm not seeing it the same way you are. Or perhaps I'm simply not understanding you.

Although I'm not familiar with Brian Cox specifically, I think that the role played by "popular scientists" is an important one. The article you linked to seems to correlate encouraging a sense of wonder with "worship", which I don't follow.

A sense of wonder at the complexity of Nature isn't overstepping into Religion's "sacred ground", so to speak.

I am pretty sure the article made the point that not all popular scientists are doing this. Is it possible you haven't come across the guilty people? After all, you admit you are unfamiliar with Cox. You should consider listening to him before you totally reject the premise.

I'm not rejecting the premise. As I said before, I don't think I'm understanding it.

As far as I can see, the premise of the article seems to be saying that encouraging wonder is somehow deifying "science" or "scientists" - which simply doesn't make sense to me. So I'm assuming that there's something that I'm missing.

What exactly is it that Brian Cox is doing that it upsetting you so much?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I don't know, maybe I'm not seeing it the same way you are. Or perhaps I'm simply not understanding you.

Although I'm not familiar with Brian Cox specifically, I think that the role played by "popular scientists" is an important one. The article you linked to seems to correlate encouraging a sense of wonder with "worship", which I don't follow.

A sense of wonder at the complexity of Nature isn't overstepping into Religion's "sacred ground", so to speak.

I am pretty sure the article made the point that not all popular scientists are doing this. Is it possible you haven't come across the guilty people? After all, you admit you are unfamiliar with Cox. You should consider listening to him before you totally reject the premise.

I'm not rejecting the premise. As I said before, I don't think I'm understanding it.

As far as I can see, the premise of the article seems to be saying that encouraging wonder is somehow deifying "science" or "scientists" - which simply doesn't make sense to me. So I'm assuming that there's something that I'm missing.

What exactly is it that Brian Cox is doing that it upsetting you so much?

There is nothing wrong with encouraging a sense of wonder about nature. The single best example of that I can think of is Carl Sagan. I won't try to put words into the author's mouth, but I can give an example of the problem I have with Cox. Keep in mind that it is a small sample of the way he approaches science, but it does indicate his tendency to preach science instead of explain it the way Sagan did.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJK7_yXGjcc]Brian Cox - Dispensing with the Notion of Elements - YouTube[/ame]

 

[theDoctorisIn]

I am pretty sure the article made the point that not all popular scientists are doing this. Is it possible you haven't come across the guilty people? After all, you admit you are unfamiliar with Cox. You should consider listening to him before you totally reject the premise.

I'm not rejecting the premise. As I said before, I don't think I'm understanding it.

As far as I can see, the premise of the article seems to be saying that encouraging wonder is somehow deifying "science" or "scientists" - which simply doesn't make sense to me. So I'm assuming that there's something that I'm missing.

What exactly is it that Brian Cox is doing that it upsetting you so much?

There is nothing wrong with encouraging a sense of wonder about nature. The single best example of that I can think of is Carl Sagan. I won't try to put words into the author's mouth, but I can give an example of the problem I have with Cox. Keep in mind that it is a small sample of the way he approaches science, but it does indicate his tendency to preach science instead of explain it the way Sagan did.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJK7_yXGjcc]Brian Cox - Dispensing with the Notion of Elements - YouTube[/ame]

I think I understand what you're saying.

My initial objection was due to the fact that I have a tremendous amount of respect for "popular scientists" like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson - and I attribute part of my love of facts and curiosity about the world around me to experiencing "wonder" while watching Cosmos as a child.

 

[Bill Angel]

I fail to see where he rejects the validity of anything for anyone - including himself. He says that he doubts - that it is difficult to "believe" in a limited view that is the faith that he was taught. At no time does he say that religion is wrong or even false. He simply pointed out that he finds beauty that extends from the total view and continues into the microscopic view. He finds beauty in what makes the flower a flower as well as the visual beauty of the flower as a whole.
He sees the beauty in the universe in the macro-cosmic view as well as in the micro-cosmic view. He sees things that most people do not - and continues to see the beauty even at the cellular level and beyond. How better to appreciate "creation" than to more fully understand it?

My impression is that he does reject religion, primarily because of the privileged place and importance in the universe that it accords to the Earth.
But here are several more quotes from Feynman that help to clarify his thinking.

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. [...] I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose.”

[The Big Bang] is a much more exciting story to many people than the tales which other people used to make up, when wondering about the universe we lived in on the back of a turtle or something like that. They were wonderful stories, but the truth is so much more remarkable. And, so, what’s the wonder in physics to me is that it’s revealed the truth is so remarkable.”

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I'm not rejecting the premise. As I said before, I don't think I'm understanding it.

As far as I can see, the premise of the article seems to be saying that encouraging wonder is somehow deifying "science" or "scientists" - which simply doesn't make sense to me. So I'm assuming that there's something that I'm missing.

What exactly is it that Brian Cox is doing that it upsetting you so much?

There is nothing wrong with encouraging a sense of wonder about nature. The single best example of that I can think of is Carl Sagan. I won't try to put words into the author's mouth, but I can give an example of the problem I have with Cox. Keep in mind that it is a small sample of the way he approaches science, but it does indicate his tendency to preach science instead of explain it the way Sagan did.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJK7_yXGjcc"]Brian Cox - Dispensing with the Notion of Elements - YouTube[/ame]

I think I understand what you're saying.

My initial objection was due to the fact that I have a tremendous amount of respect for "popular scientists" like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson - and I attribute part of my love of facts and curiosity about the world around me to experiencing "wonder" while watching Cosmos as a child.

I should have made that clearer in the OP, my apologies.

 

[PaulS1950]

My impression is that he does reject religion, primarily because of the privileged place and importance in the universe that it accords to the Earth.
But here are several more quotes from Feynman that help to clarify his thinking.

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. [...] I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose.”

[The Big Bang] is a much more exciting story to many people than the tales which other people used to make up, when wondering about the universe we lived in on the back of a turtle or something like that. They were wonderful stories, but the truth is so much more remarkable. And, so, what’s the wonder in physics to me is that it’s revealed the truth is so remarkable.”

Earth is a tiny speck of rock and water in a lesser solar system in a moderate to small galaxie among 100s of billions of galaxies and the fact that people of religion place importance to it because "an aspect of God" is reported to have visited it when it is not beyond the power of God to have visited other worlds throughout our galaxie and the 100s of billion of other galaxies does not reject religion. It mearly puts a "universal" view to it.
When we meet aliens it is almost an absolute that they will have religious views of their own based on their own religious history. At some point you will either have to conclude that God is much bigger than your religion allows or that religion is a collection of myths that may not be true. I choose to believe that God is much bigger than we can understand and that all religions are as true as any other.
Not knowing what the universe holds for us is a remarkable aspect of life. We accept that we don't know much more than we do about it yet religious people sometimes forget that we only know God through that which we can understand of the faith that we have.
Religions all over the Earth each have their own cosmology and cosmogeny. It is impractical to think that those myths are all correct - it is even more unlikely that any of them is scientifically accurate. The story of creation in the Bible is not scientifically accurate at all. The first life on the earth lived in the seas and it was microbial. It evolved into higher forms of life just as it was supposed to. Sea plants and then animals needed to come first to make the atmosphere liveable for land plants and then animals.
Just because the creation story isn't factual does not mean that the religion is wrong. It means only that when the Bible was written people couldn't understand the processes necessary for the evolution of this planet or it's life.
Religion requires faith and some require more faith than others but the underlying message of religion is one of love and acceptance - even without the understanding of the differences. I can accept that your belief in whatever religion you exercise is as reall and appropriate to you as mine is to me. The greatest commandment of all is to love God...and to love your neighbor as yourself. The better you understand the universe the better you can love the one responsible for it.

I think you are looking at the message of science while trying to see the differences between it and your faith. That is not the best way to view it - look at science as a way to get to know the result of creation - to better know the Creator.