In quest of basic moral principles and the meaning of life
(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Having renounced all traffic with Religion, the Scientist proceeds to devote hundreds of hours to giving public lectures on \u201cScience and Religion.\u201d This is an interesting paradox:<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\na) The secret of the Scientist\u2019s superiority and success is that he pays strict attention to the problem at hand; limiting himself to the laboratory situation, he rejects all else as extraneous and irrelevant.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nb) This means that the problem at hand is everything that counts.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nc) If that is so, nothing else counts\u2014Science is all in all.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nd) Therefore Science alone can give the answers to the ultimate problems of life.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\ne) But the ultimate problems of life are exactly what Science must renounce in order to be Science!<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nFor a scientist to talk of, for example, \u201cThe Relationship between Science and Religion\u201d is as meaningless as for him to lecture on \u201cThe Place of the Supernatural in the Laboratory,\u201d\u2014and for the same reason. His function\u00a0as a scientist<\/em>\u00a0rules out any consideration of either. The greatest chemist alive knows no more about Man\u2019s Origin and Destiny than anybody else does.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe scientist readily admits that he was\u00a0wrong yesterday<\/em>, but dogmatically insists that he is\u00a0right today<\/em>. We can believe him when he says he was wrong, but can we believe him when he says he is right today? He said that yesterday, too:\u00a0Science cannot be self-correcting<\/em>\u00a0until it knows the\u00a0correct answers<\/em>. But as long as it is progressing, the answers will be changing\u2014Science is not self-correcting but self-rebuking.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hugh W. Nibley<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Having renounced all traffic with Religion, the Scientist proceeds to devote hundreds of hours to giving public lectures on \u201cScience and Religion.\u201d This is an interesting paradox: \u00a0 a) The secret of the Scientist\u2019s superiority and success is that he pays strict attention to the problem at hand; limiting himself to the laboratory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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