[etni] fwd: Reply to David Reid's Corrections

From: David Lloyd <dlloyd54@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Etni <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2010 18:26:22 +0200
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chezi Fine <hezi5@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Reply to David Reid's Corrections

David,
I'm not well versed in science. But since you are implying that you are, I
hope you will accept the authority of these two "teachers" of science with
whom I checked:
(1)
Hitherto the principle of causality was universally accepted as an
indispensable postulate of scientific research, but now we are told by some
physicists that it must be thrown overboard. The fact that such an
extraordinary opinion should be expressed in responsible scientific quarters
is widely taken to be significant of the all-round unreliability of human
knowledge. This indeed is a very serious situation.
— Max Planck, In Where is Science Going? (1932), 66
(2)
The picture of scientific method drafted by modern philosophy is very
different from traditional conceptions. Gone is the ideal of a universe
whose course follows strict rules, a predetermined cosmos that unwinds
itself like an unwinding clock. Gone is the ideal of the scientist who knows
the absolute truth. The happenings of nature are like rolling dice rather
than like revolving stars; they are controlled by probability laws, not by
causality, and the scientist resembles a gambler more than a prophet. He can
tell you only his best posits—he never knows beforehand whether they will
come true. He is a better gambler, though, than the man at the green table,
because his statistical methods are superior. And his goal is staked
higher—the goal of foretelling the rolling dice of the cosmos. If he is
asked why he follows his methods, with what title he makes his predictions,
he cannot answer that he has an irrefutable knowledge of the future; he can
only lay his best bets. But he can prove that they are best bets, that
making them is the best he can do—and if a man does his best, what else can
you ask of him?

— Hans Reichenbach, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy (1951), 248-9.

As someone having no background in what science has to say about emotions,
why you, as someone who does, don't enlighten me and others like me on this
forum and post a short annotated bibliography of books or articles to read?
I am particularly interested in how the methodology of science has performed
the miraculous leap from dealing with material entities to dabbling with
immaterial ones.
I agree with you that HOTS should not try to take over the science
curriculum. This is precisely what I am accusing it of trying - pathetically
- to do.

Hoping you will enlighten us with your well-versed knowledge concerning what
science has to say about emotions, if it possibly can,


Chezi Fine


David Reid wrote:
> Hi, Etniers,
> Just two small notes on Chezi Fine's message about the HOTS use of the
> concept of causation (etni Digest V8 #325).
> First, the statement that the concept of causation is scientifically useless
> is incorrect. Secondly, to say that science can play no part in the
> explanation of emotions is also incorrect. I will not attempt to go into
> these two points at length, nor does HOTS need to take over the science
> curriculum, but I would suggest that teachers who are not well versed in
> science check with those who are before making generalizations about
> science.
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[etni] fwd: Reply to David Reid's Corrections

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