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From: esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.origins
Subject: Science vs. (Carne's) Scientism
Message-ID: <461@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Nov-84 19:22:37 EST
Article-I.D.: wucs.461
Posted: Thu Nov  1 19:22:37 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Nov-84 02:43:12 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
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[]

From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Subject: Creationists are not stupid
>    It follows that scientists should not be surprised or indignant when
> their scientifically cogent arguments fail to convince the creationists; on
> the contrary, that is what one would expect.  Further, it would be well for
> scientists to be consistent in their scientific attitudes.  They, of all
> people, have the least reason to take a judgmental attitude toward human
> behavior, since science is based on the belief that all phenomena in the
> natural world can be rationally explained, including human behavior.

Read *Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Consent* by Wayne C. Booth.  Then
you will think before saying such inane things.

> What I am saying is that we need to try to achieve a genuinely
> *scientific* understanding of the creationist movement.  Such an
> understanding would eschew the use of judgmental, moralistic terms such as
> "stupid", "dishonest", "lazy", "evil," and the like.  These terms have no
> scientific meaning, and are merely words of abuse for people with whom one
> has lost patience.  

Sounds to me like "scientism" at its worst.  There are more things in
science and nature than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

				-- more scientific than scientism-ists,
				Paul V Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047
Please send any mail directly to this address, not the sender's. Thanks.
"What is the opportunity cost, in lives saved, of your current action?"