Is science becoming too Dogmatic?

Question

I am interested in your opinion on this. Is science becomming a new religion? Where instead of people having faith that a supernatural force can explain everything, they have faith that scientific theorys are absolutely correct and indisputable, even if they don't really understand them?

Is science in danger of loosing its self critical quality? Do you think there are instances where scientific progress has directed our understanding in such a way that there may be better theories out there, but these theories are unreachable unless we backtrack and move down a new path?

Answer 1

The problem you are considering has been a long standing one and is very much in debate in the intellectual community. In effect, what we witness with the general custom of contemporary culture to adhere to the scientific is an aftershock of the so called Enlightenment period. Without going to deeply into it, that era began to rely more and more on the empirical (experimental) method for validating theories and ideas. Their experiments have confirmed or crushed long standing theories and thus a whole revolution of theory validation began. We are children of that age, to quote an old cliche.

I think some people hold too strongly to science without due credit to other possibilities. Scientist themselves understand that the more they learn about something the more they understand that they know so little. Also, I think many scientists overstep the boundaries of their competency. Since science, as rule of thumb, depends on the physical to evaluate and experiment, they are only able to determine physical qualities, properties, and functions. An area I remain at odds with in this sense is the debate of evolution and creation in our schools. Science has shown evidence 'for' but not evidence 'of' evolution. Their theories are still only theories with some physical evidence of 'possibility'. Since there is no general physical evidence of God, then God is merely excluded. It is a sorry day when science disrupts the ability to consider diverse ideas and theories even though they cannot rely on anything material.

So in this manner there is a n example of the influence of science taking over areas that are not in any way of their scope. I would only ask that they be fair in their evaluations and remain open to dialog. Science is a great good in society, and we would be at a loss without it. Closing the door of dialog would critically hurt science's credibility.

Answer 2

This will always be a danger simply because people like whats comfortable. Accepted theory is comfortable and change is not, and the longer a theory is in a sort of stagnation, the more resistance there would be to change. But the beauty of science is that the scientific method can, over time, conquer biases because if one person can rationalize the discovery, another can too. In fact there are many cases in history where discoveries are made in parallel, a boiling point.

Answer 3

I want to know why you think you can religion and science can be interchangable? That's like thinking an opinion is the same as researched knowledge. That's bologny. Science has a built in system of self criticality through testing it's own theories through the scientific method. It is not a faith based belief system. The this testing is constantly being done. The problem with science is that it is too entertwined with the economic system of capitalism and the military industrial complex. that is what risks its credibility.

Read Morris Berman's book "the re-enchantment of the world" it is an excellant source and read on the history of science and technology, religion, anthropology and economics. And the problems with all of them today. It was written in 1982 but it is timeless and really applies to todays' situation. Trust me, you will learn alot.

Answer 4

Certainly no one should accept science as indisputable. Far too often people justify things by saying "it's science". It is always possible that an alternative explanation for a phenomenon has been overlooked.

However, I don't believe that science has become "a new religion". Religions are not based on facts that are falsifiable (ie. can be tested). They are based almost solely on faith. Science on the other hand is based on experimentation and falsifiable theories.

Also science never says that you must believe something. You may seek to prove a theory wrong if you wish. That is accept as a benefit to science whereas if you did that for a religion it would be seen as an attack on the religion.

Answer 5

I think you are looking too deeply into this. Most people have a religion that they stick to. But believing in things like magic, that is probably less likely, because before, magic was used to explain anything that didn't have a scientific explanation.