Another excellent essay. Once in a while I read something that gives me an idea for a course of the kind I used to be able to teach, and this "putative war," as you call it, would have made a great theme for a set of readings and discussions. Every time I see one of those "We believe . . . science is real" signs around, I smile to myself. These folks have no idea what they are saying. Thanks for your work.
Sadly, Allen, I'm finding too many working scientists who talk this way. The spirit of science seems dead... and just when we need it the most.
Agreed about the teaching bit. I'd love to put together a seminar on this stuff for a mixed group of science and humanities students. They'd love it! But all you'd need is one rotten egg and you'd find yourself accused of some craziness and that would be the end of you.
Absolutely, an excellent account! Nietzsche saw this so clearly, which is why he has never been popular with the 'New Atheists' despite having that apparently ready-made polemic in the form of the much-misunderstood cry that "God is dead".
The Gay Science, Book V, section 343: "But you will have gathered what I am driving at, namely, that it is still a metaphysical faith upon which our faith in science rests—that even we seekers after knowledge today, we godless ones and anti-metaphysicians still take our fire, too, from the flame lit by a faith that is thousands of years old, that Christian faith which was also the faith of Plato, that God is the truth, that truth is divine."
Wondering if you might write a piece on the misunderstood Nietzsche statement. I'm finding hungry folk out there who don't know anything about this subject, or that Nietzsche even said "God is dead." A 101 piece on the statement, what's been made of it, by whom, and what the original context was would be fantastic.
I would love to write this for you, but January is swamped with client work (thankfully I have Stranger Worlds stocked up through to the end of February already). I'll have to give you a raincheck for now. Since the Nietzsche book in question was written in 1882, I figure this is a topic that can wait a little longer. 😋
Another excellent essay. Once in a while I read something that gives me an idea for a course of the kind I used to be able to teach, and this "putative war," as you call it, would have made a great theme for a set of readings and discussions. Every time I see one of those "We believe . . . science is real" signs around, I smile to myself. These folks have no idea what they are saying. Thanks for your work.
Sadly, Allen, I'm finding too many working scientists who talk this way. The spirit of science seems dead... and just when we need it the most.
Agreed about the teaching bit. I'd love to put together a seminar on this stuff for a mixed group of science and humanities students. They'd love it! But all you'd need is one rotten egg and you'd find yourself accused of some craziness and that would be the end of you.
Absolutely, an excellent account! Nietzsche saw this so clearly, which is why he has never been popular with the 'New Atheists' despite having that apparently ready-made polemic in the form of the much-misunderstood cry that "God is dead".
The Gay Science, Book V, section 343: "But you will have gathered what I am driving at, namely, that it is still a metaphysical faith upon which our faith in science rests—that even we seekers after knowledge today, we godless ones and anti-metaphysicians still take our fire, too, from the flame lit by a faith that is thousands of years old, that Christian faith which was also the faith of Plato, that God is the truth, that truth is divine."
Wondering if you might write a piece on the misunderstood Nietzsche statement. I'm finding hungry folk out there who don't know anything about this subject, or that Nietzsche even said "God is dead." A 101 piece on the statement, what's been made of it, by whom, and what the original context was would be fantastic.
I would love to write this for you, but January is swamped with client work (thankfully I have Stranger Worlds stocked up through to the end of February already). I'll have to give you a raincheck for now. Since the Nietzsche book in question was written in 1882, I figure this is a topic that can wait a little longer. 😋
Stay wonderful!