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Tyson truth time: Guy is not a philosopher

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From apologist Nick Peters, here:

Now Tyson could say that science can be done repeatedly in experiments so we can test a truth claim. Indeed it can and this is something that is unique, but it still doesn’t lend support to his earlier claim. This is just one way that distinguishes science but it doesn’t distinguish the nature of the claims themselves. All claims about reality that are true are true whether they’re believed in or not.

The real problem is a sort of scientism here that science is the highest way of knowing truth and sometimes the only way of knowing truth. Both of these should be rejected by everyone. Now if materialism was true and everything that was in the universe was matter, then you could perhaps have a start of a case, but that is not known through science. That is known by doing philosophy instead.

Good educator but not a philosopher of science.

Science provides information; it does not tell us how to interpret findings. That’s what philosophy does. In case anyone wondered.

Comments
What's incredible here is that neil tyson sits on his high throne and lectures us about how only science can uncover truth and the proceeds to used a metaphysical bad design argument to disprove God and intellgent design lolol. His bad design argument is without a doubt the worst argument I have ever seen. As William Lane Criag has repeatedly said Philosophy precedes science and nothing could ever be so truewallstreeter43
June 9, 2014
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In a nutshell... so many brilliant people posting here with a 'tin ear' for 'spin', and the uses and abuses of language, not directly germane to a scientific treatise.Axel
June 9, 2014
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'I find it interesting that this article talks about a meme, a term that was coined by Richard Dawkins.' I find that regrettable, Humphrey. So many brilliant people on here seem quite insensitive to 'spin' and the power of propaganda. That is giving Dawkins 'oxygen', he should be very firmly denied. It also appalls me that I so seldom see the word, 'paradox' on this forum and the various linked, associated sites, since paradoxes are absolutely lethal to the narcissistic pretensions of atheists to be 'rationalists' in a world benighted by religious superstition and mumbo jumbo. They sidle round the issue by referring to paradoxes (without use of the term) as being, 'counter-intuitive'! This, mark you, while the remorseless proliferation of paradoxes, concepts absolutely repugnant to reason, known in Christianity as 'mysteries', has, for an awful long time, been gathering a rare head of steam in both quantum physics and astro-physics. Such lethal pressure-points should be belaboured, however discreetly, to the embarrassment and ultimately the political cost of the adversary.Axel
June 9, 2014
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Like all materialists, Tyson is a preacher man, a purveyor of materialist propaganda, a weaver of lies and deception. He uses the cloak of science to hide the fact that he's just a religionist. This way, their religion can get free money from the taxpayer even though this is expressly forbidden by the constitutions of most Western countries. Materialists should be forcefully yanked from the public trough and forced to raise money through donations just like all other religionists.Mapou
June 9, 2014
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Science is done by human beings, so is subject to all the ideas and assumptions of human beings. Many times the observations, no matter how well done, may be interpreted in different ways. Which way often depends on philosophical ideas. For instance, epicycles could explain orbital observations and were preferred due to the philosophical commitment to circles as "perfect" whereas ellipses were not. Or materialist commitments today which force science to conclude that fine-tuning is an illusion, despite overwhelming evidence, and that the sudden appearance of most of the animal phyla must be an illusion, and that the growing evidence of fantastically intertwined information systems in life can be explained by totally unobserved material processes. Without an a priori commitment to materialism, "science" would come to very different conclusions based on the evidence.anthropic
June 9, 2014
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Bad science and bad philosophy Ab.humbled
June 9, 2014
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I find it interesting that this article talks about a meme, a term that was coined by Richard Dawkins. Science deals with objective evidence (truth, in the non-religious sense). In its ideal form (not always achieved, because the people who do science ore human) science is objective and non-judegmental. It only asks "how?", not "why?", or "for what purpose?". That is the realm of philosophers. The theory of natural selection is the science. It did not cause the holocaust or eugenics. Philosophy is responsible for those. In the same way that physics didn't cause Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was the philosophical application of the physics. These are examples off bad philosophy, not bad science.Acartia_bogart
June 9, 2014
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Thank you for linking to my article!Nick Peters
June 9, 2014
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