No Christianity = No Science?
Daniel P. Duffy
strong case that only Judeo-Christianity (especially in Western Christendom)
created the mind set necessary for the development of what we today call
"science". They also do an excellent job of dispelling some of the
anti-Church myths surrounding Bruno, Copernicus, Galileo, etc.
Anyone else read this book or have a comment on its main thesis?
Bjørn Oddvar Strøm
"Daniel P. Duffy" <thed...@fuse.net> wrote in message
news:u16jd02...@corp.supernews.com...
> Been reading "The Soul of Science" by Pearcey and Thaxton who make a very
> strong case that only Judeo-Christianity (especially in Western
Christendom)
> created the mind set necessary for the development of what we today call
> "science".
Western Christianity....
His Jadedness
>strong case that only Judeo-Christianity (especially in Western Christendom)
>created the mind set necessary for the development of what we today call
>"science".
I would think that the practice of pre-christian medicine, astronomy, and metal
development would serve to disprove such an absurd idea.
--
His Jadednes, Andy- The Armchair Genealogist
http://network54.com/Hide/Forum/164494
"Death to ALL terrorist! Death to ALL supporters of terrorists! Death to ALL
sympathizers of terrorists! Death to the very IDEA of terrorism!"
Steve G.
>metal
>development would serve to disprove such an absurd idea.
>
Also a great deal of Renaissance scientific and philosophical thought was
derived directly from non-Christian Classical Greek and Middle Eastern
writings. Most of which was, I believe (re)introduced to Europe via the
Muslims.
Steve
<an elf >
To do is to be - Descartes
To be is to do - Voltaire
Do be do be do - Frank Sinatra
(You can only Email me if you take off my undies)
Sara Ede
that without Christianity the scientific method would not have been invented,
ie. observe nature, make a hypothesis, test your hypothesis etc... The main
support for this idea came from the idea that Christianity told people to
observer nature. What bothered me about this theory is that there were years
and years of intense Christian thought without a lot of scientific advance and
of course advances before Christianity. So basically, I think science would
have developed without Christianity but there may be some truth to Christian
thinking leading to the scientific method. If its true you certainly have to
appreciate the irony.....
Polar
Jadedness) wrote:
>>Been reading "The Soul of Science" by Pearcey and Thaxton who make a very
>>strong case that only Judeo-Christianity (especially in Western Christendom)
>>created the mind set necessary for the development of what we today call
>>"science".
>
>I would think that the practice of pre-christian medicine, astronomy, and metal
>development would serve to disprove such an absurd idea.
Bunch of ghosts lining up to support your position. Giordano
Bruno, Galileo Galilei, Kopernick (Copernicus), Kepler...for
starters...
How about the doc who bled poor George Washington and probably
sped his exit.
--
Polar
Daniel P. Duffy
"Bjørn Oddvar Strøm" <bjor...@student.matnat.uio.no> wrote in message
news:9v06p0$4ra$1...@readme.uio.no...
<snip>
> Which may be due to that the definition originates from the sphere of
> Western Christianity....
>
live in, says science writer Loren Eiseley, is that it exists at all.
Westerners often unconsciously assume a doctrine of Inexorable Progress,as
though the mere passage of time leads inevitably to increased knowledge as
surely an acorn becomes an oak. Yet the archaeologists would be forced to
tell us most great several civilizations have arisen and vanished without
benefit of a scientific philosophy. The type of thinking known today as
scientific, with its emphasis upon experiment and mathematical formulation,
arose in one couture - Western Europe - and in no other.... Science demands
some kind of unique soil in which to flourish. Deprived of that soil, it is
capable of decay and death as any other human activity, such as religion or
a system of government....What is that unique soil? Eiseley identifies it,
somewhat reluctantly as the Christian faith"
Daniel P. Duffy
> I would think that the practice of pre-christian medicine, astronomy, and
metal
> development would serve to disprove such an absurd idea.
>
Then it shouldn't be that hard for you to identify one other
society/culture/civilization where the scientific method developed.
pz
Is there some reason Islam is omitted from this vision of the history of
science?
And why is the author assuming that the only distinguishing
characteristic of Western Europe that can be correlated with the support
of science is the presence of the christian faith?
I'd argue instead that the wellspring of science is simply the existence
of a sufficiently prosperous culture that can *afford* the luxury of
supporting gangs of otherwise idle boffins who go around asking "why?"
of everything. Jared Diamond's vision of the differences in culture are
much more to my liking.
--
pz
pz
"Daniel P. Duffy" <thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
Umm, the Islamic world between about the 8th and 15th centuries. One
could also argue that the Western world did not develop the idea of the
scientific method, but borrowed it from the East.
Am I missing something? I thought this was a medieval history group --
you guys are supposed to be much smarter than me. Why are you missing
the obvious?
--
pz
Doug McDonald
> >
> > Then it shouldn't be that hard for you to identify one other
> > society/culture/civilization where the scientific method developed.
> >
> >
>
> Umm, the Islamic world between about the 8th and 15th centuries.
Uh, no. They developed certain mathematics and some observational
astronomy, but not the modern experimental outlook.
> One
> could also argue that the Western world did not develop the idea of the
> scientific method, but borrowed it from the East.
That's not going to go anywhere.
>
> Am I missing something? I thought this was a medieval history group --
> you guys are supposed to be much smarter than me. Why are you missing
> the obvious?
The development of science is one of the markers of the end
of the Medieval period. It is most certainly on-topic.
I doubt if Christianity had all that much to do with it.
Doug McDonald
Stacey Dodd
> >I would think that the practice of pre-christian medicine, astronomy, and
> >metal
> >development would serve to disprove such an absurd idea.
> >
>
> Also a great deal of Renaissance scientific and philosophical thought was
> derived directly from non-Christian Classical Greek and Middle Eastern
> writings. Most of which was, I believe (re)introduced to Europe via the
> Muslims.
Surely you consider Muslims to be part of a Judeo-Christianity
culture.
Compared to the Greeks though someone of this culture would have
several concepts that would aid science.
They would believe that there is a unity of nature, have a linear
concept of time and a belief in both practical and theory.
Michael Farthing
<mcdo...@scs.uiuc.edu> writes
>I doubt if Christianity had all that much to do with it.
I agree with you and would go further. It seems to me that Christianity
prevented the continued development of the scientific method that had
been set in motion, though not brought to fruition, by the rich and idle
of the Greek world.
One might make a case for saying that the Protestant movement, with its
emphasis on the ability of the individual to have direct access to God
without the medium of a priest, produced a change of mindset that once
more allowed scientific exploration. However, to use the idea that an
incidental effect of a battle between two wings of Christianity amounts
to Christianity enabling science seems somewhat perverse!
If one looks at the progress of science we see it consistently hampered
by the prejudices of Christianity in particular - Gallileo and Darwin
the foremost examples - the first opposed by Catholics and the latter by
Protestants.
--
Michael Farthing
cyclades
Software House
Against the war
Daniel P. Duffy
>
> Also a great deal of Renaissance scientific and philosophical thought was
> derived directly from non-Christian Classical Greek and Middle Eastern
> writings. Most of which was, I believe (re)introduced to Europe via the
> Muslims.
To quote from the book, "Through sheer practical know how and rules of
thumb, several cultures in antiquity - from the Chinese to the Greeks to the
Arabs - produced a higher level of learning and technology than medieval
Europe did. Yet it was Christianized Europe and not those more advanced
cultures that gave birth to science as a systematic, self correcting
discipline. The historian is bound to ask why this should be so. Why did
Christianity form the matrix within which this novel approach to the natural
world developed?"
Faith in the possibility of science came antecedently to the development of
actual scientific theory, a tone of though was required before science could
even develop. This tone of thought was present nowhere else but in Western
Christendom. So before you go any further with your claim, please consider
the following psychological advantages Western Christendom had over these
civilizations:
To begin with the Bible teaches that nature is real. If this seems too
obvious, remember that the Hindus teach that that the everyday world of
material objects is maya, illusion. Any culture which denigrates the real
world is infertile soil for the growth of science.
Second, a society must be persuaded that the study of nature is of great
value. The ancient Greeks lacked this conviction, equating the material
world with evil and disorder. Manual labor was left for slaves while
philosophers sought a life a leisure to pursue higher things. Hands on,
practical empiricism was alien to the Greeks. In contrast,
Judeo-Christianity teaches that the world has great value as God's creation.
"And God saw that it was good". There has never been room in either Hebrew
or Christian tradition that work was degrading.
Third, in the Christian world view, God made the world, but is not the world
itself. Nature is de-deified - a crucial precursor for scientific study of
nature. So long as nature is worshiped, dissecting it would be considered
impious, an advantage Christianity had over most pagans and animists.
Fourth Christianity established a legacy of a rational God creating an
orderly world. To become an object of study,the world must first be
regarded as a place where predictable events occur in a reliable predictable
fashion. Unlike the Greeks and Romans, the Christians and Jews did not face
a pantheon of capricious, unpredictable, immoral, and often childish gods.
Fifth, belief in an orderly universe made possible the belief in a
universal, fixed natural law. The use of law in the context of natural
events would have been unintelligible to every other culture except
Judeo-Christianity.
Sixth, the modern emphasis on the use of mathematics to precisely measure
nature can also be traced to the Biblical teaching that God created the
world ex nihilo. This is an alien concept to all other cultures, whose gods
merely reshaped existing primordial matter. For example, the ancient Greek
world view consisted of eternal matter structured by eternal rational
universals called Forms or Ideas. Plato's demiurge did not create from
nothing he merely injected Ideas into reasonless matter. As a result, the
Greeks expected a certain level of fuzziness in nature, which could never be
considered to be precise or represented mathematically.
Seventh, Christianity believed that humans can discover the inner workings
of natural order. AN orderly precise universe presuppose that it could be
interpreted by retinal minds. This was absent in other cultures. The
Chinese came close, sensing some order in nature but they conceived it as an
inherent necessity inscrutable to the human mind.
Eight, by preaching free will as opposed to deterministic fate, Christianity
made it possible to believe that humans could actually do something about
nature. Instead of being forever the victims of uncontrollable ate.
Contrast this with the Muslim emphasis on kismet.
For these reasons and others, Christianity (and only Christianity) can be
considered the mother of modern scientific method.
Manny Olds
I have not read the book. But I think it's thesis only works if you count
conquest toward the prize. I think that the impetus for the big change toward
quantitative though in Europe that we see in the mid-1200s was the injection
of Greco-Roman thoughts into the native cultures of Scandinavia. Christianity
did the injecting.
I don't recall if _The Measure of Reality_ (Alfred W. Crosby) gets into that.
Rosalie Wax does cover it in her book, _Magic, Fate, and History: The Changing
Ethos of the Vikings_ (http://www.land-of-confusion.org/wax/ch10.htm).
Both are worth reading anyway.
--
Manny Olds (old...@pobox.com) of Riverdale Park, Maryland, USA
"The Scandinavian aristocracy put two and two together and discovered
their ability to wield political power was *much* better under
Christianity. Heathen political models were much more decentralized."
-- Carl Edlund Anderson
Dick Wisan
elfi...@aol.comundies says...
>
>Steve
><an elf >
>To do is to be - Descartes
>To be is to do - Voltaire
>Do be do be do - Frank Sinatra
Mmmmmm. Can't quite place those equations. I thought this thread
was addressed to the Stuart system of avoirdurois, as imported from
France, thus:
0 bishop = 0 king
1 new presbyter = 1 old priest
To which we now add:
0 Christianity = 0 science
Ref: Sellar & Yeatman, page ... er ah, thumb around. You can't miss it.
--
R. N. (Dick) Wisan Email: wis...@catskill.net
Snail: 37 Clinton St., Oneonta, NY 13820, USA
Just your opinion, please, Ma'am. No fax.
JohnHarrison
news:9v2s9...@enews2.newsguy.com...
> was addressed to the Stuart system of avoirdurois, as imported from
> France, thus:
>
> 0 bishop = 0 king
> 1 new presbyter = 1 old priest
>
> To which we now add:
>
> 0 Christianity = 0 science
>
Sure, it was page 1066, wasn't it?
John
JohnHarrison
"Daniel P. Duffy" <thed...@fuse.net> wrote in message
news:u196853...@corp.supernews.com...
> <snip>
> >
> Faith in the possibility of science came antecedently to the development
of
> actual scientific theory, a tone of though was required before science
could
> even develop. This tone of thought was present nowhere else but in
Western
> Christendom. So before you go any further with your claim, please
consider
> the following psychological advantages Western Christendom had over these
> civilizations:
>
So, as I suspected when I read the first post, you are not enquiring but
urging a view point. And as soon as someone puts other evidence you demand
that they justify it whilst sliding away from evidence yourself. You were
asked why Science should be related to the Christian and not some other
aspect of the medieval period.
Here is an even more important one? How come so much science has been amoral
or even downright immoral? Is that because of its Christian origins, too, or
do we glide away from the awkward ones and just own the good bits, the ones
the Christians approve of?
Regards
John G Harrison
JohnHarrison
"Michael Farthing" <m...@cyclades.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:xG7MtkTP...@cyclades.demon.co.uk...
> One might make a case for saying that the Protestant movement, with its
> emphasis on the ability of the individual to have direct access to God
> without the medium of a priest, produced a change of mindset that once
> more allowed scientific exploration. However, to use the idea that an
> incidental effect of a battle between two wings of Christianity amounts
> to Christianity enabling science seems somewhat perverse!
>
> If one looks at the progress of science we see it consistently hampered
> by the prejudices of Christianity in particular - Gallileo and Darwin
> the foremost examples - the first opposed by Catholics and the latter by
> Protestants.
>
It might well be argued that it is only when the hold of the church is
reduced, by dissent and division and the consequent argument, that Science
is able to take off. As you say, that is hardly an argument that it grew
out of Christianity.
Regards
John G Harrison
Michael Farthing
<thed...@fuse.net> writes
><snip>
Some interesting ideas there, but I suspect the arguments are deduced
after the event to fit the facts. The arguments as to why it didn't
develop elsewhere seem slightly better than the ones in favour of why it
might occur within Christianity. I'm still of the view that the Greeks
did most of the work.
I think the argument can only be considered on the basis that
Christianity provided the best mindset, even though the product was
essentially to its own disliking. It spawned science, but perhaps
rather regretted it, and it only happened when the grasp of Christianity
on people and society was weakening!
Emir
<thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
> Been reading "The Soul of Science" by Pearcey and Thaxton who make a very
> strong case that only Judeo-Christianity (especially in Western Christendom)
> created the mind set necessary for the development of what we today call
> "science". They also do an excellent job of dispelling some of the
> anti-Church myths surrounding Bruno, Copernicus, Galileo, etc.
"Anti-Church myths"? What would those be?
Emir Kaganovich
Steve G.
I think it's that myth the the Church actually hunted down heretics.
Steve
<an elf >
To do is to be - Descartes
To be is to do - Voltaire
Do be do be do - Frank Sinatra
Daniel P. Duffy
>
> Bunch of ghosts lining up to support your position. Giordano
> Bruno,
Who was not burned at the stake for advocating the idea that there were
other inhabited planets orbiting around other stars. He was condemned for
being a pagan advocate for the hermetic tradition. Hermetic writings
treated the sun as a god, and the rest of the universe as moving, and hence
alive. This it turns out is the real reason Bruno was attracted to
Copernican heliocentricism. His belief in the sun's divinity nicely
dovetailed with a heliocentric world view. Bruno was a martyr to pagan
mysticism, not scientific inquirery.
Galileo Galilei,
Whose friends and admirers included the Pope and Jesuit college in Rome.
There was much more involved in Galileo's trial then a simple confrontation
between religion and science. Ironically, the majority of church
intellectuals were on Galileo's side while the clearest opposition came from
secular ideas of the academic philosophers (see "The Crime of Galileo" by
Giorgio de Santilanna). The truth is, on the whole, the Church had no
argument with Galileo's theories on science. Their objections lay with his
attacks on Aristotelian philosophy (As formulated for the Church by Thomas
Aquinas' Scholasticism) - and all the metaphysical, spiritual and social
consequences associated with it. Aristotle's philosophy was thought
necessary for the formulation of religious and moral laws. Galileo was
also caught up in an intellectual power struggle between the older *secular*
elites which ran the universities and had a vested interest in defending
Scholasticism and a new generation of pragmatic young Turks like himself.
The Church, being threatened by Protestantism felt it imperative to defend
Aristotle.
His friends in the Jesuits in effect told Galileo, "We know you're right,
but give us time to break the news to the masses. The middle of a holy war
is no time to be undercutting what was considered the basis of our faith.
So please publish in Latin for the elite and not in the vernacular for the
masses." Not only did Galileo ignore the advice of his Jesuit friends, his
"Dialogue Concerning the Two Principle Systems of the World" includes a dim
witted buffoon named Simplicio, a thinly disguised caricature of the Pope
who had been Galileo's friend and admirer. Is it any wonder that the Pope
and the Jesuits turned against him?
In spite of this Galileo never repudiated his faith and remained a devout
Catholic. Only Galileo's determination to remain within the Church can
explain his determined efforts to convince the Church hierarchy and why he
declined all chance to escape to the safety of the Venetian Republic.
Kopernick (Copernicus),
Whose heliocentricism was proposed without a single shred of empirical
evidence. Such evidence would not be available until Galileo saw through
his telescope that Venus had phases like the moon. A mechanical explanation
for planetary orbits would await Newton's "Principia". (Newton, BTW would
remain a devout Christian who spent more time in Biblical study than in
scientific pursuits). What motivated Copernicus wasn't science but
neo-Platonist philosophy which taught that the sun was symbolic of God's
ability to create and therefore deserved primacy at the center of the
universe. This was in opposition to the Aristotelian view (which dominated
the Church as Thomas Aquinas' scholasticism) which assumed that the Earth
was the enter of the universe.
Kepler...for
> starters...
>
Who like Copernicus was a neo-Platonist mystic. Both he and Copernicus
advocated a heliocentric world view in advance of any empirical evidence.
His initial motivation for favoring heliocentricism was mysticism, not
science. Besides, I don't recall the churches ever persecuting Kepler.
> How about the doc who bled poor George Washington and probably
> sped his exit.
Pardon?
Daniel P. Duffy
<snip>>
>
> Is there some reason Islam is omitted from this vision of the history of
> science?
>
Science was stillborn in Islam. Empirical, rational self correcting science
arose in one culture only, Western Christendom.
> And why is the author assuming that the only distinguishing
> characteristic of Western Europe that can be correlated with the support
> of science is the presence of the christian faith?
>
See my other post listing the factors in Christianity's favor.
> I'd argue instead that the wellspring of science is simply the existence
> of a sufficiently prosperous culture that can *afford* the luxury of
> supporting gangs of otherwise idle boffins who go around asking "why?"
> of everything. Jared Diamond's vision of the differences in culture are
> much more to my liking.
>
Quite a few ancient civs were more wealthy than Medieval Christendom, yet
did not give birth to modern science.
Daniel P. Duffy
<snip>
> So, as I suspected when I read the first post, you are not enquiring but
> urging a view point. And as soon as someone puts other evidence you demand
> that they justify it whilst sliding away from evidence yourself. You were
> asked why Science should be related to the Christian and not some other
> aspect of the medieval period.
> Here is an even more important one? How come so much science has been
amoral
> or even downright immoral? Is that because of its Christian origins, too,
or
> do we glide away from the awkward ones and just own the good bits, the
ones
> the Christians approve of?
>
Don't read too much into this. I merely repeat points from the book which of
course does make the case for a unique cultural "soil" found only in western
Christendom which allowed the growth of science. If you can come up with
refutations and rational counter-arguments, I'd love to hear them.
Daniel P. Duffy
and Galileo.
"Emir" <emi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:emir_ak-1012...@dialup-166.90.67.119.dial1.chicago1.level3.net
...
Daniel P. Duffy
>
> I have not read the book. But I think it's thesis only works if you count
> conquest toward the prize. I think that the impetus for the big change
toward
> quantitative though in Europe that we see in the mid-1200s was the
injection
> of Greco-Roman thoughts into the native cultures of Scandinavia.
Christianity
> did the injecting.
>
Perhaps its best to view the rediscovery of ancient arts and philosophy
(what Toynbee would term an encounter between civilizations in time) as the
spark. The fuel was the existing Christian culture. If Western Christendom
shared the same world view as the Greeks, science never would have passed
the mystical/philosophical stage it achieved in Greece.
>snip>
Emir
<thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
Ah, I see we've gone from "Judeo-Christianity (and especially
Western Christianity)" down to "Western Christendom" already.
Short shrift to those three thousand years of tradition, "from
Moses to Sandy Kofax..."
Here's the problem: if there's something that existed in
"Western Christendom" (the existence of which I am skeptical
of outside of generalities, but that's neither here nor
there), there is absolutely NO reason, unless you're buying
into metaphysics, that this intrinsic fertility to science
would not exist in Hungary, Poland -- even Armenia (England's
a newcomer to this Christian thing compared to them). Except
that "Christianity" was not it at all, but:
- a place with leisure time and wealth for a relatively
large number of people to experiment, educate, etc.
- the liquid finance to fund these experiments,
education, etc.
- a progressive order which would protect iconoclasts
or, for lack of a better term, "seekers" in the
sciences and humanities, whose discoveries would
have absolutely no tangible (militarily or financial)
benefit in either the patron or the artist/scientist's
lifetime
- a tolerant order of artists and scientists who would
bear in good humor the overbearing pretentions of
said progressive leaders ;-)
Emir Kaganovich
Emir
<thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
> <snip>
> >
> > Bunch of ghosts lining up to support your position. Giordano
> > Bruno,
>
> Who was not burned at the stake for advocating the idea that there were
> other inhabited planets orbiting around other stars. He was condemned for
> being a pagan advocate for the hermetic tradition...
Aha, "read a book", did you...?
What you've done is explain the LOGIC behind the Church's
persecution of certain scientists. "Ahahha, it was all
a misunderstanding! Sorry about that excommunication for
500 years, chum!"
It sounds better when Pope John Paul II says it, than
when you apologize for the poor misguided folks who used
their spiritual authority to stigmatize.
These are not "anti-Church myths", these are examples
of why mankind must be eternally wary of corrupt and
overbearing institutions.
Emir Kaganovich
Politely waving and backing away
Stacey Dodd
> In message <u196853...@corp.supernews.com>, Daniel P. Duffy
> <thed...@fuse.net> writes
> ><snip>
>
> Some interesting ideas there, but I suspect the arguments are deduced
> after the event to fit the facts. The arguments as to why it didn't
> develop elsewhere seem slightly better than the ones in favour of why it
> might occur within Christianity. I'm still of the view that the Greeks
> did most of the work.
Would you agree that the Greeks and Roman civilisation had reached a
dead end!
A fresh approach was required.
>
> I think the argument can only be considered on the basis that
> Christianity provided the best mindset, even though the product was
> essentially to its own disliking. It spawned science, but perhaps
> rather regretted it, and it only happened when the grasp of Christianity
> on people and society was weakening!
Later on where organised Christianity was weaker, science progressed
further. However even today many of the top scientist talk in these
Judeo-Christian terms.
John Wilkins
> Michael Farthing <m...@cyclades.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<eKDHuOEu...@cyclades.demon.co.uk>...
> > In message <u196853...@corp.supernews.com>, Daniel P. Duffy
> > <thed...@fuse.net> writes
> > ><snip>
> >
> > Some interesting ideas there, but I suspect the arguments are deduced
> > after the event to fit the facts. The arguments as to why it didn't
> > develop elsewhere seem slightly better than the ones in favour of why it
> > might occur within Christianity. I'm still of the view that the Greeks
> > did most of the work.
>
> Would you agree that the Greeks and Roman civilisation had reached a
> dead end!
> A fresh approach was required.
Now I'm interloping in s.h.m and I'm not a historian nor a historian's
bootblack, but I really object to this sort of historicism.
Civilisations do not reach "dead ends" any more than organisms do. The
late classical civilisation developed further into the Byzantine,
western and Islamic cultures, which in turn developed into what we now
have. Granted science had to wait until the 17th century to really get
going, but not developing science is hardly a "dead end" given that
there is around 100ky of prior successful history of cultures that did
not develop science. Moreover, the approach to empirical investigation
in the Hellenistic period was hardly uniform - it ranged from the
mystery religious stuff that developed into the alchemical and gnostic
traditions (out of Pythagoraean religion) through to the hard-headed
engineering of Archimedes, and empirical biology of Aristotle.
What was lacking, IMO, that also was lacking in the later periods before
the 17th century was a combination of previously existing factors: an
open publication culture, empirical and experimental work (but see Roger
Bacon :-), and a shift from slavish devotion to old masters in favour of
testing. But at no stage was science entirely absent between Aristotle
and the scientific revolution, so far as I can see. It finally took off
when it became a patronised activity, and eventually when it became
state funded in the nineteenth century.
>
> >
> > I think the argument can only be considered on the basis that
> > Christianity provided the best mindset, even though the product was
> > essentially to its own disliking. It spawned science, but perhaps
> > rather regretted it, and it only happened when the grasp of Christianity
> > on people and society was weakening!
>
> Later on where organised Christianity was weaker, science progressed
> further. However even today many of the top scientist talk in these
> Judeo-Christian terms.
I think that the claim that the Christian notion of natural law was
required for science to progress is false. Instead, science developed
out of the *Roman* notion of natural law. I think it suggestive that
science closely followed the revival of Justinian jurisprudence in Padua
and elsewhere.
--
John Wilkins
Occasionally having fun for over 46 years...
Brian M. Scott
<thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
[...]
>>Kopernick (Copernicus),
>Whose heliocentricism was proposed without a single shred of empirical
>evidence. Such evidence would not be available until Galileo saw through
>his telescope that Venus had phases like the moon.
If I remember the dates correctly, Kepler's working out of his first
two laws is pretty nearly contemporaneous with Galileo's observations.
These laws couldn't have been worked out without considerable working
over of good data (namely, Tycho Brahe's). This implies that during
the course of the first decade of the 17th c. he must have known that
a heliocentric model with elliptical orbits provided an excellent fit
to the experimental data. That is indirect evidence, but it is
evidence none the less.
[...]
Brian
Michael L. Siemon
<wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote:
+ I think that the claim that the Christian notion of natural law was
+ required for science to progress is false. Instead, science developed
+ out of the *Roman* notion of natural law. I think it suggestive that
+ science closely followed the revival of Justinian jurisprudence in Padua
+ and elsewhere.
I would agree. The thing that tends to confuse this picture is that
Christian _theology_ was developing under the influence of the same
trends. Systematic "critical thinking" first flourished in schools of
canon law, influence by the humanistic revival. But that led to Valla
and the recognition of the, ummm, "fabulous" nature of the Donation of
Constantine. The application of similar method to "natural philosophy"
tended to be rather less "controversial" -- at first. :-)
In any case, the historical/biographical details in the case of any
one practioner might well be mediated through the theological spin-off
rather than the legal origins of these notions. The waters get quite
muddy. Consider Newton's background and motivations (and obsessions!)
Tim O'Neill
Emir wrote:
> In article <u1aeaqf...@corp.supernews.com>, "Daniel P. Duffy"
> <thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
>
> > <snip>
> > >
> > > Bunch of ghosts lining up to support your position. Giordano
> > > Bruno,
> >
> > Who was not burned at the stake for advocating the idea that there were
> > other inhabited planets orbiting around other stars. He was condemned for
> > being a pagan advocate for the hermetic tradition...
>
> Aha, "read a book", did you...?
Perhaps, but much of what Daniel found in that book is unremarkable.
Most historians of science would have little argument with what he says
about those cases.
> What you've done is explain the LOGIC behind the Church's
> persecution of certain scientists. "Ahahha, it was all
> a misunderstanding! Sorry about that excommunication for
> 500 years, chum!"
No, what he's saying is that these cases are not evidence of an
over-arching persecution of science by the Church. The history of
science in the Middle Ages shows clearly that such a view of the
medieval Church's attitude to science is a distortion, though a
popular one thanks to centuries of misinformation and prejudice.
> These are not "anti-Church myths", these are examples
> of why mankind must be eternally wary of corrupt and
> overbearing institutions.
They are historical cases which are difficult to examine dispassionately
due to centuries of anti-Church myths and sectarian prejudice.
There is little or nothing in what Daniel is saying which is radical
or controversial.
Cheers,
Tim O'Neill
PS Not a Christian or a Catholic, just an atheist who has studied
medieval science and its early Modern successor.
Michael Farthing
<Stace...@e-mailanywhere.com> writes
>Michael Farthing <m...@cyclades.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:<eKDHuOEu...@cyclades.demon.co.uk>...
>> In message <u196853...@corp.supernews.com>, Daniel P. Duffy
>> <thed...@fuse.net> writes
>> ><snip>
>>
>> Some interesting ideas there, but I suspect the arguments are deduced
>> after the event to fit the facts. The arguments as to why it didn't
>> develop elsewhere seem slightly better than the ones in favour of why it
>> might occur within Christianity. I'm still of the view that the Greeks
>> did most of the work.
>
>Would you agree that the Greeks and Roman civilisation had reached a
>dead end!
>A fresh approach was required.
Short answer
Dunno.
Long answer
Christianity set about extinguishing it before it had finisihed, but I
don't know how vibrant it was in reality by that stage. A lot of it was
certainly no more than rote handing down of the great classics, but of
course a lot of modern science teaching is (quite properly) also that.
>
>>
>> I think the argument can only be considered on the basis that
>> Christianity provided the best mindset, even though the product was
>> essentially to its own disliking. It spawned science, but perhaps
>> rather regretted it, and it only happened when the grasp of Christianity
>> on people and society was weakening!
>
>Later on where organised Christianity was weaker, science progressed
>further. However even today many of the top scientist talk in these
>Judeo-Christian terms.
I don't see the relevance of that at all.
Michael Farthing
<thed...@fuse.net> writes
>Galileo Galilei,
>
>Whose friends and admirers included the Pope and Jesuit college in Rome.
>There was much more involved in Galileo's trial then a simple confrontation
>between religion and science. Ironically, the majority of church
>intellectuals were on Galileo's side while the clearest opposition came from
>secular ideas of the academic philosophers (see "The Crime of Galileo" by
>Giorgio de Santilanna). The truth is, on the whole, the Church had no
>argument with Galileo's theories on science. Their objections lay with his
>attacks on Aristotelian philosophy (As formulated for the Church by Thomas
>Aquinas' Scholasticism) - and all the metaphysical, spiritual and social
>consequences associated with it. Aristotle's philosophy was thought
>necessary for the formulation of religious and moral laws.
In short the Christian social environment and mindset was against the
dangerous idea of scientific investigation that might produce the
'wrong' answer.
>Kopernick (Copernicus),
From your tone, I interpret your discussion of him as a 'debunking'
exercise.
>
>Whose heliocentricism was proposed without a single shred of empirical
>evidence.
So? This shows something of a misunderstanding of the scientific
evidence. Copernicus was proposing a theory which led to a highly
simplified mathematical interpretation. It obviated the need for
epicycles in the calculation of ephemera and was a perfectly valid means
of enquiry within the modern scientific method. It's precisely what
Einstein did.
>Such evidence would not be available until Galileo saw through
>his telescope that Venus had phases like the moon.
Which provided support for one of the theories then going the rounds and
facilitated the natural selection of that theory. Rather as later
acquired evidence supported Einstein.
Your analysis demonstrates the scientific method working well in this
sequence of events.
>A mechanical explanation
>for planetary orbits would await Newton's "Principia". (Newton, BTW would
>remain a devout Christian who spent more time in Biblical study than in
>scientific pursuits).
As above.
****
Daniel,
You want have it both ways!
You seem to have two lines of argument:
a) Christianity produced the mindset required to initiate the scientific
method. It was the creation of this mindset that enabled science to
appear regardless of whether Christians were in favour or not, so that
a failure to foster it does not alter the fact that it was
(inadvertently) fostered.
b) Christianity actively fostered science.
You seem to swap fairly readily between these two arguments (though, in
fairness, mainly in response to your critics.
It strikes me that (b) is an out-and-out loser and doesn't gain in
strength from efforts to belittle particular individuals or muddy the
waters by describing persecutions as actions designed to perpetuate the
existing social cohesion instead of actions defending Christianity. The
two are so fundamentally entwined as to be fairly inseparable and the
attempt to do so directly undermines the strength of argument (a).
Daniel P. Duffy
<snip>
All of which existed in Greek, Hellenistic and Roman civilizations - none of
which sparked a scientific revolution. See my response to polar on the
unique attributes of Western Christendom.
Daniel P. Duffy
"Tim O'Neill" <sca...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:3C15C1D8...@bigpond.com...
Daniel P. Duffy
<snip>
> In short the Christian social environment and mindset was against the
> dangerous idea of scientific investigation that might produce the
> 'wrong' answer.
>
Let me repeat. The Church had saw nothing wrong per se with Galileo's
scieintific theories - most church men were on his side. What they objected
to was his subsequent attack on Aritstotle. Modern misrepresentation of
Galileo's trial are a classic example of the victors rewriting history. A
lot of Galileo's problems were brought on himself largely because he was an
arrogant publicity hound who needlessly made enemies out of his former
friends the Pope and the Jesuits.
> >Kopernick (Copernicus),
>
> From your tone, I interpret your discussion of him as a 'debunking'
> exercise.
>
No, just providing context instead of misapplying modern motives to the
man's work. Accurate history requies placing a man and his deeds within the
context of his time and culture.
> >
> >Whose heliocentricism was proposed without a single shred of empirical
> >evidence.
>
> So? This shows something of a misunderstanding of the scientific
> evidence. Copernicus was proposing a theory which led to a highly
> simplified mathematical interpretation. It obviated the need for
> epicycles in the calculation of ephemera and was a perfectly valid means
> of enquiry within the modern scientific method. It's precisely what
> Einstein did.
>
False analogy. Einstein's work grew out of a need to make consistent a
previously established set of equations (Maxwell's equations) which were
based on previously performed experiments. No such previously established
empirical data was available to Copernicus. The Copernican system was a
clasic leap of faith driven not by scienctific motives, but a belief in
neo-Platonic mysticism. Though observing the phases of Venus provided
empirical confirmation to heliocentricism in much the same way as
observations of Mercury's orbital period would provide evidence for
relativity, the origins of both theories were radically different.
<snip>
>
> As above.
>
> ****
>
> Daniel,
>
> You want have it both ways!
>
> You seem to have two lines of argument:
>
> a) Christianity produced the mindset required to initiate the scientific
> method. It was the creation of this mindset that enabled science to
> appear regardless of whether Christians were in favour or not, so that
> a failure to foster it does not alter the fact that it was
> (inadvertently) fostered.
>
> b) Christianity actively fostered science.
>
> You seem to swap fairly readily between these two arguments (though, in
> fairness, mainly in response to your critics.
>
The two are not mutually exclusive. The culture created in Western
Christendom was the only "soil" fertile enought to create modern science.
And the Church did actively promote science, as it it did the arts.
> It strikes me that (b) is an out-and-out loser and doesn't gain in
> strength from efforts to belittle particular individuals or muddy the
> waters by describing persecutions as actions designed to perpetuate the
> existing social cohesion instead of actions defending Christianity.
I prefer to think of it as bringing a litle context and truth telling to the
debate. The worst mistake any historian can make is to project his own
biases on historical figures.
Daniel P. Duffy
> Some interesting ideas there, but I suspect the arguments are deduced
> after the event to fit the facts.
That I'm afraid is the nature of historical inquiery.
The arguments as to why it didn't
> develop elsewhere seem slightly better than the ones in favour of why it
> might occur within Christianity. I'm still of the view that the Greeks
> did most of the work.
The Greeks were dilletentes, who didn't want to dirtly their hands with
empirical study. As a result their science never went beyond the
mystical/philosophical stage. Scienc in Western Christendom might have
taken off even faster if it could have started with a clean slate and
avoided the slavish aping of the Greeks during the early renaissance.
>
> I think the argument can only be considered on the basis that
> Christianity provided the best mindset, even though the product was
> essentially to its own disliking. It spawned science, but perhaps
> rather regretted it, and it only happened when the grasp of Christianity
> on people and society was weakening!
>
The medieval Church never had any objections to scientific inquirery. Only
when scientists like Galileo used their studies to attack Scholasticism did
the Church get upset. The greatest early strides were made by scientists
who were devout Christians and Catholics - not when the "grasp of
Christianity on people and society was weakening".
Daniel P. Duffy
>
> They would believe that there is a unity of nature, have a linear
> concept of time and a belief in both practical and theory.
>
>
Have you ever read "The Gifts of the Jews" by Thomas Cahill? He makes the
interesting observation that the Jews made the concept of "progress" even
possible by being the first people to view time as linear instead of an
series of endlessly repeating cycles. Its hard for a modern reader to
understand a mind set in which time is not linear.
Tim O'Neill
Michael Farthing wrote:
> In message <261b113a.0112...@posting.google.com>, Stacey Dodd
> <Stace...@e-mailanywhere.com> writes
> >Michael Farthing <m...@cyclades.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:<eKDHuOEu...@cyclades.demon.co.uk>...
> >> In message <u196853...@corp.supernews.com>, Daniel P. Duffy
> >> <thed...@fuse.net> writes
> >> ><snip>
> >>
> >> Some interesting ideas there, but I suspect the arguments are deduced
> >> after the event to fit the facts. The arguments as to why it didn't
> >> develop elsewhere seem slightly better than the ones in favour of why it
> >> might occur within Christianity. I'm still of the view that the Greeks
> >> did most of the work.
> >
> >Would you agree that the Greeks and Roman civilisation had reached a
> >dead end!
> >A fresh approach was required.
>
> Short answer
>
> Dunno.
>
> Long answer
>
> Christianity set about extinguishing it before it had finisihed, but I
> don't know how vibrant it was in reality by that stage.
??? Christianity set about extinguishing what? Greek and Roman
learning?!
Sorry, but this is simply not so.
> A lot of it was
> certainly no more than rote handing down of the great classics, but of
> course a lot of modern science teaching is (quite properly) also that.
The way the medieval world preserved, revered, added to, rediscovered,
studied, debated, synthesised and expanded on the ancient works its
Churchmen saved for history can hardly be referred to as 'no more than rote
learning'. Have you read much about the Twelfth Century Renaissance?
Thomas Aquinas? Or, for that matter, medieval science and scientists
(almost all Churchmen BTW)?
Cheers,
Tim O'Neill
Soren Larsen
All top scientist in Eastern Europe was members of the communist party
until little more than a decade ago and a lot them were brilliant.
Would it reasonable to conclude that communism furthered free and creative
scientific thinking or would it be more reasonable to conclude that being
either a partymember or churchman was a requirement to do scientific research.
Cheers
Soren Larsen
Michael Farthing
<thed...@fuse.net> writes
>
><snip>
>> In short the Christian social environment and mindset was against the
>> dangerous idea of scientific investigation that might produce the
>> 'wrong' answer.
>>
>
>Let me repeat. The Church had saw nothing wrong per se with Galileo's
>scieintific theories - most church men were on his side.
Fine.
> What they objected
>to was his subsequent attack on Aritstotle.
Ah... No objection until he presented views they were not prepared to
entertain. Science involves attacking views that you think are wrong
and it also involves tolerating the publication of views that you think
are wrong.
Gallileo was doing the former.
The authorities were not doing the latter.
What Gallileo's motives were are quite irrelevant. He was forced to
retract what he believed to be the truth. That by any definition is in
opposition to the scientific method.
>False analogy. Einstein's work grew out of a need to make consistent a
>previously established set of equations (Maxwell's equations) which were
>based on previously performed experiments. No such previously established
>empirical data was available to Copernicus.
The detailed work of Tycho Brahe was not available but the Ptolemaic
systems with its eipicycles were. It was these that could be thrown out
of the window. As a result of Copernicus they failed the razor.
Michael Farthing
<sca...@bigpond.com> writes
Tim,
I know I tend to be a bit flippant in the way I throw ideas about, but
I was asked to comment. My short answer was 'Dunno' and perhaps I
should have stuck with it. My long answer, if you inspect it, is full
of qualifications.
However, I'm afraid you've quite misunderstood what I was saying.
The comment about Christianity closing down Greek learning referred to
Christianity in the Roman Empire. For instance, the burning of the
library at Serapis (389) and the closing of the schools in Athens (529).
I accept that what I wrote could be misunderstood.
Similarly, the comments about rote learning of the great classics was
referring to the later stages of the Schools at Athens and their
preservation of earlier work, not to any actions of Christians, let
alone the Medieval period. I think what I wrote is quite clear on this
point. If not, hopefully this is.
Michael Farthing
>Have you read much about the Twelfth Century Renaissance?
>Thomas Aquinas? Or, for that matter, medieval science and scientists
It may seem from my previous post that I was conveniently ducking this
question. The answer is 'no', but as I hope you now see Aquinas is not
relevant in the context of what I was saying.
In terms of the general thread I was not really aware that there were
any major advances of science in a pure sense, but rather a steady
codification and progress at a more engineering level. How about
directing my attention somewhere? [Not to Aquinas. That's t'wife's
area].
Would you say that such science was any different in quality and extent
to Arab progress, or Chinese, or ancient Egyptian? I think in the
context of this thread that must be a very key question.
>(almost all Churchmen BTW)?
As has now effectively been said by Soren:
"They would be, wouldn't they?"
mdgiles
science was tied to widespread everyday technology. In many cultures,
scientific study was the "playtoy" of the "pets" of a pampered ruling
class. In the West, pure science - say mathematics or astronomy - were
tied to everyday concerns like ballistics and navigation. In the west
knowledge would filter down to any sea captain wishing to get from
"here" to "there", which meant that the basis of support for inquiry,
was far larger.
Tim O'Neill
Michael Farthing wrote:
> In message <3C15FE93...@bigpond.com>, Tim O'Neill
> <sca...@bigpond.com> writes
>
> >Have you read much about the Twelfth Century Renaissance?
> >Thomas Aquinas? Or, for that matter, medieval science and scientists
>
> It may seem from my previous post that I was conveniently ducking this
> question. The answer is 'no', but as I hope you now see Aquinas is not
> relevant in the context of what I was saying.
Your last post clarified that point certainly, but what you're saying is
still an oversimplification. There certainly were conservative elements
in the Church of late antiquity which saw all pagan learning as profane,
just as there were such elements (to a lesser extent) in the Middle Ages.
But the other, dominant, element in the Church saw such learning as
important and worth valuing and preserving. Augustine and others
saw this learning as 'the treasures of the Egyptians' - worth carrying
off so long as they could be reconciled with the Christian revelation.
Such a synthesis was a major object of the medieval Church.
> In terms of the general thread I was not really aware that there were
> any major advances of science in a pure sense, but rather a steady
> codification and progress at a more engineering level. How about
> directing my attention somewhere? [Not to Aquinas. That's t'wife's
> area].
I'd recommend A.C. Crombie's 'Augustine to Galileo: Science in the
Middle Ages' and David C. Linberg's 'The Beginnings of Western
Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical,
Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450'. If you
read both I think your view of medieval science and the Church's
attitude to it and place in its development will be very different.
The subtitle of Lindberg's excellent book is also worth considering.
We *can't* expect to be able to judge medieval (or Ancient,
or Early Modern) science by modern standards - these things
have to be looked at in their cultural context. The idea that
science represents an objective body of knowledge which
generally doesn't have to mesh with a wider, philosophical
and religious world view is a *very* recent development.
For much of the history of science in the West it has been
intimately meshed with a wider, generally religious, world
view. It is certainly true that conflict could arise when a new
scientific idea clashed with a central tenet of that religious view,
but this does *not* mean that this religious view was uniformly
or even substantially anti-scientific - quite the opposite.
> Would you say that such science was any different in quality and extent
> to Arab progress, or Chinese, or ancient Egyptian? I think in the
> context of this thread that must be a very key question.
It was very different in both quality and extent (as far as we can
gauge such things) to any science in China or Egypt. It was very
similar to the scientific impulse in medieval Islam - it was greatly
stimulated by the Islamic scientific tradition and was motivated by
similar theological and philosophical under-pinnings - a belief
in the ability to gain an objective apprehension of physical
creation and seeing this creation as a reflection of the mind and
purpose of God. Whether its extent was greater than that of
Islamic science is difficult to measure, but if it did so then they'd
argue this was because they stood on the shoulders of Muslim
scientific giants.
I'd strongly recommend those two books - both are well regarded
standard works on medieval science and both go a long way towards
quietly answering many of the myths surrounding science and the
medieval Church.
> >(almost all Churchmen BTW)?
>
> As has now effectively been said by Soren:
>
> "They would be, wouldn't they?"
The point is that they *wouldn't* be if the Church was intrinsically
anti-science.
It wasn't.
Cheers,
Tim O'Neill
Manny Olds
> I wonder if the difference is that in Western Judeo-Christendom, pure
> science was tied to widespread everyday technology. In many cultures,
> scientific study was the "playtoy" of the "pets" of a pampered ruling
> class. In the West, pure science - say mathematics or astronomy - were
> tied to everyday concerns like ballistics and navigation. In the west
> knowledge would filter down to any sea captain wishing to get from
> "here" to "there", which meant that the basis of support for inquiry,
> was far larger.
This may be linked to the more essential difference that Western Christianity
was laid over a different pagan culture than it was elsewhere. And that
underlying culture provided the crucial fuel.
--
Manny Olds (old...@pobox.com) of Riverdale Park, Maryland, USA
Trapped in the free fire zone between between science and literature
Polar
Yes, that was one of the valuable elements in what is otherwise a
somewhat "reach-y" book, as is also his other one about how the
Irish saved civilization.
As to the non-linear mind set, is it not alive and well even in
"modern" India, e.g.?
--
Polar
Polar
Fascinating, minutely-detailed book on Copernicus and Kepler,
inter alia: Arthur Koestler's :The Sleepwalkers". Man could
write!!
--
Polar
Michael Farthing
>
>
>Michael Farthing wrote:
>
>> In message <3C15FE93...@bigpond.com>, Tim O'Neill
>> <sca...@bigpond.com> writes
>>
>> >Have you read much about the Twelfth Century Renaissance?
>> >Thomas Aquinas? Or, for that matter, medieval science and scientists
>>
>> It may seem from my previous post that I was conveniently ducking this
>> question. The answer is 'no', but as I hope you now see Aquinas is not
>> relevant in the context of what I was saying.
>
>Your last post clarified that point certainly, but what you're saying is
>still an oversimplification.
Fair enough. Any sentence with words in single figures is likely to be
that!
Maybe one should make all sentences ten words long, but in those
circumstances discussion might never get going.
>There certainly were conservative elements
>in the Church of late antiquity which saw all pagan learning as profane,
>just as there were such elements (to a lesser extent) in the Middle Ages.
>But the other, dominant, element in the Church saw such learning as
>important and worth valuing and preserving. Augustine and others
>saw this learning as 'the treasures of the Egyptians' - worth carrying
>off so long as they could be reconciled with the Christian revelation.
My reading of this period has suggested that while this was true of some
early theologians, the motivation was perhaps more to attain
respectability and to be taken seriously by Greeks, rather than an
innate respect for Greek philosophy - but no doubt it was a mixture of
the two and of course they were also juggling with two audiences. You
have to keep your colleagues as sweet as possible as well as visiting
the enemy camp.
>Such a synthesis was a major object of the medieval Church.
I have to say I rather lose interest in theology after the schism.
>I'd recommend A.C. Crombie's 'Augustine to Galileo: Science in the
>Middle Ages' and David C. Linberg's 'The Beginnings of Western
>Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical,
>Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC to AD 1450'. If you
>read both I think your view of medieval science and the Church's
>attitude to it and place in its development will be very different.
Thank you for the recommendations. (But it'll have to wait until after
Medieval Children).
>
>The subtitle of Lindberg's excellent book is also worth considering.
>We *can't* expect to be able to judge medieval (or Ancient,
>or Early Modern) science by modern standards - these things
>have to be looked at in their cultural context. The idea that
>science represents an objective body of knowledge which
>generally doesn't have to mesh with a wider, philosophical
>and religious world view is a *very* recent development.
>For much of the history of science in the West it has been
>intimately meshed with a wider, generally religious, world
>view. It is certainly true that conflict could arise when a new
>scientific idea clashed with a central tenet of that religious view,
>but this does *not* mean that this religious view was uniformly
>or even substantially anti-scientific - quite the opposite.
>
>> Would you say that such science was any different in quality and extent
>> to Arab progress, or Chinese, or ancient Egyptian? I think in the
>> context of this thread that must be a very key question.
>
>It was very different in both quality and extent (as far as we can
>gauge such things) to any science in China or Egypt.
I assume this means it exceeded them. I know very little about China,
but I am rather surprised about Egypt, which I thought had quite a
strong scientific tradition.
>It was very
>similar to the scientific impulse in medieval Islam - it was greatly
>stimulated by the Islamic scientific tradition and was motivated by
>similar theological and philosophical under-pinnings - a belief
>in the ability to gain an objective apprehension of physical
>creation and seeing this creation as a reflection of the mind and
>purpose of God. Whether its extent was greater than that of
>Islamic science is difficult to measure, but if it did so then they'd
>argue this was because they stood on the shoulders of Muslim
>scientific giants.
So that's where Issac got all his best lines...
Joe
> a misunderstanding! Sorry about that excommunication for
> 500 years, chum!"
> These are not "anti-Church myths",
Sorry, Emir, the excommunication of Galileo IS one of the more popular
anti-Church myths. I'm sure any biography of Galileo would clear this
up for you.
Joe.
Tim O'Neill
> In article <3C15FE93...@bigpond.com>, Tim O'Neill says...
> >The way the medieval world preserved, revered, added to, rediscovered,
> >studied, debated, synthesised and expanded on the ancient works its
> >Churchmen saved for history can hardly be referred to as 'no more than rote
> >learning'. Have you read much about the Twelfth Century Renaissance?
> >Thomas Aquinas? Or, for that matter, medieval science and scientists
> >(almost all Churchmen BTW)?
> >Cheers,
> >
>
> All top scientist in Eastern Europe was members of the communist party
> until little more than a decade ago and a lot them were brilliant.
> Would it reasonable to conclude that communism furthered free and creative
> scientific thinking or would it be more reasonable to conclude that being
> either a partymember or churchman was a requirement to do scientific research.
This analogy isn't entirely valid - there were medieval laymen who were
scientists. Geoffrey Chaucer is one famous example, Frederick II is claimed
by many as another. There was no 'requirement' that medieval scientists be
Churchmen.
The main reasons most medieval scientists were Churchmen is much the same as
the reasons most medieval scholars generally were Churchmen. My point was,
if the Church was this cliched anti-scientific cabal who burned anyone who
had the temerity to have an original thought, as the myth maintains, how
could so many Churchmen have openly studied, debated and practiced the
various sciences?
This is not to say that these scientists didn't work within the intellectual
framework of medieval Christendom and that their ideas didn't sometimes
come into conflict with that framework. But if Michael is working on the
basis that 'everyone knows the medieval Church was anti-science' then he'd
be basing his argument on a false premise, albeit one founded on a popular
myth.
Cheers Soren,
Tim O'Neill
Stacey Dodd
> <snip>>
> > Some interesting ideas there, but I suspect the arguments are deduced
> > after the event to fit the facts.
>
> That I'm afraid is the nature of historical inquiery.
>
> The arguments as to why it didn't
> > develop elsewhere seem slightly better than the ones in favour of why it
> > might occur within Christianity. I'm still of the view that the Greeks
> > did most of the work.
>
> The Greeks were dilletentes, who didn't want to dirtly their hands with
> empirical study. As a result their science never went beyond the
> mystical/philosophical stage. Scienc in Western Christendom might have
> taken off even faster if it could have started with a clean slate and
> avoided the slavish aping of the Greeks during the early renaissance.
Agreed. Most of the Greek contribution to modern science is
exaggerated. Partly as you state over their lack of concern with
empirical studies.
For example the Greeks for hundreds of years looked at the planets,
tried to fit them into circles and they just could not work it out.
They just kept putting them into circles and circles. Nothing worked.
Their physics, in particular their mechanics, was nonsense. As was
chemistry. Optics they knew nothing. Biology and medicine pretty
minor. Mathematics was possibly the only one that they were any good
at.
In most fields hundreds of years went by with no major Greek
scientist. One could say that long before the Romans came, the Greek
science halted. Say that all Greek science books written after 100BC
disappeared in 500AC when our period starts. Would there be much lost
of scientific knowledge?
In most fields the Europeans had to unlearn and get out of their mind
their ideas. For example that circles are not the orbital pattern of
the planets.
>
> >
> > I think the argument can only be considered on the basis that
> > Christianity provided the best mindset, even though the product was
> > essentially to its own disliking. It spawned science, but perhaps
> > rather regretted it, and it only happened when the grasp of Christianity
> > on people and society was weakening!
> >
>
> The medieval Church never had any objections to scientific inquirery. Only
> when scientists like Galileo used their studies to attack Scholasticism did
> the Church get upset. The greatest early strides were made by scientists
> who were devout Christians and Catholics - not when the "grasp of
> Christianity on people and society was weakening".
Galileo was not a devout Christian nor very tactful! But perhas it
would be better to say that certain Scholasticist misused their
authority here when they saw the Catholic church conflicting with
science
Paul J Gans
and it is rather interesting.
So I've decided to put my two cents into the pot.
In my opinion science is a modern phenomenon. We
have it and love it. By extension we see its roots
in the Middle Ages and before, but that is in most
part, wishful thinking.
Today science is king. Technology derives from science
in that science lays out the principles and technology
builds practical devices based on those principles.
Before the modern period this was not so. Technology
stood on its own. It was empirical and robust. Things
from horse collars to steam engines were developed
on empirical grounds based on much trial and error.
Europe became a world leader in technology only at the
end of the medieval period. Before that far more was
developed elsewhere and imported into Europe than went
the other way. The early world leaders were China and
India. After 700 AD or so, Islam became a major technology
player. Indeed, it was via Islam that a number of things
(paper being a notable example) entered Europe.
To me the question of why did technology explode in
Europe by the end of the medieval period is tied up
with the question of why Europe came to dominate the
world from the end of the medieval period. I don't
know if it was because the other major civilizations
were "backward" or because Europe was exceptional.
There are too few civilizations to be able to reach
a firm conclusion.
However, it is quite clear that with only minor exceptions
(and those late in the medieval period) the Church had almost
no interest, concern, or influence on medieval technology.
Mathematics is another example. Europe was, if anything,
horribly backward in mathematics until about the 14th century.
Certainly the Arab countries were well ahead up to that
date. After that, the mathematical explosion occured.
Why is that? Note that mathematical developments
coincided with mercantilism, protestantism, the explosion
of technology, the rise of national armies, and a dozen
other probably irrelevent things. Isolating "causes"
out of this is very difficult.
And so it is with science. Science is hard to define.
I'd prefer a definition that depends on investigation
*and* theory *and* rechecking of observations by others.
But it is still difficult to define. Is an astronomic
theory based on ellipses better than one based on circles?
There was still no notion of how it all worked. The
basic idea was that the planets move in these ways because
they do and that's that. It wasn't until Newton that a
somewhat better answer became available, and all *that*
did was to push the explanation back a bit. Instead
of spooky motion on ellipses because that's what they
did, we now had spooky action at a distance because that's
what it does and that's that.
Today we've replaced that by spooky curvature of space
because that's what happens and that's that.
So what is science and why is it comforting?
We know why it is useful. It produces general principles
that lead more or less easily to the development of new
technology. And new technology makes lives easier, especially
those of the folks who make new technology.
So is science just a generalization of technology?
If I argue that it is (and I'm not certain that I believe
it) then I don't know why it developed in the west and not
in, for example, Cairo.
So for me the issue is not clear cut. But what does seem
very likely is that the Church had little to do with it,
one way or the other.
----- Paul J. Gans
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
(Daniel P. Duffy) wrote:
> The Copernican system was a
> clasic leap of faith driven not by scienctific motives
And as a method of calculating the future positions of planets was
hardly simpler. Epicycles were still required.
Ken Young
ken...@cix.co.uk
Maternity is a matter of fact
Paternity is a matter of opinion
Joe
> In message <3C141254...@scs.uiuc.edu>, Doug McDonald
> <mcdo...@scs.uiuc.edu> writes
>
> >I doubt if Christianity had all that much to do with it.
>
> I agree with you and would go further. It seems to me that Christianity
> prevented the continued development of the scientific method that had
> been set in motion, though not brought to fruition, by the rich and idle
> of the Greek world.
>
> One might make a case for saying that the Protestant movement, with its
> emphasis on the ability of the individual to have direct access to God
> without the medium of a priest, produced a change of mindset that once
> more allowed scientific exploration. However, to use the idea that an
> incidental effect of a battle between two wings of Christianity amounts
> to Christianity enabling science seems somewhat perverse!
>
> If one looks at the progress of science we see it consistently hampered
> by the prejudices of Christianity in particular - Gallileo and Darwin
> the foremost examples - the first opposed by Catholics and the latter by
> Protestants.
>If one looks at the progress of science we see it consistently
>hampered by the prejudices of Christianity in particular.
If one looks at the progress of science we don't see it that it was
consistently hampered by the prejudices of Christianity in particular.
If you want to take an honest look at the Church in the middle ages
you will see that it sometimes hindered scientific progress but during
that time period many important and crucial contributions to the
methodology, practice and ethics of science were made. I'm surprised
that you would give short shrift to important scientific
methodologists such as Roger Bacon and William of Ockham, the radical
changes in thinking that resulted from Aquinas, the embrace of Arab
and Greek thought, the establishment of numerous universities where
natural history was investigated, the institution of university
charters to protect universities from undue influence from local
governments, the introduction of positional numbering systems etc,
etc, etc.
I for one don't believe in spontaneous generation, and the tenet that
science spontaneously generated in a short period after the end of the
middle ages doesn't hold for me. Science and the scientific method
may have come to fruition at that time or shortly after but the seeds
were set in Greece passed to the Arabs who carried it further, then
carried almost to fruition primarily by a number of medieval clergy
and monks.
Joe.
Michael Farthing
<sca...@bigpond.com> writes
>The idea that
>science represents an objective body of knowledge which
>generally doesn't have to mesh with a wider, philosophical
>and religious world view is a *very* recent development.
>For much of the history of science in the West it has been
>intimately meshed with a wider, generally religious, world
>view. It is certainly true that conflict could arise when a new
>scientific idea clashed with a central tenet of that religious view,
>but this does *not* mean that this religious view was uniformly
>or even substantially anti-scientific - quite the opposite.
I have been thinking about this paragraph over-night and have come to
the conclusion that it makes my point most excellently. This thread
started as a discussion of 'the modern scientific method'. As you state
above, this is a "very" recent development. The Middle Ages didn't have
it and wouldn't have tolerated it. That's the point being made.
Medieval 'science' (and I put it in inverted commas because to my mind
'science' is not 'science' without the scientific method - though that's
simply a matter of what definition one picks). That sentence has got a
bit unwieldy so I'll start again. Medieval 'science' was acceptable
until it conflicted with a set of values that could not be questioned.
At this point the shutters come down.
Now that stops progress.
It tried to stop a heliocentric view of the Universe.
It tried to stop the concept of evolution.
Heaven knows how it would have reacted to particle physics!!
Certain fundamental steps in the way things are viewed are required for
science to move forward and these fundamental shifts were the very
things that the Church would not tolerate. One might be charitable and
allow that the opposition may have stemmed from the patent absurdity of
what was being suggested - just as there are those even today who react
in precisely this way to the concepts of relativity or quantum mechanics
- but that does not alter the fact that progress was stymied and that
the suppression of unacceptable ideas was attempted.
This is not to say that the church opposed all advancement of knowledge.
These are words that (in another contribution) you are putting into my
mouth. But it is saying that beyond a certain point the pursuit of
truth was a no-no because 'the Truth' was a predetermined article of
faith and could not be questioned. You seem to agree with me on this
point. That is not the way of the objective pursuit of knowledge, nor
of science. If you will, redefine science to allow it in, but it is not
how I understand the word, it is not (by anyone's definition, surely)
the "modern scientific method" and it is not the sort of science being
talked about at the beginning of this thread, which specifically talks
about the development of the modern method. Medieval science is not
different in kind (leaving aside the discussion of quality and extent)
from anything being done in other civilisations of that time and can
hardly be advanced as a direct cause of a scientific explosion. On a
more abstract level, where that explosion is discussed in terms of the
underlying mindset, there is a more interesting argument, which, despite
the suggestions of the proponents, I have not rejected (though I haven't
accepted them either).
I would suggest that the breaking of that presumption of immutable
articles of faith by the Protestants was something that enabled (I do
not say caused) the outbreak of science from about 1600 onwards. Even
the protestants were not always that keen - but of course, with the
dissolving of a single authority, keeping lids on unpleasant things
could no longer be so easily achieved.
Clearly there were precursors to these changes and you mention Bacon and
Ockham - both of whom spent a lot of time at odds with church
authorities over what they were saying - precisely because they
challenged predetermined authority.
Daniel P. Duffy
<snip>
Medieval 'science' was acceptable
> until it conflicted with a set of values that could not be questioned.
> At this point the shutters come down.
>
SO its OK for science to operate in a morale/ethical vacuum (like Dr.
Mengele) without any oversight whatsoever?
> Now that stops progress.
> It tried to stop a heliocentric view of the Universe.
No, one last time, the vast majority of church intellectuals accepted
Galileo's scientific views.
> It tried to stop the concept of evolution.
No, the RC Church has never had a problem with evolution, that was teh
fundys. St. Augustine of Hippo, as early as the 6th century warned against
the literal interpretation of Genesis and proposed that species changed over
time. The Church's official doctrine is a God-directed evoution, which puts
it at odds with reductionist/nihilists like Dawkins who claim existence is
pointless and without meaning.
> Heaven knows how it would have reacted to particle physics!!
>
Actually Pope Paul VI embraced modern physics, even equating the Big Bang
metaphorically to "Let there be light".
Daniel P. Duffy
> And as a method of calculating the future positions of planets was
> hardly simpler. Epicycles were still required.
>
IIRC you are quite right, epicycles remained necessary until Newton
established the elliptical nature of planetary orbits.
Daniel P. Duffy
.
>
> The detailed work of Tycho Brahe was not available but the Ptolemaic
> systems with its eipicycles were. It was these that could be thrown out
> of the window. As a result of Copernicus they failed the razor.
>
You show an ignorance of Occam's Razor:
"One should not increase, beyond what is *necessary*, the number of entities
required to explain anything."
Note the word "necessary". Until Newton established the elliptical nature
of planetary orbits, epicycles remained necessary even under the Copernican
system.
Tim O'Neill
Michael Farthing wrote:
> In message <3C1669A9...@bigpond.com>, Tim O'Neill
> <sca...@bigpond.com> writes
>
> >The idea that
> >science represents an objective body of knowledge which
> >generally doesn't have to mesh with a wider, philosophical
> >and religious world view is a *very* recent development.
> >For much of the history of science in the West it has been
> >intimately meshed with a wider, generally religious, world
> >view. It is certainly true that conflict could arise when a new
> >scientific idea clashed with a central tenet of that religious view,
> >but this does *not* mean that this religious view was uniformly
> >or even substantially anti-scientific - quite the opposite.
>
> I have been thinking about this paragraph over-night and have come to
> the conclusion that it makes my point most excellently. This thread
> started as a discussion of 'the modern scientific method'. As you state
> above, this is a "very" recent development.
No, what I'm saying is a very recent development is the idea that the
study of the physical world and the study of metaphysics are two
quite separate things. This would have been quite incomprehensible
to medieval scientists and scholars, as it would have been to later
Protestant ones or even to many people in Darwin's day. This
division is a very recent thing. What I am cautioning against is the
danger of judging the medieval world for not living up to *our*
understanding of things - that makes no sense. These things need to
be understood in historical context if they are going to be understood
at all.
> The Middle Ages didn't have
> it and wouldn't have tolerated it. That's the point being made.
> Medieval 'science' (and I put it in inverted commas because to my mind
> 'science' is not 'science' without the scientific method - though that's
> simply a matter of what definition one picks).
Which strikes me as a very narrow and not terribly useful use
of the word 'science'. What was the medieval study of optics then?
Theology? Or what was Chaucer doing when he was using his
astrolabe to map stars? Astrology?
> That sentence has got a
> bit unwieldy so I'll start again. Medieval 'science' was acceptable
> until it conflicted with a set of values that could not be questioned.
> At this point the shutters come down.
At this point the shutters *could* come down, in some circumstances
and in some periods more than others. The Middle Ages is a very
long period of history and the Medieval Church was a very broad
and varied institution. In the Twelfth Century some highly radical,
even rather heretical, ideas were being tossed around without any
of the scholars doing the tossing getting so much as singed, let alone
burnt. The Church of the Sixteenth Century, on the other hand,
was rather more defensive, reactionary and therefore less tolerant.
> Now that stops progress.
Ah - the 'P' word. ;>
> It tried to stop a heliocentric view of the Universe.
Something which had been conceived of, without any burnings or
even censure, in the Middle Ages.
[snip]
> This is not to say that the church opposed all advancement of knowledge.
> These are words that (in another contribution) you are putting into my
> mouth.
They are words which we see here on SHM whenever this subject of
medieval science comes up. The 'Evil Nasty Church Burning the
Disciples of Progress(tm)' myth then rears its head with monotonous
regularity. If that's not what you are saying then that's fine.
> But it is saying that beyond a certain point the pursuit of
> truth was a no-no because 'the Truth' was a predetermined article of
> faith and could not be questioned.
It would be more accurate to say that there was a delicate web of
interconnected truths and that some strands were seen as more
essential than others. It was long believed that the equator was
too hot for habitation, until medieval explorers used astronomy to
show that they had crossed into the southern hemisphere. The old
idea died hard, but it did die - and without anyone getting burnt
or even so much as jostled roughly.
A theory or claim which attacked one of the more essential
underpinnings of the whole world view of the time, however,
could (in some periods) get you in trouble - as Galileo found.
> You seem to agree with me on this
> point. That is not the way of the objective pursuit of knowledge, nor
> of science.
That is not the *modern* way of pursuing science.
> If you will, redefine science to allow it in, but it is not
> how I understand the word, it is not (by anyone's definition, surely)
> the "modern scientific method" and it is not the sort of science being
> talked about at the beginning of this thread, which specifically talks
> about the development of the modern method.
Which didn't arise fully formed from the waves like Venus, but
developed slowly out of the groundwork laid by medieval scientists.
> Medieval science is not
> different in kind (leaving aside the discussion of quality and extent)
> from anything being done in other civilisations of that time and can
> hardly be advanced as a direct cause of a scientific explosion.
Sorry, but this is nonsense. From Crombie's 'Augustine to Galileo':
"The recovery of the idea of a demonstrative science in which a
fact was explained when it could be deduced from a prior and
more general principle, and the great improvements in
mathmatical technique that took place in Western Christendom
during the 13th Century, were the chief intellectual achievements
which made 13th century science possible at all.
But the medieval natural philosophers did not stop there in their
thinking on the scientific method. The new knowledge, in fact,
raised important methodological problems, as general problems
of scientific thinking. Specifically important were problems of
how, in natural science, to arrive at the prior principles or
general theory from which the demonstration or explanation of
particular facts was to proceed; and how, among several possible
theories, to distinguish between the false and the true, the
defective and the complete, the acceptable and the unacceptable.
In their study of these problems the medieval philosophers
investigated the logical relationship between facts and theories,
or data and explanations, the processes of the acquistion of
scientific knowledge, the use of inductive and experimental
analysis to break down a complex phenomenon into its
component elements, the character of the verification and
falsification of hypotheses and the nature of causation.
They began to form the conception of science as in principle
inductive and experimental as well as mathmatical, and they
began to develp the logical proceedures of experimental
inquiry, which chiefly characterise the difference between
modern and ancient science."
(Vol II, pp 7-8)
This is nothing like what was being done in 'other civilisations
of the time' and it was an important extension of what had been
done in the civilisations which went before. This is the beginning
of science as we know it, and it was developed *by* Churchmen
working within a philosophical tradition which was intimately
connected to the theology of medieval Catholic Christianity.
> On a
> more abstract level, where that explosion is discussed in terms of the
> underlying mindset, there is a more interesting argument, which, despite
> the suggestions of the proponents, I have not rejected (though I haven't
> accepted them either).
>
> I would suggest that the breaking of that presumption of immutable
> articles of faith by the Protestants was something that enabled (I do
> not say caused) the outbreak of science from about 1600 onwards. Even
> the protestants were not always that keen - but of course, with the
> dissolving of a single authority, keeping lids on unpleasant things
> could no longer be so easily achieved.
Both Catholic and, later, Protestant scientists believed in an over-arching
divine order and in the kind of scientific inquiry described by Crombie
above as a logical and reasoned way to apprehend it. The conflicts
between 'faith and science' were generally differences on how to
interpret results within that framework, not brave free-thinkers casting
the framework aside in the name of 'Progress' while evil men in
dark cassocks tried to drag them towards the flames.
> Clearly there were precursors to these changes and you mention Bacon and
> Ockham - both of whom spent a lot of time at odds with church
> authorities over what they were saying - precisely because they
> challenged predetermined authority.
Actually, it was someone else who mentioned Bacon and Occam,
though there are many other names which I could add to that
list. You'll also find that both got into trouble over their theology,
not their science.
Once again, I strongly recommend doing some detailed reading
on medieval science and scientific methodology. I think you'll
be surprised by what you find.
Cheers,
Tim O'Neill
Michael Farthing
<thed...@fuse.net> writes
> Medieval 'science' was acceptable
>> until it conflicted with a set of values that could not be questioned.
>> At this point the shutters come down.
>>
> SO its OK for science to operate in a morale/ethical vacuum (like Dr.
>Mengele) without any oversight whatsoever?
There is a difference between the elucidation of the laws of science and
the use to which they are put. The objection was not what science was
doing with its discoveries but that it was discovering things that
authority wanted hidden.
Yes, for science to progress it must be free from suppression of the
truth.
>
>> Now that stops progress.
>> It tried to stop a heliocentric view of the Universe.
>
>No, one last time, the vast majority of church intellectuals accepted
>Galileo's scientific views.
Was he, or was he not made to recant?
Was this, or was this not, at the highest level of church authority?
>
>> It tried to stop the concept of evolution.
>
>No, the RC Church has never had a problem with evolution, that was teh
>fundys.
Agreed, a bad example when talking medieval. The fundies are indeed as
bad.
> St. Augustine of Hippo, as early as the 6th century warned against
>the literal interpretation of Genesis and proposed that species changed over
>time. The Church's official doctrine is a God-directed evoution, which puts
>it at odds with reductionist/nihilists like Dawkins who claim existence is
>pointless and without meaning.
At odds with people that recognise that God directing evolution fails
Occam's razor and has no empirical evidence?
>
>> Heaven knows how it would have reacted to particle physics!!
>>
>
>Actually Pope Paul VI embraced modern physics, even equating the Big Bang
>metaphorically to "Let there be light".
Good for him, but he was not medieval.
Michael Farthing
<thed...@fuse.net> writes
Considerably reduced. The theory was a step forward in suggesting a
better line of enquiry which ultimately led to a far simpler system.
That is precisely the way science works - by exploration of new ideas
and by refinement.
It would be churlish to deny Copernicus' contribution because it was not
complete.
Craig Levin
look at the fact that the Europeans, and not the Chinese, the
Indians, the Persians, or the Turks, were the ones doing the
globetrotting from 1400 forward. Once Cape Bojador was passed,
and islands that Ptolemy never listed in his _Geography_ were
settled, and strange plants and animals started showing up on
European quays, the old ways of looking at the world were in
Dutch.
It's easy to say that Aristotle and the rest are alright when you
don't have tapirs and suchlike (that aren't in the ancient books)
showing up from places far beyond the supposed point of
innavigability. It's hard to deny that there's a need to reward
inventors and scholars when your skippers tell you that they need
more reliable maps and other navigational tools. While other
cultures have had rich guys sitting around and philosophising,
and artisans coming up with cunning devices, the Europeans saw
that they needed to make a sort of link.
Craig
--
http://pages.ripco.net/~clevin/index.html
cle...@rci.ripco.com
Craig Levin Librarians Rule Oook!
Craig Levin
Actually, it's Kepler who works out the elliptical shapes of the
planets' orbits, starting with Mars. He did use Brahe's
observations-he was among Brahe's closest colleagues. However,
even though he tried to draw an analogy between magnetism and the
force that moved the planets, he never made the leap that Newton
did.
It is true that Kepler drew up horoscopes, but it seems that it
was just a way of keeping the wolf from the door. His oddities
were more towards Platonic mysticism, relating the geometric
solids to the orbits of the planets, and the "music of the
spheres". OTOH, before people point and snicker, let's not forget
that Newton also was an alchemist, and tried his hand at coming
up with dimensions for the First Temple and Noah's Ark.
Emir
<sca...@bigpond.com> wrote:
> Emir wrote:
>
> > In article <u1aeaqf...@corp.supernews.com>, "Daniel P. Duffy"
> > <thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
> >
> > > <snip>
> > > >
> > > > Bunch of ghosts lining up to support your position. Giordano
> > > > Bruno,
> > >
> > > Who was not burned at the stake for advocating the idea that there were
> > > other inhabited planets orbiting around other stars. He was condemned for
> > > being a pagan advocate for the hermetic tradition...
> >
> > Aha, "read a book", did you...?
>
> Perhaps, but much of what Daniel found in that book is unremarkable.
> Most historians of science would have little argument with what he says
> about those cases.
I'm sorry, I should have been more clear that I object to
the rationalization that Greek, Arab and other sources of
knowledge which came indirectly into Europe were "stillborn",
and the subject of the thread, that there is something
intrinsic to "Western Christendom" which stimulated science.
> > What you've done is explain the LOGIC behind the Church's
> > persecution of certain scientists. "Ahahha, it was all
> > a misunderstanding! Sorry about that excommunication for
> > 500 years, chum!"
>
> No, what he's saying is that these cases are not evidence of an
> over-arching persecution of science by the Church. The history of
> science in the Middle Ages shows clearly that such a view of the
> medieval Church's attitude to science is a distortion, though a
> popular one thanks to centuries of misinformation and prejudice.
Certainly the church was one of those sovereigns who protected,
even fostered, science.
As for "misinformation and prejudice", I'm a strong believer
that most religions deserve the reputation their followers
bring them. And before I get flamed (and let's try to keep
Godwin out of it), I emphasize that I was born and raised
a Muslim.
Emir Kaganovich
Joe
as proof that the church by its very nature was anti-science. There
is an amusing irony in the Galileo affair. If you go to a reputable
astronomy site, you will find that the first accepted proof that the
earth revolved around the sun was Bradleys stellar aberration in 1729
( ~100 years after the Galileo's trial ) or Bessel's stellar parallax
in 1838 ( ~200 years after the trial ). The irony is that the church
is constantly being vilified for coming to the same conclusion that
any modern scientist would - that none of the proofs presented by
Galileo were credible and acceptable proofs that the earth revolved
around the sun. Everyone seems to forget that Galileo's favorite
proof, that LUNAR tides are proof for heliocentrism, wasn't a little
off but dead wrong.
Joe.
P.S. Since the church is assumed to be anti-science for rejecting
Galileo's proofs of heliocentrism, should we assume that modern
scientists are anti-science as well.
Emir
<thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
> > Ah, I see we've gone from "Judeo-Christianity (and especially
> > Western Christianity)" down to "Western Christendom" already.
> > Short shrift to those three thousand years of tradition, "from
> > Moses to Sandy Kofax..."
> >
> > Here's the problem: if there's something that existed in
> > "Western Christendom" (the existence of which I am skeptical
> > of outside of generalities, but that's neither here nor
> > there), there is absolutely NO reason, unless you're buying
> > into metaphysics, that this intrinsic fertility to science
> > would not exist in Hungary, Poland -- even Armenia (England's
> > a newcomer to this Christian thing compared to them).
So you agree?
Except
> > that "Christianity" was not it at all, but:
> >
> > - a place with leisure time and wealth for a relatively
> > large number of people to experiment, educate, etc.
> > - the liquid finance to fund these experiments,
> > education, etc.
> > - a progressive order which would protect iconoclasts
> > or, for lack of a better term, "seekers" in the
> > sciences and humanities, whose discoveries would
> > have absolutely no tangible (militarily or financial)
> > benefit in either the patron or the artist/scientist's
> > lifetime
> > - a tolerant order of artists and scientists who would
> > bear in good humor the overbearing pretentions of
> > said progressive leaders ;-)
> >
>
> All of which existed in Greek, Hellenistic and Roman civilizations - none of
> which sparked a scientific revolution.
I'm baffled by how you can throw away what was done by
previous civilizations. Nothing comes fully formed into
the world. Was it Van Gogh who recommended six years of
art school, then six years of forgetting?
Elsewhere you write:
> Perhaps its best to view the rediscovery of ancient
> arts and philosophy what Toynbee would term an encounter
> between civilizations in time) as the spark. The fuel was
> the existing Christian culture.
So none of them sparked a scientific revolution, but their
rediscovery was a spark to a later revolution?
I don't dispute that following the Greeks slavishly, as
you say, was wrong-headed. It was merely a celebration of
an idealized civilization, or the scientific component
thereof. Nevertheless I have trouble thinking they should
be rubbished -- and even more trouble not allowing myself
to marvel that Pythagoras, for all of his nonsense, lived
2000+ years before I was born.
> See my response to polar on the unique attributes of Western Christendom.
Unfortunately, none of your posts quote who you're talking
to. If I'm right about the "dilletants unwilling to get
their hands dirty", well, I think that rather goes with
the territory of intellectuals, doesn't it? But that's
the Greeks, and says nothing about the millions of people
who adopted Christianity outside of these narrow geographic
boundaries without reaping the benefits of the so-called
"scientific mindset".
I rather think that in poorer places, of course there was
less money and leisure time, and leaders were less inclined
to provide them.
Emir Kaganovich
Emir
<thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
> >
> <snip>
>
> Medieval 'science' was acceptable
> > until it conflicted with a set of values that could not be questioned.
> > At this point the shutters come down.
> >
> SO its OK for science to operate in a morale/ethical vacuum (like Dr.
> Mengele) without any oversight whatsoever?
Oh sweet lord, I see Godwin's Law has already been invoked,
has it?
Emir Kaganovich
Paul J Gans
>In message <3C1669A9...@bigpond.com>, Tim O'Neill
><sca...@bigpond.com> writes
>>The idea that
>>science represents an objective body of knowledge which
>>generally doesn't have to mesh with a wider, philosophical
>>and religious world view is a *very* recent development.
>>For much of the history of science in the West it has been
>>intimately meshed with a wider, generally religious, world
>>view. It is certainly true that conflict could arise when a new
>>scientific idea clashed with a central tenet of that religious view,
>>but this does *not* mean that this religious view was uniformly
>>or even substantially anti-scientific - quite the opposite.
>I have been thinking about this paragraph over-night and have come to
>the conclusion that it makes my point most excellently. This thread
>started as a discussion of 'the modern scientific method'. As you state
>above, this is a "very" recent development. The Middle Ages didn't have
>it and wouldn't have tolerated it.
I don't think one can demonstrate that. Indeed, I think it
is easy to demonstrate the opposite. Please do not think that
the medieval Church believed that the Bible represented the
only and ultimate truth. It did not believe that. And from
the 12th century on (with its roots in even earlier times) many
in the church urged that observation and reason be used to
understand the world.
>That's the point being made.
>Medieval 'science' (and I put it in inverted commas because to my mind
>'science' is not 'science' without the scientific method - though that's
>simply a matter of what definition one picks). That sentence has got a
>bit unwieldy so I'll start again. Medieval 'science' was acceptable
>until it conflicted with a set of values that could not be questioned.
>At this point the shutters come down.
Science does not deal in values. I suspect you mean "ideas".
But I think that you'd be hard put to show a real attempt
at supressing ideas.
>Now that stops progress.
> It tried to stop a heliocentric view of the Universe.
No, it did not. I think that this has been pointed out
to you before. It had its difficulties with Galileo, but
he was only one person. It did not bother any of the folks
who really pushed heliocentricity.
> It tried to stop the concept of evolution.
In the Middle Ages? I assume you mean later. Again, I
think that you will not be able to show this. Don't
confuse initial suspicion of a new idea with official
opposition.
> Heaven knows how it would have reacted to particle physics!!
And how *has* it reacted to particle physics? It didn't
object to Galileo's "particle physics" nor did it object
to Newton's "particle physics"
>Certain fundamental steps in the way things are viewed are required for
>science to move forward and these fundamental shifts were the very
>things that the Church would not tolerate. One might be charitable and
>allow that the opposition may have stemmed from the patent absurdity of
>what was being suggested - just as there are those even today who react
>in precisely this way to the concepts of relativity or quantum mechanics
>- but that does not alter the fact that progress was stymied and that
>the suppression of unacceptable ideas was attempted.
Can you give us some examples?
>This is not to say that the church opposed all advancement of knowledge.
>These are words that (in another contribution) you are putting into my
>mouth. But it is saying that beyond a certain point the pursuit of
>truth was a no-no because 'the Truth' was a predetermined article of
>faith and could not be questioned.
The articles of faith that cannot be questioned in the Catholic
church are rather few in number and are all rather basic affirmations
of the reality of God. Since science does not deal with the
question of the reality of God, there is no conflict there.
>You seem to agree with me on this
>point. That is not the way of the objective pursuit of knowledge, nor
>of science. If you will, redefine science to allow it in, but it is not
>how I understand the word, it is not (by anyone's definition, surely)
>the "modern scientific method" and it is not the sort of science being
>talked about at the beginning of this thread, which specifically talks
>about the development of the modern method. Medieval science is not
>different in kind (leaving aside the discussion of quality and extent)
>from anything being done in other civilisations of that time and can
>hardly be advanced as a direct cause of a scientific explosion. On a
>more abstract level, where that explosion is discussed in terms of the
>underlying mindset, there is a more interesting argument, which, despite
>the suggestions of the proponents, I have not rejected (though I haven't
>accepted them either).
>I would suggest that the breaking of that presumption of immutable
>articles of faith by the Protestants was something that enabled (I do
>not say caused) the outbreak of science from about 1600 onwards. Even
>the protestants were not always that keen - but of course, with the
>dissolving of a single authority, keeping lids on unpleasant things
>could no longer be so easily achieved.
>Clearly there were precursors to these changes and you mention Bacon and
>Ockham - both of whom spent a lot of time at odds with church
>authorities over what they were saying - precisely because they
>challenged predetermined authority.
I don't think so, but hey...
---- Paul J. Gans
Paul J Gans
The origin of the notion that the orbits of the planets
had to be perfect figures stems from the idea that God
could not create something ugly.
Curiously, the notion of beauty in science (and mathematics)
still exists, but is very hard to explain to those who are
not third level initiates.... ;-)
---- Paul J. Gans
Paul J Gans
Many here will not understand what you mean by Godwin's Law,
but this being a history group I've wondered if it works here.
---- Paul J. Gans
Polar
I'm not sure. What are the actual rules. Do the words "Nazis"
or "Hitler" have to be used, or can an elliptical reference such
as "Mengele" qualify?
--
Polar
Gilmore, Phyllis
wrote:
> Michael Farthing <m...@cyclades.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >In message <3C1669A9...@bigpond.com>, Tim O'Neill
> ><sca...@bigpond.com> writes
>
> >Certain fundamental steps in the way things are viewed are required for
> >science to move forward and these fundamental shifts were the very
> >things that the Church would not tolerate. One might be charitable and
> >allow that the opposition may have stemmed from the patent absurdity of
> >what was being suggested - just as there are those even today who react
> >in precisely this way to the concepts of relativity or quantum mechanics
> >- but that does not alter the fact that progress was stymied and that
> >the suppression of unacceptable ideas was attempted.
>
> Can you give us some examples?
Interesting that this should come up here. I *just* started reading a
book by Karen Armstrong, _The Battle for God_. Her avowed purpose is to
examine the history of "fundamentalism," and to make the case that it
has less to do with actual history and traditions than reaction to
modernization/change that is perceived as threatening.
In that vein, what we're talking about here is a relative slowness to
buy into new ideas. That some of those ideas are correct is something
we only really know from historical hindsight. How many ideas were
there that disappeared without a trace, because they were wrong or
merely crazy? There may have been a lot of bridges for sale.
Modern science as a whole doesn't typically accept every radical new
idea instantaneously either. Someone hatching a new idea must be
prepared to prove it and must provide others with the necessary
information to confirm the proof.
Now, for a moment, I'd like you to compare Galileo's situation with that
of the men who came up with the cold fusion business a few years back
(one was Pons, I think). In each case, the great thinkers were eager,
perhaps too eager, to toot their own horns. There were colleagues who
were saying, in essence, "waitaminit there" in both cases--in the first,
"we agree with you, but we need more data"; in the second, "damn, we
hope you're right, but we need more data."
The main difference is that G. was right, and P et al. were wrong. We
therefore remember and comdemn those who said "waitaminit there" to
Galileo, and cheer those who saw through the cold fusionists.
I consider "show me" to be part of the scientific ethos, if not its
method. In this sense, the Catholic Church wasn't really all that
"anti" Galileo--though they were ticked off about his press <grin>.
Given historical hindsight, we tend to be impatient with what we
perceive to be slow moving, overly cautious, perhaps suspciously
self-protective bureaucracies. The funny thing is that some people are,
utterly without the benefit of hindsight, applying the same criticism
these days to groups like, oh, the FDA--which wants to be sure a drug
really works as advertised before allowing it to be sold. Tsk.
Incidentally, Armstrong also brings up the distinction between mythos
and logos (modern science fits into the logos area), and notes that the
troubles usually begin when people try to confuse the two. This
confusion can lead to counterproductive choices and to cruelty and
barbaros (such as recent events, though her book predates them). As an
example, she asserts that this was where the Crusades fell apart--when
and as long as the Crusaders were behaving in a totally rational (logos)
manner, they were successful. When and as long as they let religious
zeal and/or mysticism (mythos) take over, they lost it all.
Phyllis
Paul J Gans
Thanks. I have intended to read Armstrong's book. It is
quite relevent to the goings-on in talk.origns where that
reaction to a threatening modernism.
In my opinion there is a transfer of attitudes going on.
The current "fundamentalist" thinking about (much of)
science and their continuing efforts to get school curricula
modified to reflect their views is regarded by many as
"medieval" and thus projected back on the *Catholic*
church in the Middle Ages.
Of course this is wrong. Those ideas were never Catholic
dogma and never doctrine either. So we see Catholics accused
of anti-scientific behavior, crushing intellectual dissent,
etc.
I believe that someone quoted a now old book by White early
in this thread. He (from Cornell) and Draper (from NYU) were
two of the more prominent Catholic-bashers of the late 19th
century. The two of them are responsible for much of these
crazy notions about Catholics.
---- Paul J. Gans
Lblanch001
>i would think that it should work here, as it is a medieval
>history group. perhaps it would be inapplicable in a group
>discussing 20th century history though.
I wouldn't think Godwin's law would into play just because one mentions Hitler
-- meaning that if I were discussing certain aspects of 20c history,then
mentioning Hitler would be well-nigh unavoidable.
However, there's a FAQ out there that says I'm wrong, because mentioning the
Nazis in even the most pure-souled, high-minded spirit of discussing events of
the 1930s or 1940s is also going to degenerate into a soggy mess of composed
epithets:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/
Sigh. Such is usenet, I guess.
--
Laura Blanchard
lblan...@aol.com (or lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu)
http://www.r3.org/
(see http://orb.rhodes.edu/ to reach major medieval gateway sites)
Michael Kuettner
Paul J Gans <ga...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:9v8fs0$4o9$1...@news.panix.com...
<snip>
> In my opinion there is a transfer of attitudes going on.
> The current "fundamentalist" thinking about (much of)
> science and their continuing efforts to get school curricula
> modified to reflect their views is regarded by many as
> "medieval" and thus projected back on the *Catholic*
> church in the Middle Ages.
>
> Of course this is wrong. Those ideas were never Catholic
> dogma and never doctrine either. So we see Catholics accused
> of anti-scientific behavior, crushing intellectual dissent,
> etc.
>
> I believe that someone quoted a now old book by White early
> in this thread. He (from Cornell) and Draper (from NYU) were
> two of the more prominent Catholic-bashers of the late 19th
> century. The two of them are responsible for much of these
> crazy notions about Catholics.
>
I find it very interesting to read this thread; and especially
interesting that nobody has mentioned the "kernel" of the
church (and medieval) view on sciences :
The ancilla - dogma.
Ancilla means maid (or maybe hand-maiden ?).
To paraphrase it :
There is only one true science - theology.
All the other sciences are just ancillae to
theology.
Thusly they are *not* original; but merely
supplementory disciplines.
This means : whenever their results supply
theology (the one true science), they are
correct.
If there's a contradiction to theology they are
necessarily wrong, as they are a level below
the true science (ie. ancillary disciplines).
I've cut a long story short; whoever wants the
long version has to read Thomas of Aquin.
How does this relate to this thread ?
It's rather simple. Be it Occam or Gallilei -
it didn't count that their theories worked
(in the sense that one could work with
them and get results); as long as they couldn't
be fitted into the framework of theology they
were *by definition* wrong.
This is why you see many egg-dances to
reconcile facts with dogma.
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Daniel P. Duffy
> Oh sweet lord, I see Godwin's Law has already been invoked,
> has it?
>
Well if it makes you happy, how about a non-Nazi reference then? When asked
about the morality of building something as horrible as the atomic bomb,
Enrico Fermi replied "Who cares about morality? This is beautiful
physics!". The point still applies - should science operate in a morale and
ethical vacuum?
Emir
<thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
No, that's not the point. You took a completely benign quote;
to wit:
> > Medieval 'science' was acceptable
> > until it conflicted with a set of values that could not be questioned.
> > At this point the shutters come down.
And introduced one of the most sadistic men in history
as a counterpoint!
Nevertheless, morality in science is an interesting issue.
But I'm not one to have a go at it. I've spent too many
years trying to find *any* kind of a moral system which
can fit a lot of jarring personal experiences into it. That's
how I've come to admire Sufism and other sects which
do not practice the maxim that "Thou shalt attend to thy
neighbors business before thou attends to thine own."
Emir Kaganovich
Emir
sme...@mindspring.com wrote:
I'm not sure about the rules, but taking any vaguely moral argument
and infusing one of the monsters of inhumanity ought to apply.
I abhor people who dismiss such things out of hand, but you
have to admit, the introduction of Mengele in the above
context was an enormous reach.
Emir Kaganovich
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
(Daniel P. Duffy) wrote:
> until Newton
> established the elliptical nature of planetary orbits.
Kepler discovered elliptical orbits. Newton explained why they were
elliptical.
Ken Young
ken...@cix.co.uk
Maternity is a matter of fact
Paternity is a matter of opinion
Daniel P. Duffy
>
>
> No, that's not the point. You took a completely benign quote;
> to wit:
>
> > > Medieval 'science' was acceptable
> > > until it conflicted with a set of values that could not be questioned.
> > > At this point the shutters come down.
>
>
> And introduced one of the most sadistic men in history
> as a counterpoint!
>
Then I must stand corrected and accept my rebuke humbly. My apologies for
making a poor (and much too obvious) initial example.
> Nevertheless, morality in science is an interesting issue.
> But I'm not one to have a go at it. I've spent too many
> years trying to find *any* kind of a moral system which
> can fit a lot of jarring personal experiences into it. That's
> how I've come to admire Sufism and other sects which
> do not practice the maxim that "Thou shalt attend to thy
> neighbors business before thou attends to thine own."
>
Or if you prefer, commenting on the speck in your brother's eye when you
have a plank in yours. Hopefully we can achieve that without falling into
the trap of moral relativism.
Polar
That's true. One could have used George W. Bush, Tom DeLay,
Kenneth Lay of Enron, or quite a few of the reactionary pols as
textbook examples of operating in a moral vacuum. No need to go
beyond these shores.
>
xd
--
Polar
Doug McDonald
Emir wrote:
>
>
> > Medieval 'science' was acceptable
> > > until it conflicted with a set of values that could not be questioned.
> > > At this point the shutters come down.
> > >
> > SO its OK for science to operate in a morale/ethical vacuum (like Dr.
> > Mengele) without any oversight whatsoever?
>
> Oh sweet lord, I see Godwin's Law has already been invoked,
> has it?
>
In the first place, the word "Hitler" was not mentioned. In any case,
Godwin's Law applies to cases where it is not appropriate to
mention Hitler. In the context of this discussion, while it is not
Medieval, the mention of Mengele in the ethical context is
appropriate, so even if Hitler is mentioned, Godwin's Law is
not invoked.
Doug McDonald
Doug McDonald
Paul J Gans wrote:
>
>
> Curiously, the notion of beauty in science (and mathematics)
> still exists, but is very hard to explain to those who are
> not third level initiates.... ;-)
>
So true. So VERY VERY true! I find it the most difficult of all things
to try to get through to students!
Doug McDonald
Emir
<thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
<snip>
> > Nevertheless, morality in science is an interesting issue.
> > But I'm not one to have a go at it. I've spent too many
> > years trying to find *any* kind of a moral system which
> > can fit a lot of jarring personal experiences into it. That's
> > how I've come to admire Sufism and other sects which
> > do not practice the maxim that "Thou shalt attend to thy
> > neighbors business before thou attends to thine own."
> >
>
> Or if you prefer, commenting on the speck in your brother's eye when you
> have a plank in yours. Hopefully we can achieve that without falling into
> the trap of moral relativism.
I wonder if this is one of the rare cases where a crosspost
would bear some fruit (that is, on the topic of ethics and
science in medieval times).
I notice my news server also carries a soc.history.science,
though it seems to be abandoned (30 posts?)
Emir Kaganovich
Brian M. Scott
>In article <u1ft649...@corp.supernews.com>, "Daniel P. Duffy"
><thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
>> <snip>>
>> > Oh sweet lord, I see Godwin's Law has already been invoked,
>> > has it?
>> Well if it makes you happy, how about a non-Nazi reference then? When asked
>> about the morality of building something as horrible as the atomic bomb,
>> Enrico Fermi replied "Who cares about morality? This is beautiful
>> physics!". The point still applies - should science operate in a morale and
>> ethical vacuum?
>No, that's not the point. You took a completely benign quote;
>to wit:
>> > Medieval 'science' was acceptable
>> > until it conflicted with a set of values that could not be questioned.
>> > At this point the shutters come down.
>And introduced one of the most sadistic men in history
>as a counterpoint!
Even that isn't the point. The real problem is that his response is
irrelevant to the topic under discussion.
[...]
Brian
Daniel P. Duffy
> > >
> > > Here's the problem: if there's something that existed in
> > > "Western Christendom" (the existence of which I am skeptical
> > > of outside of generalities, but that's neither here nor
> > > there), there is absolutely NO reason, unless you're buying
> > > into metaphysics, that this intrinsic fertility to science
> > > would not exist in Hungary, Poland -- even Armenia (England's
> > > a newcomer to this Christian thing compared to them).
>
>
> So you agree?
>
>
Nope. As I recall Copernicus was from Poland, living and working in Krakow.
As for the rest of eastern Europe, Byzantine Christendom was smothered by
the Ottoman tide, the Mongols did the same to Russian Orthodoxy. This left
only Latin Christendom to fulfill its potential.
<snip>
> >
> > All of which existed in Greek, Hellenistic and Roman civilizations -
none of
> > which sparked a scientific revolution.
>
>
> I'm baffled by how you can throw away what was done by
> previous civilizations. Nothing comes fully formed into
> the world. Was it Van Gogh who recommended six years of
> art school, then six years of forgetting?
>
>
I'm not dismissing out of hand the achievements of the Greeks, etc. The
whole point of this thread is that the culture of Western Christendom was
the only cultural "soil" which was fertile enough to allow the "seed" of
science to grow to its full potential. The less fertile culture of the
Greeks never allowed science to get beyond a stunted, mystical/philosophical
stage.
> Elsewhere you write:
>
> > Perhaps its best to view the rediscovery of ancient
> > arts and philosophy what Toynbee would term an encounter
> > between civilizations in time) as the spark. The fuel was
> > the existing Christian culture.
>
>
> So none of them sparked a scientific revolution, but their
> rediscovery was a spark to a later revolution?
>
Again, you confuse the seed with the soil.
> I don't dispute that following the Greeks slavishly, as
> you say, was wrong-headed. It was merely a celebration of
> an idealized civilization, or the scientific component
> thereof. Nevertheless I have trouble thinking they should
> be rubbished -- and even more trouble not allowing myself
> to marvel that Pythagoras, for all of his nonsense, lived
> 2000+ years before I was born.
>
I never said it was rubbish, only that its culture never allowed it to
germinate into what we today call empiricism. Pythagoras is an excellent
example in that the Pythagorean school became obsessed with the mystical
nature of numbers instead of their practical use in furthering scientific
inquirery.
>
>
> > See my response to polar on the unique attributes of Western
Christendom.
>
>
> Unfortunately, none of your posts quote who you're talking
> to. If I'm right about the "dilettantes unwilling to get
> their hands dirty", well, I think that rather goes with
> the territory of intellectuals, doesn't it?
No its the territory of dilettantes, which compared to Christian
intellectuals like Newton, Galileo, and Brahe is all the Greeks ever were.
For example, it never would have occurred to Aristotle to actually measure
and tabulate planetary motions in same manner as Tycho Brahe, or to
accurately measure the time it takes for a pendulum to swing back and forth
like Galileo. That would have been too much like actual work.
But that's
> the Greeks, and says nothing about the millions of people
> who adopted Christianity outside of these narrow geographic
> boundaries without reaping the benefits of the so-called
> "scientific mindset".
>
The last time I checked, the entire world has reaped the benefits of the
scientific revolution which began only in Western Christendom.
> I rather think that in poorer places, of course there was
> less money and leisure time, and leaders were less inclined
> to provide them.
>
Western Christendom during the Middle Ages had less of both money and
leisure time than either Islam or China. By your reasoning, the scientific
revolution should have started anywhere but Western Europe.
Daniel P. Duffy
>
> Curiously, the notion of beauty in science (and mathematics)
> still exists, but is very hard to explain to those who are
> not third level initiates.... ;-)
>
Aren't most physicists attracted to a new theory only if it is "elegant"?
What that means exactly, no one has been able to define.
Daniel P. Duffy
> Considerably reduced. The theory was a step forward in suggesting a
> better line of enquiry which ultimately led to a far simpler system.
> That is precisely the way science works - by exploration of new ideas
> and by refinement.
>
> It would be churlish to deny Copernicus' contribution because it was not
> complete.
And it would be inaccurate to describe Copernicus's motives as scientific or
even in conformance with Occam's Razor, he main goal was the promotion of
neo-Platonic mysticism.
Daniel P. Duffy
> >
> Yes, that was one of the valuable elements in what is otherwise a
> somewhat "reach-y" book, as is also his other one about how the
> Irish saved civilization.
>
You me my people aren't responsible for civilization? I'm shocked.... ;-)
Daniel P. Duffy
>
> There is a difference between the elucidation of the laws of science and
> the use to which they are put. The objection was not what science was
> doing with its discoveries but that it was discovering things that
> authority wanted hidden.
>
Wrong, it wasn't the Galileo's science that the church objected to it was
the use to which it was put, i.e. attacking Aristotle and Scholasticism
> Yes, for science to progress it must be free from suppression of the
> truth.
>
But must it also be free from moral and ethical restraint?
> >
> >> Now that stops progress.
> >> It tried to stop a heliocentric view of the Universe.
> >
> >No, one last time, the vast majority of church intellectuals accepted
> >Galileo's scientific views.
>
> Was he, or was he not made to recant?
> Was this, or was this not, at the highest level of church authority?
>
Non sequiter. One last time, it wasn't the science that got him in trouble.
<snip>
> > St. Augustine of Hippo, as early as the 6th century warned against
> >the literal interpretation of Genesis and proposed that species changed
over
> >time. The Church's official doctrine is a God-directed evolution, which
puts
> >it at odds with reductionist/nihilists like Dawkins who claim existence
is
> >pointless and without meaning.
>
> At odds with people that recognize that God directing evolution fails
> Occam's razor and has no empirical evidence?
>
> >
Occam's Razor (like science itself) applies only and exclusively to
questions of mechanism (the "How" questions). It is not appropriate to
apply OR or science to questions of teleology/meaning/purpose (the "Why"
questions). Neither science nor the OR can say anything (good, bad or
indifferent) about questions of meaning, which is what a belief in God boils
down to. Did a deity create the universe? If so, then existence has meaning
and purpose. Is the universe an accidental by product of the Big Bang only.
Then existence is meaningless and pointless. The answers to these questions
cannot be fond inside science. They are inherently unscientific questions,
but not meaningless or unimportant. Meaning is meaningless only to a
nihilist.
I prefer biologist Jay Gould's demarcation of mechanism and teleology into
separate fields," Non-Overlapping Magesteria", to use his phrase. When a
fundy takes a teleological stance to critique matters of mechanism (creation
"science" being a good example), he is making a logical fallacy, as
teleology has nothing to say about mechanism. An equal, if opposite,
fallacy occurs when a scientist (like Dawkins) claims that existence has no
meaning or purpose since science cannot discern meaning or purpose. Its the
mirror image of the fundy's statement in that mechanism has nothing to say
about teleology. Is it any wonder that Gould labeled Dawkins an atheist
version of a fundy?
Reductionism is an excellent tool. As an environmental engineer and
scientist I use it every working day. But it makes a lousy philosophy. To
adopt a tool like reductionism as a world view is a logical fallacy on par
with claiming "My hammer _is_ carpentry". And since reductionism deals only
with mechanism and philosophy with teleology/meaning, its a wrong fit to
begin with. Its the wrong tool for the job. To claim that existence has no
meaning or purpose because reductionism can find none is like saying there
are no stars because a microscope can't see them.
In short, any mechanistic / reductionist / scientific claim concerning
meaning is a non sequiter.
Michael Kuettner
> Michael Kuettner <mik...@eunet.at> wrote:
<snip ancilla>
>
> You are quite right. But by the 12th century
> theologians were quite adept at fitting almost
> *anything* into the theological framework of
> Catholicism. Already the bible was being taken
> as part allegorical and not literal.
>
Indeed.
> The point is that theology evolved throughout
> the medieval period (and beyond, down to our
> present day). What might have seemed to be
> an anathema in 820 AD might well have been
> readily accepted 500 years later.
>
Of course. No argument from me.
I just wanted to point out the *mechanism* of
the church's evaluation - process; and where it came
from; a point curiously not mentioned in this thread.
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Michael Kuettner
Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in message
news:3c18d8fb....@enews.newsguy.com...
> On Thu, 13 Dec 2001 06:23:00 -0500, "Daniel P. Duffy"
> <thed...@fuse.net> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> Unfortunately, none of your posts quote who you're talking
> >> to. If I'm right about the "dilettantes unwilling to get
> >> their hands dirty", well, I think that rather goes with
> >> the territory of intellectuals, doesn't it?
>
> >No its the territory of dilettantes, which compared to Christian
> >intellectuals like Newton, Galileo, and Brahe is all the Greeks ever
were.
>
> Arkhimedes.
>
Yep; the apple fell on his head ;-)
> >For example, it never would have occurred to Aristotle to actually
measure
> >and tabulate planetary motions in same manner as Tycho Brahe, or to
> >accurately measure the time it takes for a pendulum to swing back and
forth
> >like Galileo. That would have been too much like actual work.
>
> This is a caricature of Aristotle's views. In fact he took the
> position, completely opposed to that of his teacher Plato, that
> accurate observation and description of nature, as well as inductive
> reasoning and interpretation, were the only way to advance
> understanding of the natural world. He is particularly noted for his
> accurate zoological observations. He first described the hydrological
> cycle.
Indeed.
Ideia vs. Eidon.
But I've also heard that he also stated that female bovines had less
teeth
than their male collegues of the same persuasion; this notion
kept into the MA; until one thought to count them.
True, or urban legend ?
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Michael Kuettner
Daniel P. Duffy <thed...@fuse.net> wrote in message
news:u1h46dh...@corp.supernews.com...
Elegance in this context means the solution of a given problem in the
simplest way possible (the solution has to be complete, of course).
(Eg, the proof of Fermats Last Theorem is a solution; but not
elegant.)
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Lblanch001
>
>In the first place, the word "Hitler" was not mentioned. In any case,
>Godwin's Law applies to cases where it is not appropriate to
>mention Hitler. In the context of this discussion, while it is not
>Medieval, the mention of Mengele in the ethical context is
>appropriate, so even if Hitler is mentioned, Godwin's Law is
>not invoked.
>
See
http://www.landfield.com/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/
Lblanch001
>> Curiously, the notion of beauty in science (and mathematics)
>> still exists, but is very hard to explain to those who are
>> not third level initiates.... ;-)
When I was taking the obligatory math course (Theoretical and Applied Venn
Diagrams for the Mathematically Slovenly) as an undergraduate, my instructor
had some sort of fit one day and launched into the proof of the existence of a
transfinite cardinal number larger than aleph null. I can't remember a damned
thing about it *except* its beauty -- a sort of sinuous weaving through,
around, and beyond reality as we uninitiates perceive it.
Afropea
> Did a deity create the universe? If so, then existence has meaning
>and purpose. Is the universe an accidental by product of the Big Bang only.
>Then existence is meaningless and pointless.
This isn't clear to me. Are you stating some sort of personal philosophy here
or is this a statement referring to beliefs of another time which you are using
as an example?
You know, I hate getting into these discussions in a Medieval newsgroup, but
something does compel me to respond. I don't think either of these answers are
necessarily correct. If a deity created the universe there STILL doesn't have
to be meaning and purpose. Maybe this deity was bored that day. The deity
might have then rolled over and just ignored the universe after that with no
thought of meaning.
As for there being no meaning or purpose to life without a deity--says who? An
inborn impulse for survival and self perpetuation seem like reasonable meaning
and purpose to me. After that people come up with their own meanings and
purposes which IMHO can be just as valid as some grand plan concocted by an
architect of the universe.
So perhaps for some the idea of purpose might only be defined as the intention
of some master of the cosmos, others have different interpretations. IMHO
these interpretations shouldn't be stated as facts.
JMHO,
Eve