Science is a religion
Woah93
Veteran
Anyone else noticing this? Mainstream science these days seems to be firmly rooted by dogma and belief systems which are very hard to break out of. "The world is flat"
I have always viewed science as rock hard, up to date and a fairly accurate description of the world around us and how it works. These days we are experiencing interesting times in the sense that spirituality and science seem to be clashing. Clashing in the sense that mainstream science is behaving exactly in the same way as the "believers" they despise.
Basically what I'm saying is if you have found something extraordinary, or something out of context, even with all the data, evidence to back it up and a good reputation, you will risk loosing your career and ridicule. It is often said the experiment wasn't performed properly or the environment was lacking and it's basically ignored.
Really just a rant but I just don't get it. Science should be a way of FIGURING things out, not merely confirming or boosting already existing theories which are pretty far-fetched to begin with. Science doesn't even know what consciousness actually is, it hasn't provided a shred of evidence for the big bang to actually have happened, and heck, even global warming lacks sufficient evidence. The earth had an ice age, the earth heats up, it's pretty much running in cycles from my point of view and of course we have a huge impact on it. What I'm saying though is: science is acting like a mentor, when IMO it should be a pupil.
Comments
No no no
One big difference is science is constantly attempting to prove 'itself' wrong, which religion NEVER does this, refuses to question the validity of it's ideas (erm, dogmas).
Whatever has made it through the scientific gauntlet to a theory or a fact has had everything thrown at it that could possibly prove it wrong and it still survived.
You cannot say that in any way about religious dogma or doctrine
But then I could say that somewhere in the universe there is a giant flying spaghetti monster creating planets with its noodles, you can't prove that wrong. If you can't prove something wrong does that make it right? Science is also performed by mere people with minds who have tendency to cling to beliefs. Doesn't everyone experience that to an extent? It just seems to me that most in the field are afraid to open up and explore different ways of looking at it.
The spagetti monster argument is like "Russell's Teapot", you should google this.
The inability to prove something wrong doesn't prove it right by default
Scientists (when you actually talk to them) are extremely dedicated to empirical fact and even then are constantly hedging their so-called facts for fear of being ridiculed by other scientists for indulging in some unquestioned belief or other. If any group of humans is as willing to be wrong as correct, it's them.
I don't think everyone experiences the perspective of a scientist (the generic scientist I guess) because if they did, this world would be unrecognizable. I do think a lot of people think they know what scientists think but they are thinking a lot more like the religious, who 'already know' and defile known fact to fit their assumptions
.
I am not a scientist except that I was educated as a nurse, where a lot more touchy feely is involved, but I've come to see the advantage of LEARNING to relate to life from a more 'scientific' point of view, ie, seeking truth without assumptions of what that truth is. It's not easy! I do think we are going against some inborn wiring to do so.
Lately I've been exploring the 'new atheist' line of thought, not because I need to extract myself from religious belief but because DAMN those guys spell out for beginners how to think like a scientist.
If you check that stuff out at any length, you'll see what I mean
@Woah93: hopefully you will find this of interest - particularly the first point.
Now Lana Knows something,
!
"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."
-- Carl Sagan
Unfortunately science is the new religion @Glow. Oh well... I've got a burning desire...
I've been smitten and have fallen in love with Lana del Ray... Not sure how it happened, but it did
If she is not the next Bond Woman - then there is no justice in the world...
Anyway where was I? Oh yes smitten...
Perhaps you are being tongue in cheek @anataman . . . but just imagine if science really did become a religion.
Stranger things have become religions, including sky gods and a post-ascetic monk.
Religion has tried to become scientific, and look what happened there :eek: .
I dunno, my mind goes blank trying to imagine what it would look like if science became a religion. The way I see it, the two in any combination could not remain coherent. Scientology is one such brainchild (poor kid) and it can't get much sadder and impossible than that.
There sure are pages and pages of web hits with 'science is a belief system' in their texts. Not just religious people gunning for their faith system but . . . just people contemplating. I count myself in with this next statement (at least I was like this) but DAMN are people in general undereducated on the basics of logical thinking. In this day and age it is shocking
.
There's no compelling reason for them to think logically. Most people only want a roof over their heads, food on the table and a car in the garage. What the hell good is logic?
Most people use religion as a part of their social life. It's where their friends and family is. It's a part of their community. Science provides none of that and logic is of no use, so what good is it?
@Glow yes I agree THAT is what science should be, but what I see now is different opinions being suppressed and about 80% of mainstream science (just a personal guess..) seems like it's just as shut off as it has always been.
You know we used to think of the universe as a machine that worked kind of like cogwheels. When you study the structure and do the math you should be able to calculate exactly what is going to happen. Of course this isn't true but looking at history, the guy who actually discovered the beginning of chaos theory was ignored. The experiments couldn't be right, it must have been wack. It took 50+ years for them to reconsider his work.
Anyway it changed the whole outlook of science regarding the universe. Suddenly it was totally unpredictable. A flap of the wing of a butterfly could create vast consequences huge distances away. Hence "Butterfly Effect"
This is actually the formula he created which, according to the theory is behind the works of nature. This is what happened when he put that formula into a high tech computer:
Now if science were open to new ideas we would have known a lot more by now. This is just what I mean, I wish science would not disregard ideas that are ridiculous or far out but indeed as you quoted Glow, always accept change when proof shows you.
True, however irresponsible their satisfaction is. They are the first ones to suffer for it when they realize a roof, healthy kids and a car doesn't do the trick and if they are honest, neither does faith make sense of tragedies. I should say "we" as this was me a few years ago.
There are groups and communities brought together by non-religious commonalities, religion is no more a guarantee of 'belonging' than it is the source of morality, but you're right in that it serves those purposes.
A Buddhist, I forget who, said science never would fully understand reality until they understand their own motivations.
Here is a video of satsang with mooji an advaita vedantist. He is speaking with a PhD physicist. If you are interested in science and spiritually realized master it is a must view.
I would love it if there were a correspondence between quantum physics (tiniest bits of matter) and how gross matter operates. They haven't developed any way to test or see if that correspondence is there, exactly
. I've read/heard actual physicists think folks like Deepak Chopra who insist on this correspondence are major woo woo idiots (naturally).
It's harsh which I don't prefer to be but sometimes I can see the need for a good whack (need not be physical) when people are being taken advantage of. Then again, they are choosing to be taken advantage of . . . aren't they? Children always are, of course, but consenting adults choose what number to put their money on.
I enjoyed reading 'Biocentrism' by Robert Lanza, a stem cell biologist, it fills in those 'gaps' in our evidence-based understanding of the cosmos, but I have to admit it is at best a well posited hypothesis we don't have the 'tools' to even challenge (I don't think).
"Why challenge anything? If it rings true and doesn't hurt anybody (including yourself) why not just go with it?" I'm still working on that one. Maybe this is being middle way-ish, not holding on too tightly and not rejecting outright.
Hamsaka if you're interested in quantum I know in my country a few people are running experiments: http://hansonlab.tudelft.nl/publications/
Their latest one is really interesting
"Unconditional quantum teleportation
between distant solid-state quantum
bits"
Full text: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/05/28/science.1253512.full.pdf?keytype=ref&siteid=sci&ijkey=mqjIvOuuL61bo
IMHO --
Another thread attempting to mix science and religion...something Buddhists abhor when the Christians are doing it.
I cannot understand why so many Buddhists are so insecure about their religion that they try to prove it with science.
To paraphrase, render unto Buddhists our Lord's psychological teachings, and to science the details of cosmology.
Well if considering anatta. A thing is not a thing other than in the mind of a person.
In other words Science is not a religion if it is not practised that way. I believe most people adher to it as if it was a religion. Even some leading scientists. Richard Dawkins is one who fail to keep religion and science apart.
And yes I said that last bit to be provocative.
/Victor
Vinlyn this thread has nothing to do with mixing science and religion, but rather science actually acting like a religion sometimes. I personally am not a buddhist, nor a "science geek" or anything really. Yes I mix them up sometimes but I'm not looking at science to prove anything from buddhism etc.
Also.. insecure about a religion?... ehh what? People actually have this?
For instance. How many of people here can from the top of their heads prove that the earth is round (no googling!). Or that the speed of light is constant? Or even give a convincing argument?
I doubt that most people can. Still they believe this to be true. Without knowing the proof for it just because it is a scientifically known fact.
And the most frightening thing is that they do not even question their belief because they see it as reality. In fact if most people hearing/reading this will only shrug their shoulders or give it a condescending smile.
That kind of behaviour is what I associate with fanatisism.
No now I am not being provocative. Just making an observation.
Actually, @Woah93, in your original post you said, "that spirituality and science seem to be clashing". I am not disagreeing with you. But what I am saying is that while science and religion clash in some areas, in other areas of human discourse -- and at the same time -- people are attempting to blur the line between science and religion...on in many cases simply ignoring the findings of science. There are a growing number of Creationist museums in the U.S., where religionists are co-oping scientific principles to attempt to prove their point of view on religious matters. So this is a case where dishonest religionists are, indeed, treating science as a religion...but their perverted religion.
I disagree with your statement that "mainstream science is behaving exactly in the same way as the "believers" they despise", first of all because you can't lump all science or all scientists together. Thank goodness. Science should never be based on the flavor of the month theory. Science isn't usually at its best when it works fast. Science should work slowly, cautiously. With discourse...and disagreements...and debate.
Different scientists have different jobs. For example, some scientists may work rather independently...for example at a university. They're not always right, but the scientists I studied under in the field of geosciences were pretty much left alone to publish or perish, and were usually no assigned "jobs" by the university. On the other hand, sometimes grants came to the university from groups who had an axe to grind; university scientists who took on those studies were a little bit more suspect because often the sponsoring group was hoping for a particular outcome...and the more the research parallels what the sponsoring group believes, the longer the money keeps flowing. It's a slippery slope.
Then there are scientists who work directly for some group. For example, do I necessarily believe every scientist paid by the Sierra Club? No, I'll read their findings and the findings of others and make my judgements about what is reality. Do I disbelieve every scientist who works for a petroleum company? No, but I'll read their finding and the findings of others and make a judgement. And you really have to do that because it is rare that a particular scientist gets it all "correct", whatever the topic. Do I believe fracking causes earthquakes? Yes. Is the evidence conclusive? No.
But do I expect Exxon to continue to pay a scientist who begins working against the company? No. Why would they? Especially in a field where things are not always black or white.
To be honest, lots of studies/experiments aren't "performed properly", either because the scientists doesn't control the variables well or because he or she has made certain assumptions at the beginning of their work on a particular topic. That's being human.
Yes, as you say, "science should be a way of FIGURING things out, not merely confirming or boosting already existing theories". But that is where time comes into it. A group of scientists developed a drug for controlling high blood pressure. It wasn't suitable because it could drop blood pressure too rapidly, causing people to pass out. But they didn't toss their research, and later they discovered it was an excellent drug with which to control benign prostate enlargement. That's happened with many drugs.
You say that science "hasn't provided a shred of evidence for the big bang to actually have happened". That's why it's a theory and why science continues to study it. You say that "even global warming lacks sufficient evidence". I don't agree. The evidence is sufficient, albeit it not 100%. But politicians and some entrepreneurs, and hicks down in Alabamy don't want to accept the preponderance of evidence. Your half right about the earth running "in cycles" in terms of cooling and warming. But I recently had an opportunity to talk with a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. He showed me graphs plotting the warming and cooling of the earth's climate for thousands of years. Yes, it is up and down in a cycle. But the cycle we're in now is literally off the charts and unlike anything they have found in modern earth history.
Science is as perfect as humanity.
Thanks for the post vinlyn, learned some new things
Science and religion both try to explain the universe, but they are both constrained by the limits of human perception and intelligence. As for dogma, it seems to be a human trait to try to make permanent and solid that which is impermanent and fluid. Clinging to rules and shutting ourselves off from anything that lies outside of them is the very cause of suffering and what we as Buddhists are trying to transcend.
I don't know of any Buddhists who "abhor" the mixing of science and religion by Christians. Are they all in Colorado Springs? The Buddhists I know are largely indifferent.
I find that curious as well. I know several people who use science, under their interpretation of the Kalama Sutra, to decide what they accept regarding the Dharma. I find it curious because science and Buddhism address entirely different things. They're making science their religion.
Clashing in the sense that mainstream science is behaving exactly in the same way as the "believers" they despise.
With science radical ideas will become mainstream if they are proved to be correct.
With religion radical ideas cannot be proved to be correct any more than mainstream ones.
At times, radical ideas become mainstream even when they are far from true but they are presented as fact under the guise of science.
For example, it is practically universally accepted that "venting" our emotions is an effective way of dealing with anger. Even amongst trained Psychologists. The truth of it is that venting trains a person to be angry and it never actually works. People who vent, don't become more reasonable in any way for the most part. They actually become worse.
Buddhist doctrine, as does many "religions", teaches patience, kindness and compassion and there is no room for venting. This appears to actually help people maintain their composure. It just isn't the popular theory of the day.
It is a human trait to "try to make permanent and solid that which is impermanent and fluid". We all do it. And while Buddhists (in general) may try to be a little less clinging, I don't really see much of it here on this forum. Suggest on this forum, as I have in the past, that monks modernize their clothing. Many forum members go nuts about how that must not change. Suggest that -- particularly beyond the 5th Precept -- that many of the other Precepts and rules for monks be abandoned. Many forum members go nuts. Suggest that the idea that Buddhism is a scientific religion is not true. Many forum members go nuts.
There's a huge amount of dogma -- some of it institutional, some of it personal -- in this forum. Because that's what humans tend to do.
That seems like:
I rarely ask this, but since we're talking about science, can you support either?
I think the definition of "science" (and possibly the definition of "religion") in this thread is a straw man. Actual science is usually a painfully slow, mind-numbingly boring process of research and peer-review and further research and reconsideration and peer review and over and over again. The way in which scientific findings are reported in the media is misleading and can give the impression that the conclusions of each new study completely refute previous findings and that the matter is settled once and for all. That is in no way an indictment of science -- simply people's propensity to want juicy, simple, easily-digested sound bytes instead of the dry reality. See:
Most of our schools do not have the monetary resources (or the time!) to reconstruct all of Galileo's, or Descartes, or Sir Isaac Newton's, or Einstein's experiments from scratch every single time. We instead have to relay this information through lectures, textbooks, and a selective assortment of laboratory approximations. And, if you happened to have a very ambition teacher, you may have gone through the complex mathematics necessary to arrive at some of our physics formulas, but that is very rare. So, yes, in our physics, chemistry, and biology courses, we have to take quite a bit for "granted" without reproducing the results of the experiment all over again. The main difference between science and religion is that the point of science is not to arrive at a concrete set of BELIEFS about how the world works, but to come to a practical understanding -- that is, to know enough to be able to make reasonable predictions about natural phenomena. Science was originally a branch of humanism called "natural philosophy." It's a process, not a product.
Most of us who do not enter a STEM field miss the higher-level coursework where we encounter the opportunity to engage in actual novel research. But it becomes very obvious at some point that, say, the Bohr model of an atom that we all studied in high school is a very simplistic diagram meant to represent dynamic principles and in no way resembles what an actual atom probably looks like. No one has ever seen an atom! No one has ever managed to take a picture of an atom! Atoms are smaller than light waves, making them impossible to pick up as visible objects. However, that does not invalidate the Bohr model. It's meant to predict the behavior of negatively and positively-charged particles, rather than serve as a visual representation. This model can be useful in conducting chemistry experiments and predicting how certain chemicals will respond to one another.
As for religion, the original etymological root of the word is "to bind." (Think: "re-" + "lig-" as in "ligament.") The early speakers of our language used it to refer to those who held closely to a moral or ritualistic code, as in those who strictly observe precepts of holy books. This, IMO, does not reflect the nature in which most good scientists operate except in the sense that they hold fast to the scientific method and empiricism as a means of coming to a working (emphasis on working) knowledge of the world. Living science -- the science going on in our universities, research facilities, and in the field -- has thankfully not concretized in the way that our holy canons have.
I understand what you're trying to say, @Woah93, but I think it reflects a lack of real experience with actual scientists and science. One of my favorite social sciences is anthropology. Anthropologists do what is call field work: this involves actually going and living among the people they study, working with the community, helping them, and learning as much as they can in the trenches. There are anthropologists who study science as a culture, and go and live among scientists to study the way their minds work and the culture of research. I would suggest maybe, before coming to a conclusion like "science is a religion!", that you will need to go an immerse yourself among religionists and scientists and find out for real.
Really? What thread was that in?
A lot of monks in the Kagyu take interesting liberties with their dress. Many where street clothes except for formal occaisions. My Guru, atteded the fist group interview I had with him dressed in maroon sweat pants, and a maroon golf shirt with Willey Coyote emblazoned on the right breast.
Nobody went nuts, but the Kagyupas tend to be a pretty laid-back bunch.
Well those prickly Buddhists! You just never can tell what's gonna set them off. I was talking to a friend last night, telling me about his upcoming trip to study Mahamudra teaching with our Guru for two weeks. I actually sensed a little jealousy on my part. I was angry with him because he was getting to do something I can't. How human is that? Proof positive of humanity bleeding through other people's pre-concieved notions as to what a Buddhist is supposed to be like. Luckily I don't give a tinker's damn about that sort of thing, so I just let go of the thought, took a breath and went back to my call.
It is atrocious how Creationists masquerade their dogma as 'science' in their museums, and in this case, the brainchild of science and religion ought to have been aborted, it's despicable.
The meditators who've submitted themselves to Harvard Medical school, Massachussetts General Hospital or Boston University to have their brains studied by fMRI, are they mixing up science and religion? How about Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison using BUDDHIST MONKS gasp instead of lay meditators in their fMRI studies -- now THAT is mixing up religion and science . . . or is it?
Why can't scientific measurement measure anything that can be measured, including so-called religious beliefs?
What science concludes about brains-on-meditation isn't particularly paradigm shifting but apparently meditation has measurable effects on the brain. Should we stop doing that, since meditation is a religious practice? Oh yeah, it's not, for those secular Buddhists! But Matthieu Ricard (sp?) is about as unsecular as it gets and his brain was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison being put through its paces.
So maybe religion and science CAN'T mix it up together and stay sane in some regards, but not all regards. I think we've seen more of the former (the insane) in our lifetimes and the bias is understandable. But here's real science (fwiw) showing supportive data for a 'religious' activity. Oh yeah, I know less about this but they've fMRI'd nuns doing contemplative prayer and found some ways to measure THAT as well, for what it's worth. There is a reproducable effect, which is just the beginning of legitimate exploration for the benefit of humanity.
@Glow Your post captures it all. Thank you for taking the time to explain!
Yeah, that's pretty bad.
It isn't. All tha is is people submitting to tests that measure brain activity. Nobody really cares about the religious aspects, they just want to see what the braain does while the subject is meditating.
Buddhism, isn't concerned with the brain per se. It's concerned with mind. They're different.
Why would you want to?
The reason science doesn't is you can't get a grant to pay for the research.
So it has a measurable effect. Big deal. Buddhist practice focuses on mind, not the brain.
The reproducable effects/benefits of practice has been known for centuries. We don't need "science" to tell us that. Science's approval or confirmation is nice, but hardly necessary.
There are those who seem to think that science is the final arbiter of validation. I guess they can go right on believeing that.
If a scientist hooked your brain up to electrodes and told you were thinking of an elephant, but really you were thinking of a sunset would you believe the doctors and science or would you believe your own experience?
I really doubt the monks (or meditators) give a squat about science 'approving' them or granting them confirmation
either.
But for the sake of others who are not meditators, who are looking into it, this information is valuable. They are the choir in need of the preaching (pardon that).
You mentioned this 'mind not brain' a couple of times in your post. For lack of a better explanation, I lean toward the mind having a significant connection with the brain/body, if for nothing else how easily the mind is influenced by changes in the body/brain up to electronic stimulation of certain parts of the brain, including turning consciousness off by electronic stimulation (during those procedures on the brain while the patient is awake). Granted consciousness isn't equivalent to mind, but somehow depends upon it (??).
So I'm curious how you separate brain/body and mind, genuinely, I personally don't know.
First of all, they wouldn't tell you that.
Second, "your own experience" is not always accurately fathomable, either.
@Jeffrey @vinlyn
In that situation the scientists would say "crap, our equipment/process is wrong, back to the drawing board!".
Leo Tolstoy had an exclusive gang as a child. Entry requirement was to stand in front of the remainder of the gang and NOT think of a blue polar bear.
The image of which has just flashed into your mind, frustratingly.
as it did to all wannabe acolytes of Tolstoy's gang, who betrayed their frustration visually.
For what it's worth (not much these days but it is up and coming), there is a head gear thing that can translate EEG type waves into a kind of shadow of what you are thinking of. It's just past the Ted Talks level if you know what I mean in terms of usefulness, but apparently if you concentrate very hard on a banana the 'shape' of a banana will get translated by this device. How it tastes or your opinion of bananas is another story
.
I just tried to make the point that our own experience is the primary witness. Indeed the scientists would have to go back to the drawing board. It's actually a lojong (mindtraining) slogan and it means to trust your own experience to lead you the way.
Makes sense to me. Even scientists have to use their own subjective experience to try and verify what they hope to be objective evaluations of substantive phenomenal activity.
The brain is physical. The Mind is phenomenal. Thats about as simple as I can explain it.
In Buddhist thought, the mind is the non-phyical phenomenon that percieves, recognizes, reacts and so on. These are activities that are often attributed to the brain. However, Buddhism is skeptical. Experientially there is nothing observable in the brain that thinks. Yes, the brain shows activity during thought and so on, but the question arises, is the brain stimulating itself or reacting to something other than itself? We don't have any device that can show a thought. We have instruments that can detect and even display patterns of energy in the brain, but is this really thought or merely a reaction to it?
In the Dhammapada the Buddha teaches that everything (reality)proceeds from mind. The brain doesn't create reality. It merely responds to it. Because of mind's role in recognition and reaction and it's retaionship to the nidannas, Buddhist teaching focus on mind.
All those tests that monks go through only work with the brain. Fascinating, I'm sure, but the brain plays no role, that we can detect, in the cause of suffering.
Apparently when the Dalai Lama put the notion to scientists and psychologists that it might possibly be that the Mind was creating neural activity, as evidenced by sensors attached to the cranium, as opposed to the brain triggering mental activity, they quite literally could not get their heads round the possibility.....
I've heard that. Institutionally speaking, science can be as deeply entrenched (dogmatic) about the status quo as any religious group.
A case in point .....
Back in the '80s a well-known anthropologist suggested that human movement into North America during the last glacial period, was across icesheets covered with soil, plants an animals that adapted to that environment as dust in the air settled on the ice, built up and eventually supported plants an animals. This was, of course, contrary to prevaailing thought and was met with scorn. People refused to even consider the possibility, because of a dogmatic adherence to the science's status quo.
Science doesn't consider all posibilities and can be just as dogmatic as the most old-school religion.
Who is this Science you speak of? You're characterizing science as a monolithic entity with one hive mind, when the reality is much more nuanced.
Honestly, I am disappointed with this discussion. Straw man after reductionist straw man that does neither Buddhism nor science any justice.
:coffee: Strawmen. Yawn.
>
Who is this Science you speak of?
Who is this Buddhism you speak of?
Science isn't perfect, but there are reasons why it's resistant to change. Take Ptolemy vs. Copernicus... other than the fact that people believed the Earth was the center of the universe, and Roman Catholic Church backlash, Ptolemy's system for figuring out planetary orbits worked. Combined with those other problems, they were very skeptical (or downright belligerent) about Copernicus' completely different model, even though it was much more simple and elegant. Humans in general are resistant to change. Science has a built-in mechanism for error correction and seeking further precision, but "time" is always the issue because Science can't work fast without greatly increasing the chance of error.
Or much more recently, comparatively, Isaac Newton's theory of gravity vs. Albert Einstein's space-time warp... everyone thought Einstein was off his rocker until a novel experiment concerning the bending of light waves around large stellar masses was envisioned and conducted (repeatedly). Science is skeptical, yes, but not to the point of denialism. It's part of the process.
I do not believe this conspiracy theorist model of Science keeping competing theories down or suppressed. I think that's something that scientists who are "off" complain about, because they think their pet theories are actually correct but are unable to present a convincing empirical case. In fact Young Earth Creationists have made this argument, as have Intelligent Design proponents. It's all about being sore that you can't prove something and it's not accepted by "mainstream" Science. That's not to say Science doesn't have its problems, but it doesn't ignore demonstrable evidence or repeatable experiments that fly in the face of everything it thinks it knows. All the great leaps in Science look to finding some simple explanation that makes everything that much clearer.
Rupert Sheldrake is the name I was trying to remember. I read a book of his called "Science Set Free", where he went on and on about Science being dogmatic because it wouldn't accept his "Morphogenetic Field Theory". The book was recommended by Deepak Chopra, before I had begun to notice Deepak's own "woo" use of Science (particularly quantum theory, which is enigmatic enough without twisting it for spiritual congruence).
You're not getting it. Science is a process or methodology. Buddhism is a life path. People practice science. People practice Buddhism. Neither science nor Buddhism can "consider" anything or cling to anything in a "dogmatic" fashion. An individual who practices science or Buddhism can do those things, however, but neither science nor Buddhism have any self-entity that would make your statement in any way sensible.
The scientific community as a whole is characterized by many diverse people in diverse professions doing diverse work who hold a diverse array of perspectives. I think you greatly mischaracterized what probably happened in your example. What happened when your aforementioned anthropologist posited his theory about movement into North America? Exactly what is meant to happen in science: the peer review process. Some people challenged it. Others took the theory on and tested it using archaeological methods. Eventually this initial theory was probably refined and elaborated on. There is indeed a certain inertia in consensus, but that inertia dissolves once enough evidence is found to move minds. You expected the scientific community to take this lone anthropologist's hypothesis uncritically and with no resistance? That makes no sense to me.
I use the word "probably" because I don't actually know whom this "well-known anthropologist" you refer to is. Similar theories about the inhabitation of the Americas have been around for centuries and have been subjected to research and study for quite a long time. I agree with @AldrisTorvalds. The version of science being spoken of here reflects a deep misunderstanding of science and how it functions and what the process entails.
Your statement is innaccurate. Buddhism is a process and methodology. "Path" is merely a metaphor but to walk a path is a process, you start at one point and progress to the next. There are many methodologies involved - Vajrayana, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Ngondro, Lam Rim, Shamatha, Lojong, Tonglen and others - and that's just Tibet. To say otherwise, would cause me to question how deep your knowledge of Buddhism actually goes.
This particular episode was over 20 years ago. I forget the guy's name. Taught at Wisconsin/Millwaukee for a while. The name Griffith comes to mind, but I'm not sure.
But, unless you require chapter/verse, what happened was far more important than who it happened to.
Speaking of falacies ......
That strikes me as a No True Scotsman argument.
I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying "science is a A" and "Buddhism is B" and that "A and B are mutually exclusive." I was saying "science is A" and "Buddhism is B" and that "both A and B are things that lack self-entity that would allow them to collectively hold a single, monolithic perspective or cling to dogma." Do you see what I am saying?
I can't find anything from some cursory Googling. I simply asked for a lead on the situation in question or the name of this anthropologist because your characterization of the situation strikes me as highly uncharacteristic of the scientists I worked with in my research years and those that I know or even what I know of the scientific community as a whole. If you provided the anthropologist's name, I could have looked it up to see if your version of "what happened" actually reflects what happened.
No. Questioning your understanding of science because your characterization of the aforementioned situation completely ignores the nature of the peer review process does not constitute a No True Scotsman fallacy. What would constitute such a fallacy would be that "no REAL scientist would ever be caught dead exhibiting such unseemly and stubborn behavior" <-- which is something I never said and fully admit happens even in the post you just quoted.