It's not all `pseudo-science`

Actually, one of the most valid aspects of good science is its
willingness to hear criticism, to retest its own views, to be
ever-ready to adjust or refine.

Huxley criticized Darwin on a number of points, but did so as a matter
of integrity and conscience. It is good science to spell out
"criticisms" -- and it is also good science to seriously consider those
criticisms. Thomas Huxley, a good friend of Darwin, was also a scholar
with enough sense of honesty NOT to be a mere flatterer, or yes-man.

Is it not an act of important social responsibility as scientists when
learned and academic spokesmen step up to the plate to spotlight the
fallacies of their field (or outside their field) whether those
fallacies are culture-wide (such as racism. Euro-centrism, male
good-old-boy complacency), or merely sloppy science, flawed
observation, or even inadvertent errors such as failure to doublecheck
outcomes, overhasty conclusions based on incomplete data, or
distortions due to faulty groupthink, etc. If we don't let our
"friends" correct our errors. Watch out, our "enemies" may have to do
it .... (unless that "enemy" is illness, or some related "chastening").
It will never happen to me, says the self-confident. Only the "ignorant
heathen" have to open their brains and get some Civilization in their
genes (or brain cells). Smugness, anyone?

In many ways, science has the capacity to be either creator or
destroyer, just as Civilization itself can either beat down or uplift
(and historically, has done both).

The West is rightly denounced by third world critics for sins of
imperialism, exploitation, racism, arrogance. Indeed, it is hard to
deny the excesses of the Age of imperialism, capitalism, and now
globalism, despite the best of motives (White Man's Burden), and the
West's missionary zeal to export our so-called enlightened, rational
values to supposedly heathen or inferior cultures.

Right here the true believers (perhaps rightly, or perhaps wrongly)
accuse us of distorting pure values, becoming intoxicated with our
"superior" knowledge, etc. Joshua, full of self-righteous confidence,
sees nothing wrong with the conquest of the aboriginal races of Canaan,
since ("everyone knows") god's Volk, Gott mitt uns? -- are the favoured
races in the struggle for life.

The fundamentalists of both Shia and Sunni persuasion have often
denounced the attitude of superiority that infects Euro-centric
"Crusader" zeal to convert the world to our values, not all of which
are superior in any sense. Even early Islam, in its purer stage,
objected to the jewish merchants who (supposedly) made friends with the
Mammon of materialism. But Mohammed, especially, was even more critical
of Christians, who not only refused to follow the ideals of Jesus, but
hypocritically draped themselves in a mantle of false righteousness.
Mohammed noticed how Christians disobeyed Jesus words, while deifying
him theologically. That's building your house on sand.

Indeed, from the theological standpoint, sincere Muslims might wonder
if Christians are not guilty of idolatry. Has not churchianity, through
the history of Europe and America, drifted into the worship of false
gods, worshipping and serving the creature more than the creator? In
self defense, we who are heirs of western culture might say, it is not
necessarily idolatry to seek to learn from our physical surroundings.
In fact, is it not our human responsibility to study and learn and
grow, as humble "students" of Nature and the Universe?

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: syllogism
    ... no intention or hope of them being hard universals, ... >reversed in science. ... appreciate any criticism since it's a work-in-progress. ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: More on Kitz/Dover
    ... Kenneth Miller said: "... ... > in which everything in science is open to critical examination, ... > And what is this criticism of Behe's, ... The blood clotting cascade experiment. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: PotM Re: A Typology of Scientism
    ... so can literary criticism. ... times presented as the "science" of historiography. ... Quite aside from its foundational roots in physical science, engineering ... I think you'll also find that a good many scientists are no more ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: How Our Brains Ignore Unpleasant Facts was: Re: The Reasonable
    ... To those familiar with Dembski, ... claims, and his responses to criticism, this seems an oddly ill- ... Prior to the 1980's there had been an off and on debate about the ... Compare this style of real science with Dembski's version. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: hey donie - is christianity a satanic cult?
    ... and Prophet Harun. ... you christians are now being critical to your bible ... Then your so called criticism comes up ... jesus die for your sins? ...
    (soc.culture.indonesia)