Wrong enough that the total number of people killed by science’s wrong answers exceeds all the people estimated by historians to have been killed in all the Inquisitions and Crusades combined.

Citations, please – and exactly how are you defining “killed by science’s wrong answers”?

Some of us don’t trust our children with you, because we saw the Thalidomide babies and the Lexapro suicides. Scientists have behaved like the Buchanans in the Great Gatsby: “too careless” with their belongings, who are in fact other people.

Actually, study protocols have been revised after both of those mistakes, as have the protocols for clearing a drug for market. There’s work now on improving the reporting and tracking system after drugs hit the market, too.

If scientists had to participate in each others’ experiments, would Milgram’s experiment have happened?

As I’ve pointed out before, no population has ever been studied in as much detail as medical and psychology students. That’s how they recruit a huge number of subjects.

Wrong enough that the total number of people killed by science’s wrong answers exceeds all the people estimated by historians to have been killed in all the Inquisitions and Crusades combined.

All the spin in the world doesn’t change the fact that sophistry only goes so far. Science has relied too heavily on spin and on justifications for decades. The trick of simply “disappearing” the mistakes is not working any more.. What used to be respect is sinking into contempt, and it’s only going to get worse.

Some of us don’t trust our children with you, because we saw the Thalidomide babies and the Lexapro suicides. Scientists have behaved like the Buchanans in the Great Gatsby: “too careless” with their belongings, who are in fact other people.

If scientists had to participate in each others’ experiments, would Milgram’s experiment have happened?

I think not.

There’s still a great big glaring “and then a miracle occurred” right in between steps 3 and 4.

I’ve provided links to concrete examples of putatively non-material things being found to be material. E.g. http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/universe/211420/the-perimeter-of-ignorance
http://ingles.homeunix.net/rants/atheism/haldane.html

You’ve finally coughed up an example that you consider to be something else – consciousness.

True, we don’t understand it yet. But considering the above track record, I’m leery of asserting that science can’t ever get a handle on it.

Indeed, come to think of it, you haven’t explained to me how you tell the difference between something understandable and something ‘forever unknowable’. Any chance you could elaborate on that?

…you forget that science is wrong more often than it is right.

How wrong?

No they don’t.

They keep getting better at constructing arguments to support their hypothesis, but they haven’t found any real “proof” that things like consciousness are material.

There’s still a great big glaring “and then a miracle occurred” right in between steps 3 and 4. As science grows more politicized and partisan, scientists dedicate more and more time and effort to explaining over what they cannot explain honestly. But at the heart of all the really big debates – including the origins of the universe and the teeny tiny particles – there’s still just assumptions – masquerading as fact.

BTW you suffer from a cognitive bias: you forget that science is wrong more often than it is right.

The problem here is that you are assuming that a thing should be presumed to be true or false until it is disproved.

I know you hate Ockham’s Razor, but a case can be made that material+supernatural is more complicated than material.

In any case, early science didn’t assume the only things out there were material. There’s a long history of eliminating non-material explanations of things – e.g. vitalism – because they were found after the fact not to be necessary.

But we’ve gone for a long time now, and we keep finding that things that were confidently asserted to be non-material have turned out to be… material. I don’t think it’s all that silly to have material explanations as a default, since that’s been so fruitful. Especially when, as I’ve noted, solid evidence would be sufficient to disprove the idea.

The problem here is that you are assuming that a thing should be presumed to be true or false until it is disproved.

Nothing should be presumed one way or the other until there is real evidence one way or the other. To say that a hypothesis should be proved true until disproven is logical enough if there is evidence supporting its proof, but not if there is no evidence.

Science has a big – and growing – credibility problem, because we now have the ability to sort information according to more or less probable, but the scientific community continues to treat probable and improbable information as if it were all equal, according to a scientific method that was cutting edge a few centuries ago – but is now in need of an update.

It “requires” the phenomena it studies to have observable effects, but it presumes that any phenomena it studies is either material or a result of something material…

Still, that could be disproved. Or are you saying that the immaterial has no observable effect on the material?

“Just today First Things contributor Dr. Barr pointed out that science doesn’t need determinism, either. It just requires that the phenomena it studies have observable effects.”

Science still presumes materialism.

It “requires” the phenomena it studies to have observable effects, but it presumes that any phenomena it studies is either material or a result of something material (for instance, the “emergent property” argument, which says that all obviously non-material things are somehow properties of material things – and then works to figure out how)

In the metaphysical argument that Aquinas is making, [causality] does not [require time]. You again are thinking of physics instead of metaphysics.

No, I’ve addressed ‘metaphysics’ as well. I’m not willing to grant some of Aquinas’ presuppositions about metaphysics. And I’ve even given a solid justification – we have no such thing as ‘experimental metaphysics’, and no way to test our reasoning in such an area.

Since I’ve already pointed out how terrible we are at ‘mere’ physics without recourse to experiment and hypothesis-testing, why would we not be equally handicapped in the metaphysics department?

(Oh, and the whole teleological framework that Aquinas inherited from Aristotle et. al. – which informs the understanding of ‘motion’ and so forth – has some fundamental issues as well. The very assumption that everything must have a final cause (and why only one?) is problematic.)

As I am truly beginning to be concerned for your psychological/emotional well-being, I must refrain from further indulging your obsession and use that time and energy to offer a prayer for your health and deliverance.

I must say, I’ve seldom been insulted in such a solicitous manner. Enjoying a discussion isn’t quite the same thing as ‘obsession’. (You might find this C. S. Lewis essay worthy of reflection: http://www.barking-moonbat.com/God_in_the_Dock.html )

Hope your weekend was safe and enjoyable.

Again, your words in italics, my replies in plain text:

And, again going by relativity, then conclusion or assumption, the idea that “per se infinite regress is impossible” is thrown into serious doubt by relativity.

Again, Aquinas was not making a physical argument, but a metaphysical one. As Aquinas is actually talking about “motion” (the concept of what he means by this term is different from the modern sense of the word) as though it is outside of time, invoking relativity (or arguments from modern physics in general) against it only (again) shows that you do not understand his argument.

If you would like to claim that his conclusion about per se infinite regress is invalid, you would have to actually address his argument, and point out the fault. Of course this you have not done, and indeed you appear unwilling to take the time to do so. Your only demonstrated interest in Aquinas and understanding his arguments stops precisely at the point you think you can dismiss them, by whatever means possible, whether applicable or not.

Either way has problems. Causality as we understand it requires time.

In the metaphysical argument that Aquinas is making, it does not. You again are thinking of physics instead of metaphysics.

Ah, but in that case the first two effectively devolve into special cases of the third, the contingency argument. I’ve already pointed out issues with eternality and causality, but there’s a more fundamental problem – can you explain how mass/energy does not fulfill every test we could imagine for something eternal? We’ve never seen it be created or destroyed…

So far, you’ve demonstrated no “problems” with Aquinas’ arguments, only your lack of understanding their nature and terminology, and your inability to distinguish physics from metaphysics. As for your “fundamental problem”, why don’t you track down Dr. Barr? You can write him an email through the FirstThings.com site, you know. I only hope your understanding of physics is better than your demonstrated understanding of Aquinas.

And that’s assuming that the principle that ‘nothing can come from nothing’ is really accurate, which QM at least casts into suspicion.

Dr. Barr would disagree with you about QM’s ability to do any such thing. Instead of cribbing from his work, I’ll let you do what you have neglected to do with Aquinas, and actually research, engage, evaluate, and then critique his arguments.

It is rather difficult to engage with someone on a topic with an individual as obsessed on that topic as you are; accounting for 22 comments in a (currently) 48-comment thread is not healthy behavior. As I am truly beginning to be concerned for your psychological/emotional well-being, I must refrain from further indulging your obsession and use that time and energy to offer a prayer for your health and deliverance.

Take care,

JB