paisano writes:
The question proposed for discussion is based on the following observations:
1) Fundamentalists tend to advocate faith ,or mysticism, as superior to reason and the scientific method.
2) Fundamentalists tend to insist that if scientific data conflict with their religious texts or dogmas (as interpreted by the fundamentalists), the religious text or dogma is to be preferred as the arbiter of truth.
3) Nevertheless, most fundamentalists usually have no qualms about taking advantage of technologies that could not have been developed without the scientific concepts that conflict with their religious concepts.
Some examples of this are, antibiotics and evolution, computers and quantum physics, petroleum and mainstream geology.
More generally ,many fundamentalists regard the process of open scientific inquiry as inimical to , and in conflict with, their religious beliefs.
I propose a discussion of the following questions:
Is the use of technologies by fundamentalists, that depend on fundamentalist-rejected science, hypocritical or a form of intellectual freeloading?
Would fundamentalists who reject scientific reasoning in favor of faith or mysticism based epistemologies, be more intellectualy honest to adopt lifestyles that exclude the use of modern technologies that depend on the scientific reasoning they reject, much as the Amish do ?
I would like to view the evidential sources which you are relying on to validate your claims. I for one embrace science as a magnificent endeavor but am always mindful of the reality that science must correct itself when new evidence is uncovered that refutes commonly held beliefs in the various areas of science.
Science should never be embraced as the Sang Raal.
History has shown us that science is ongoing and must willingly re-evaluate itself given new scientific revelations that come to light. One well known example is:
Coelacanths or lobe-fins are a strange group of fishes that appeared 300 million years ago and until very recently were believed to have been extinct for at least 50 million years.
One of the greatest surprises in the field of science came about when a living Coelacanth was captured off the southern coast of Africa in 1937.
Named Latimeria chalumnae, this fish remained the only one of its kind until a new species, Malania anjouanae, was captured by a native fisherman off a tiny island near Madagascar.
The ancient Order of Crossopterygian fishes, to which the Coelacanths belong, are believed by scientists to be the common ancestor of modern fishes and land vertebrates.
Scientists believe that higher forms of life have developed from more primitive forms - this process is called evolution.
One important step in the evolution was the passage of animals from water to land. In order to make this change of habitat an animal needed a structure that could develop into a leg or foot and the Coelacanth has such a structure.
From fossil remains scientists long ago deduced that the supposedly extinct Coelacanth possessed a fleshy rather than a membranous fin.
With the amazing discovery of a living Coelacanth off the southwest African coast in December 1952, the deductions from fossil evidence have been confirmed.
An Italian zoological expedition which has been investigating the waters around the Comoro Islands in the Indian Ocean, believes there are many Coelacanths in that area. An underwater picture taken by this expedition was described by experts as a photograph of an immature living Coelacanth about two feet long.
From a Q&A page @
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Science had to at least re-examine the contention that the coelacanth was extinct. I realize that to some individuals science may be the end all when it comes to truth, but science itself proves them to be in error. Science is a wonderful thing so long as one honestly recognizes its' limitations.
I await the presentation of the evidential sources used which support the claims you have made above.
Peace!
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." Albert Einstein