A philosopher, introducing his new book, The Workshop and the World: What Ten Thinkers Can Teach Us About Science and Authority, begins with an attack on the apostle Paul. Sure, that’ll help:
Hanging in the Louvre Museum in Paris is an imposing painting, The Preaching of St Paul at Ephesus. In this 1649 work by Eustache Le Sueur, the fiery apostle lifts his right hand as if scolding the audience, while clutching a book of scripture in his left. Among the rapt or fearful listeners are people busily throwing books into a fire. Look carefully, and you see geometric images on some of the pages.Robert P. Crease, “The rise and fall of scientific authority — and how to bring it back” at Nature
Paul is, of course, responsible for what someone painted over 1500 years later. For the record, St. Paul was a learned man but counted it all loss compared to believing that his sins were forgiven in Christ. Blaise Pascal had a similar experience. It’s not rare. Anyway, now that our author thinks he has established a common bond with his audience, he goes on to say,
Today, St Paul is making a comeback: the authority of science is again under attack. In areas of national and global consequence — from climate to medicine —political leaders feel confident that they can reject scientific claims, substituting myths and cherry-picked facts. I have spent five years investigating why this has happened and what can be done. Robert P. Crease, “The rise and fall of scientific authority — and how to bring it back” at Nature
Well, if Dr. Crease has not yet tumbled to the idea of avoiding dragging in historical figures who are, in reality, unrelated to the immediate problem, we can only wonder what solutions he will propose. He tells us that “Science denial, however, is like crime: combating it requires both short-term and long-term strategies.”
A friend offers a summary of the strategies implied by his comments:
- “Preaching, denouncing or shouting ‘Science works!’ won’t help. Neither will
throwing around statistics, graphs and charts.” He’s right, but it doesn’t follow that facts don’t convince anyone. When important, well-known facts are omitted from a discussion, their signal can be louder than the permitted signals.
- “If the entire range of such vulnerabilities is not understood, attacking science denial is a frustrating game of whack-a-mole: it simply crops up elsewhere. To curb it, we have to comprehend what makes the whack-a-mole machine tick.” The metaphor of pointless conflict makes clear that the author does not come prepared to listen or learn anything; a bad beginning to a discussion between parties in conflict.
- “Contemporary science deniers have not one (religious) motive, but many — greed, fear, bias, convenience, profits, politics — to which they cling with various degrees of sincerity and cynicism.” Like all attacks on motives, this one causes a thoughtful reader to wonder about the author’s own co-belligerents’ motives. Given that they make a living out of science, would’;t many of them have roughly the same motives. It doesn;t hbear either way on who is more correct on the facts.
- “Science denial, however, is like crime: combating it requires both short-term and long-term strategies.” Implying that “science denial” is like crime could translate roughly as “It is a crime to disagree with my faction’s positions.” That approach has a history.
- “Only by retelling that story — of how the authority of the scientific workshop was promoted, attacked, defended, coupled with society and then diminished — can we have an idea of how to respond when it decouples.” Offhand, it sounds as though Crease is trying to make his patriotic history of science into a popular legend. But he has certainly gone about it the wrong way.
Dr. Crease certainly serves a purpose. Listening to him helps us understand why so many people doubt orthodox science.
Sadly, there is a war on science, of sorts, afoot. Social justice warriors, for example, are taking dead aim at math. And at objectivity generally. It’s as if, unable or unwilling to even name, let alone withstand the threat, establishment science types hope to distract themselves with a different story until it goes away. Good luck with that. They see you have funding. And they always need more money.
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See also: The war on math,
and
Which side will atheists choose in the war on science? They need to re-evaluate their alliance with progressivism, which is doing science no favours.
“the authority of science is again under attack.”???
Huh?
Science was under attack -and lost- when a famous Briton made a misleading extrapolation of observed biological adaptation onto macroevolution, sold it as a scientific thing and the world bought it while smiling cluelessly. Shame on us humans! Shame on us.
It’s long due to dump all that outdated pseudoscience into the history trash bin for good.
“Hanging in the Louvre Museum in Paris is an imposing painting, The Preaching of St Paul at Ephesus. In this 1649 work by Eustache Le Sueur, the fiery apostle lifts his right hand as if scolding the audience, while clutching a book of scripture in his left. Among the rapt or fearful listeners are people busily throwing books into a fire. Look carefully, and you see geometric images on some of the pages.”
“throwing books into a fire”?
“books”?
In the first century? Really?
Is this author serious?
Basing an important historical conclusion on a painting?
PeterA, yes, those books do have a 17th century look to them. For one thing, they seem to be printed books. But if you are a philosopher of science, you don’t need to distinguish between Paul, as known to us from his Letters and Acts of the Apostles, and a seventeenth-century artist with a commission. People are supposed to believe him on authority without noticing those kinds of things or asking too many questions.
Yes, agree.
as to:
His claim that Paul the apostle was a ‘fiery preacher’ who was against science and wanted to burn books is to have a severely distorted view of Paul the apostle.
First off, modern science did not even exist in the first century, but modern science only became possible in medieval Europe when the presuppositions held within Christianity, (i.e. of a rational universe created by a rational God, a universe that could dare be understood rational creatures that were ‘made in His image’), had finally come to dominate the entire medieval European culture.
Moreover, prior to Paul’s Damascus road conversion, Paul was indeed an intolerant religious zealot who sought to put to death anyone who disagreed with him:
But after Paul ‘saw the light’, Paul’s demeanor radically changed.
After his conversion, instead of Paul being a “fiery preacher” who wanted to destroy anyone who dared disagree with him, Paul basically became an intellectual geek who challenged his listeners to “test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good.”
Indeed the scriptures themselves say of Paul “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.”
Far from Paul persecuting people, Paul would debate his opponents powerfully refuting his opponents until his opponents would finally often be the very ones who themselves would seek to destroy Paul.
Thus his claim that Paul the apostle was a ‘fiery preacher’ who was against science and wanted to burn books is to have a severely distorted view of who Paul the apostle actually was.
If anyone is against the free discourse necessary for science, the author in the OP need not look any further than his own cadre who, besides character assassination of those who disagree with them, seek to censor and “Expel” anyone who dares disagree with them that all life on earth is the result of Mindless Darwinian processes.