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To: GLDNGUN
Good questions. You'll have to ask someone who believes that ideas "are nothing but tools that have evolved to help us control and manipulate the environment."

Nice try at sliding out. You appear to think that science is failing in its "duty" to provide truth, in the quest for "usefulness". (Either that or the entire screed you posted was a wordy irrelevance). So please explain how we should try and identify what is true, rather than what is useful. Science pursues what is useful on the assumption that "truth" and "usefulness" amount to the same thing. If that assumption is wrong explain the better methodology that would arrive at truth, rather than usefulness.

647 posted on 02/01/2006 2:07:06 PM PST by Thatcherite (More abrasive blackguard than SeaLion or ModernMan)
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To: Thatcherite; GLDNGUN
Science pursues what is useful on the assumption that "truth" and "usefulness" amount to the same thing.

Hmmm, that's rather strong. I'd put it differently. Science pursues useful knowledge rather than truth because the latter is unknowable in any practical way (perhaps it is even unknowable in principle). OTOH, history makes clear that the methods of modern science do produce useful and reliable knowledge about the world.

653 posted on 02/01/2006 2:18:52 PM PST by edsheppa
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To: Thatcherite
You appear to think that science is failing in its "duty" to provide truth, in the quest for "usefulness".

No, the Darwinists that have taken the theory to its ultimate logical conclusion have decided that there is no such thing as "truth". Do I believe in absolute truths? Absolutely.

Science pursues what is useful on the assumption that "truth" and "usefulness" amount to the same thing.

Again, the Darwinisits described don't believe in absolute truths, only "usefulness".

656 posted on 02/01/2006 2:35:14 PM PST by GLDNGUN
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To: Thatcherite
Science pursues what is useful on the assumption that "truth" and "usefulness" amount to the same thing. If that assumption is wrong explain the better methodology that would arrive at truth, rather than usefulness.

Wrong. Science pursues (1) what scientists are interested in and (2) that which is funded or that which they can sneak into the research time (or fund themselves).

Funding/government agencies may fund that which they think is useful (and may expect results), but I have yet to meet a scientist pursuing some nebulous "truth."

The ones I have met are usually trying to "just figger something out."

I have heard "Oops, gotta go. Bye!" more times that I can count.

I can imagine what they are really thinking: "Lemme alone, I almost got it here! Another year should do it!"

I suspect both "truth" and "usefulness" are by-products of the inquisitive mind.

715 posted on 02/01/2006 8:04:28 PM PST by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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