Knowledge

Once we humans stopped attributing events and objects to the whimsical actions of deities, we asked ourselves two very important questions:  What do we know?  And how do we know it?  For those of you who have studied a bit of philosophy the statement I just made should make you think of Rene Descartes and David Hume.  Which gives us the argument of:  “I think therefore I am” and “No, you think therefore thinking is.”  I am sure many of you are now thinking that while such arguments are good intellectual exercises, the question of whether you can prove your own existence has little importance in the real world.  Ah, but what if “I think therefore I am” is just the beginning of an argument for the existence of God?  Those of you who have studied philosophy know that that is what Mr. Descartes and others were arguing and Mr. Hume was refuting.   The point is that Mr. Descartes’ argument, “I think therefore I am,” replaced, “I believe therefore God is,” at least in the mind of Mr. Descartes and his followers.  In other words, the question of whether there is a God was treated by Messrs. Descartes and Hume as an intellectual argument rather than an emotional belief.

It is all right, you can safely un-pucker the sphincters now.  It is not my intention to make an argument for or against the existence of God.  Although it was religion that motivated many philosophers, what is really important about philosophy is the discipline.  First of all the terms used have to be defined and accepted for the sake of argument.  Then a starting point must be established and accepted for the sake of argument.  Without those two conditions no intellectual argument is possible; instead what you have are people shouting their beliefs or opinions at each other, which is something we do far too often.  So define your terms and describe your observations with enough detail and in a manner that will allow me to verify them.  It is after that verification that the argument really begins.

This brings me to the subject of science.  Science is a method rather than a belief.  No one can physically examine a world view based on faith rather than observation, and it is in our understanding of the physical world, gained from observation and experimentation, that we have made so much progress.   If our observations reveal flaws in a prevalent theory, and another theory will allow us to predict the phenomenon with greater accuracy a good scientist will always embrace the newer theory.  I will grant you that this fluidity of thought means there are few certainties, but that does not justify excommunicating Galileo.   Faith is faith and science is science and never the twain shall meet.  You can have both, but you have to keep them in separate compartments or they will abuse each other.  People who cannot achieve that separation invariably wind up rejecting either science or God.  If I had to make the choice I would keep science. There has to be a reason for our big brains - survival, free will, whatever - form your own theory; we will let you change it when there is more evidence.

I think people who reject this world have rejected the big brain as well, but that is their problem.  There is no reason for me to worry about it unless…  Oh shit!  They actually want to excommunicate scientists, and they want to make this world miserable enough so we will also be tempted to reject it!