Elsewhere on DUer a poster called science a cult.

[Odin2005]

:banghead:

[salvorhardin]

1. Sadly, this is a widely held belief

Usually it's not expressed with such extreme rhetoric but a lot of people truly believe that science is the same sort of animal as faith and religion. Sure, there are parallels to be drawn between scientific institutions and religious institutions and there are certain concepts in science that one has to accept without evidence such as the idea that our little corner of the universe operates the same way as every other place in the universe but it's a fundamental misreading of what both science and religion are all about. At its core, science is all about systematically controlling for human bias and failings to get the best possible understanding of the natural world as possible. Unlike religion, science has mechanisms built in for challenging claims and improving upon them. Another way in which science and religion differ is that over time scientific ideas converge whereas in religion, ideas multiply In science we end up with one consensus about say, the way gravity works, whereas in religion we have thousands of ideas about how god(s) created the world. And one thing that makes science distinctly un-cult like is that even the most high profile rock star scientist can be challenged by the least known grunt toiling away at the most obscure academic institution or business. Hell, even amateurs are capable of contributing to science, and have. For ten examples see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orchid/amateurs.html

[skepticscott]

2. Posting on their computer

made possible by science, no doubt.

[Warpy]

3. A few people were rude enough to point that out.

I didn't have the ambition. There's a level of idiocy so profound that it simply can't be addressed on a message board.

It was very plucky for other people to try, though.

[LeftishBrit]

4. Unfortunately, not such an uncommon attitude

This ranges from the old stereotype of the 'mad scientist' plotting to destroy the world to the 'post-modernist' view that science is just another belief system. I think I already mentioned my student who had previously studied the French philosophers and worshipped Derrida and Lacane. He liked to argue that 'science is just another religion' and that we were only teaching and doing research in Experimental Psychology because it was the 'Zeitgeist'!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

5. This was special though. He also argued that "math" was a cult.

and "numbers" were a cult.

[Orrex]

6. I may have mentioned this before...

In my junior year of college I had an English course taught by a grad student with a major chubby for postmodernism. To demonstrate his point about the arbitrary nature of things (or whatever the hell he was demonstrating) he claimed that there is a tribe somewhere (the "other") for which two plus two does not equal four.

In essence, he was claiming that numbers are subjective.

He didn't name the tribe, nor did he care to discuss the implications of such a mathematical oddity; he was basically just fellating Foucault and taking us along for the ride.

Once he used the term "scientistic" to refer to the dogmatic, exclusionary nature of scientific progress, though he didn't use the word "cult" or "fundamentalist."

[Odin2005]

10. Wow, that guy is a walking PoMo stereotype!

:rofl:

[Orrex]

14. He was all about entrenched power structures etc.

I bumped into him a year or so after taking his class and I couldn't even talk to him.

I'd gone back to finish college after an absence of several years, so he and I were the same age. As such, I was better able to dismiss his bullshit as bullshit than I'd likely have been able to do during my earlier college years.

[Odin2005]

16. Fortunately that BS bounces off of me quite nicely.

:D

[SemiCharmedQuark]

12. Have you ever had people tell you that 0 is not a number? Rather the absence of number?

Usually followed up by the line "The way black is the absence of color"?

[Orrex]

13. Yeah, that's a good one.

I confess that I almost don't even know what to say to people like that, because I don't have the time, will, or resources to correct their deliberate failure to understand even basic concepts.

In the end, it gets down to them just being contrarian assholes.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

15. The liberal arts majors and the science majors need to go to war with bottles and chains.

It's not like we get all up in *their* shit.

[Odin2005]

9. Yep, that was hysterically pathetic.

[salvorhardin]

11. Gene Ray is posting on DU now? :O eom

[Jim__]

17. Your student liked to argue that science is "just another religion".

And your student worshipped Derrida. First, was your student an undergraduate? Had he actually read Derrida? Or, was he a typical undergraduate and possibly repeating things that he had misunderstood? Did he, or do you, connect the statement about science with something that Derrida wrote/said? If so, do you have a reference? I don't deny that Derrida could have said such a thing, but I really would like to see the context. I'm not sure what you are criticizing.

I have not read a lot of Derrida but what I have read of him, I find difficult. One of Derrida's contentions is that there is no canonical reading of a text; that may explain the complexity of his writing - he adds a lot of context - possibly as an attempt to restrain the interpretations of what he is saying. My personal experience of reading criticisms of Derrida is that many people criticize him for saying things that he has not said.

You talk about the 'postmodernist' view. Do you mean one particular postmodernist view out of the many that you can pick from? I'd be surprised if there is any particular view that all things labeled postmodernism would agree on.

I'm not clear on exactly what point your post is trying to make.

[TZ]

7. Why does this surprise you??

There's a whole cabal of people who post in Health that think this. When I pointed out once that Gardasil was a very safe and effective vaccine I was accused of believing in "faith based science". Its always people who never have actually studied any science themselves, probably because its beyond their understanding

[Odin2005]

8. I know it shouldn't, but it still does.

Maybe it's because I expect people to understand the notion of objective truth rather than spouting Postmodernist garbage. :shrug:

[Deep13]

18. ...while typing on a modern computer.

:eyes:

[Orsino]

19. If it's the only way that that poster can relate to any belief system...

...science and cults may not be easily distinguishable. If he gets his religion and his science handed down to him from on high, yeah, I could see where he's coming from.

He probably wouldn't call his religion a cult, though.