"To shake your rump is to be environmentally aware" - David Byrne
AOKs: The Arts, The Natural Sciences, The Human Sciences, History, Ethics
WOKs: Language, Sense Perception, Emotion, Reason, Imagination, Intuition, Memory KQ: How do technology & setting inform how we experience music? TASK - Watch David Byrne - Playing the Building TASK - Watch Dan Deacon - Bromst - In the Studio (8:39 - 14:51) TASK - Read “Oh My Ears! Auto-tune is Ruining Music” Questions - Explore and write answers for all three (3) questions.
AOK - Areas of Knowledge are: Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Human Sciences, History, The Arts, Ethics, Religious Knowledge Systems, Indigenous Knowledge Systems WOK - Ways of Knowing are: Language, Sense Perception, Emotion, Reason, Imagination, Faith, Intuition, Memory |
SCIENTIFIC CLAIMS: AN AFRICAN PRESEPCTIVE
Certain knowledge claims are reliably supported by scientific activity. On the other hand, certain traditional beliefs are justified in a less rigorous manner, although there are similarities in the ways in which each claim might have come into existence: repeated observation, generalization, inspired ideas, or prediction and explanation.
Given these similarities between the origin of scientific claims and these other traditional beliefs, how do we know what counts as science?
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Which of the following can be justified as scientific belief?
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- Consider each of the claims given. Suggest how each of them could have come into existence. In each case, what sorts of thinking processes and types of reasoning might have been involved? Observation, generalization, application of generalizations, inspiration...
- Which of the claims do you regard as being scientific? Justify your answers. Do you have a single criterion for distinguishing the scientific from the non-scientific? Or is it necessary to use several criteria? Has the distinction more to do with method or content or result, or something else?
- Follow this link. After having considered this, do you feel the same about your answers to the above questions?
- If a claim works in everyday life, is there any need for further explanation? Does it matter what kind of explanation is provided?
- To what extent is each of us as an individual justified in believing each of these claims?
- Why do non-scientific beliefs persist in groups of people familiar with scientific explanation?
- Explanations for taboos are often given in supernatural terms. Is it possible to reconcile natural and supernatural explanations?
- If science and taboos are both about laws, then how, if at all, do these types of laws differ?
- Is this attempt to rationalize beliefs always justified? Are there beliefs which arose in quite non-rational ways? If so, how?
HOW CAN WE KNOW?
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BRIAN GREEN:
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Since the beginning of the 21st century, it has become apparent that known kinds of matter and energy make up only about 4 percent of the universe. The rest consists of “dark matter” and “dark energy.” The nature of 96 percent of physical reality is literally obscure. The multiverse theory, which asserts that there are trillions of universes besides our own, is popular among cosmologists in the absence of any experimental evidence. These are interesting speculations, but they are not hard science. They are a shaky foundation for the materialist claim that everything can be explained in terms of physics. (Source: Freeing the spirit of enquiry by Dr Rupert Sheldrake)
Science or Faith?Certain knowledge claims are reliably supported by scientific activity. On the other hand, certain traditional beliefs are justified in a less rigorous manner, although there are similarities in the ways in which each claim might have come into existence: repeated observation, generalization, inspired ideas, or prediction and explanation.
Given these similarities between the origin of scientific claims and these other traditional beliefs, how do we know what counts as science?
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LINKS TO TOKDoes knowledge always require that good reasons be provided?
In what way, if any, might the phrase “good reasons” vary across cultures? What is meant by the scientific method? How is this method traditionally described in science textbooks? Is this depiction an accurate model of scientific activity or could it be a distortion? How does the social context affect the questions and results of the scientific enterprise? What is the demarcation between scientific and pseudo-scientific knowledge claims? In the context of attempting to explain and predict human behaviour, what sort of approach would be most effective? A scientific approach? An approach based on cultural beliefs? To what extent is it necessary that a person’s beliefs are consistent? |
Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?"Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science."
(The Atlantic, August 1925) |
What is the Relationship Between Science and Religion? |