[FoRK] Faith and/or Science dingding redux

[Dr. Ernie Prabhakar]

Hi Jeff,

On Nov 27, 2007, at 1:27 PM, Jeff Bone wrote:
> Religions are primarily concerned with enforcing a particular social  
> order, norms, and behavior, and only incidentally / superficially /  
> supposedly interested in explanation.  Science is exclusively  
> focused on the latter, and not at all on the former.

Right, science has never been used as a tool to support a particular  
social order...

Sure, you can define a platonic ideal of science that is totally  
divorced from the messy politics of culture -- just like you can  
define "religion" as merely being an opiate of the masses.   But that  
is all it is, your particular definition.

The real world is, alas, a lot less categorical than that. At least,  
that is what science taught me. :-)

-- Ernie P.