What contirbution has religion given to the advancement of mankind that has come from nowhere else?

[Jim__]

58. Scientism As Rationalization And Ultimate Religion

Last edited Mon Dec 26, 2011, 03:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Sascha Vongehr ( http://www.science20.com/profile/sascha_vongehr ) tends to agree with you that nothing that has come out of religion has done anything to advance mankind. He considers scientism to be a religion.

This is a short excerpt from a blog entry ( http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/science_rationalization_and_ultimate_religion-85769
) making this argument:

The main observation here is that rationalization on the social level ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_%28sociology%29 ) is rationalization on the personal level ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_%28making_excuses%29 ) performed by macro-systems (social systems from our point of view). Scientism is the ultimate religion. Calling this a dangerous anti-science position is natural and expected at this point in evolution.

Every adaptive system has what can be called a perception apparatus and information processing structures and so forth. Science is part of the perception/thinking of social systems. All perception has its “blind spot”. Perception is ignorant of everything except for a tiny slice that it evolved to select and focus attention on. Thinking is there to interpret in a certain evolved way. Humans, being parts as well as environment of social systems, cannot grasp the perceived world of social systems, let alone map out their blind spots. Scientists are especially suspect when it comes to judging the blind spots of science.

We witness science evolving. Evolution is not development toward something better, somehow improved, but the mere fact of systems and their environment coevolving in a “red-queen race” that moves nowhere (except if there are entirely novel ingredients to the general theory of evolution, especially Global Suicide ( http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/global_suicide_no_singularity_just_evolution_deadly_rationality-77738 ) ). Complexity is produced, but there is no monotone development of any other parameter.

...

Science in its beginnings can fruitfully compare with primate perception and thinking in its beginnings. Starting to be able to think systematically is helpful to single animals as well as groups. So is communication of threats, language helping to organize foraging and all that. What developed out of these beginnings is far removed from what one could have naively expected: A rational agent knowing itself. Such has an evolutionary disadvantage; it does not procreate efficiently.

...

Do I agree with him? I consider this blog entry to be serious food for thought. But, I do believe that the world is far more complex than you seem to think.