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However, the scientific method can properly be termed methodological materialism, in that the methods of science presume natural materialistic causes. It's not that there are no non-materialist causes, only that science cannot study them.
Of course, that's just a statement about the methods and says nothing about reality.
About consciousness, there does not seem to be any evidence for the so-called ghost in the machine. I suppose one can claim something special there, but there certainly is no evidence that it is anything special or that there's any upward movement. And the neurological research looks pretty firm that consciousness is what a brain does. All animals probably do it, although that is difficult to study.
And also, these discussions inevitably collide head-on into the demarcation problem. What is science and pseudoscience? Treacherous territory there, except in the lounges of philosophy departments. 
I don't know anybody who practices science that does not practice methodological materialism. But I am being a pedant about terminology here.
Whether he is also a philosophical materialist, I would doubt.
Yes, he sometimes says things without thinking them through, and he's a rather a bit of a rabble rouser when it comes to religion. But when he talks or writes about science, he is firmly in the column of a methodological materialist.
People misjudge Dawkins because they often have never read a word about what he has written about biology. That's how they get away with painting him as some kind of scoundrel, or something.
Well, mainstream science took us to the moon, and cured smallpox (and will soon rid the world of polio), and built the Large Hadron Collider, and built the Internet -- the WWW was invented at CERN, just like the LHC was -- that people use to post here.
I am a firm supporter of mainstream science. It delivers the goods, as Carl Sagan said.
The core of science is methodological naturalism (or materialism, if you wish). I'll stick with that.
Thanks for the reply.
Much obliged.
Science is a wondrous thing, I don't doubt that for one second. All I'm saying is that sometimes, the establishment can sometimes be hampered by personal biases; after all, they're only human. Regardless, I think you and I can both agree that whatever mistakes may occasionally be made, that science has still done an immeasurable amount of good for humanity, without a doubt.
The religious, and other non-materialists, make claims for physical interventions all the time. As Stenger points out, if that were happening science would be studying those very things. Just the fact that there are no such observations is indeed a strong indication that they do not exist. Of course, Stenger extends this to god does not exist -- at least not the theist god, which intervenes in the physical universe. That's putting it simply, but you get the idea.
BTW, in spite of what people claim, Stenger's the only prominent atheist I've heard actually claiming such a disproof of gods. That, in spite of what many people claim of other atheists.
I love discussing these topics.
I'd love to hear from you - by PM if you like. You know... where, when, how much.
There's a weird kind of kinship that I feel when reading posts like yours.
Like Derek Jarman made Wittgenstein say in his movie: "This is dangerous stuff. Get out while you still can."
There's something fundamentally appealing (to me) about people that can't seem to follow that advice...
I'm not smart beyond my years - I've just been fortunate to know a lot of interesting people who have demonstrated to me how limited my knowledge truly is - and who made me interested in finding out about various things - within my limited ability to understand them. true.
I'm a hater of jargon - so, right there, I'm an enemy of academia in some respects. LOL.
Maybe my rebellious nature has served me well sometimes - others - not so much. Society has been my enemy as often as my friend, and maybe more so, depending on the society. One reason I have had so many male friends during my life is that I never fitted in with what I was supposed to think. It's been one of the joys of life.
I feel kinship with others who have similar frames of mind, tho, no doubt.
That would make me feel miserable You'd certainly deserve one. I was genuinely impressed.
Last edited Sun Apr 20, 2014, 05:43 PM - Edit history (1)
Tony Tweedale, a scientist, researcher and commentator I respect greatly wrote: "About 40 years ago, a toxicity protocol that was called Good Laboratory Practices (or "GLP" came about and was mandated by the FDA. This happened after gross laboratory frauds by life science and petrochemical companies occurred. So GLP imposes simple record keeping chain of custody and test data standardization requirements on toxicology laboratories."
Most Americans remain in the dark about all the many games that are played by the American Corporate "safety" experts and investigators, even as they purport to follow the GLP..
One failure is the simple failure of the Huge Big Pocketed Organization, such as Monnato, to properly disclose the ingredients in a product. (In other words, the lies, and the damn lies that come from Industry-sponsored scientists.) America's EPA is the only agency in charge of licensing corporate products that does not now and probably never will in the future run a full gas spectrometric assessment of ingredients. If Monsanto says Product X contains only glyphosate and water, then the EPA says, "Thanks so much, Boys, for telling us that."
Then decades later the public comes to find out that formaldehyde is contained as well. (Although over the last fifteen years, it is possible that another aldehyde is in place of the formaldehyde.) One organic chemist I know had a slap to the forehead "Duh" moment when realizing that formaldehyde had been contained in the original formulation of Roundup: "After all, Carol, without an aldheyde of some kind, the glyphosate in RoundUp would remain in cake form, and the product would not be sprayable."
Also, it is well worth noting that one of the things other nations do in order to protect their citizenry's health is that their EPA-equivalent agency actually does run these gas spectrometric assessments, or other equivalent assessments of a product's actual ingredients. That way when the government is lied to, the government knows it! But we don't even do that.
Then the second thing that is done is this: we let the manufacturer devise the tests and run the tests that prove the safety of their product. Conflict of interest, anyone? yes our EPA lets the company itself do the testing of a product's safety and then provide those results to the EPA. Does anyone else here think maybe that means that the tests that are devised, the protocols etc - all of that can be devised to the Industry's liking so that Industry might devise a test that totally allows the product to escape being tested for the actual dangers.
Example: when glyphosate had to be tested for its safety, regarding RoundUp, the Monsanto scientists decided to have dogs drink water that had been substantially laced with glyphosate. The dogs all lived. But in reality, very few pet owners go out and buy RoundUp and liberally pour it into their dog's drinking water. The real test of the product's safety would have examined the dogs who had been sprayed with the product. Of course, Monsanto's scientists and advisers knew full well that the acids secreted in the stomach linings of the affected dogs would help the dogs survive the drinking water test. But had the dog's been sprayed, and examined after a suitable time, the lungs have no capacity to absorb the product and the results would have been different. (Especially true statement if Monsanto had been required to test all the ingredients in the product and not simply the glyphosate! But the POEA, which breaks down into formaldehyde and an aldehyde as well, as per the actual formulation)
But if the company had doen that, they probably would have jimmied with the time factor. For instance, when BP wanted to have a product used for oil dispersement on the troubled oil-drenched waters of the Gulf, the EPA had fish set up in a tank whe e the oil dissolving product was used. Then the fish were released one week alter, and all were reported to be in good health.
However one very ambitious EPA worker kept a tanks of fish for an additional two weeks, and within that time, all the fish died.
So which is woo? The ambitious EPA researcher who kept the fish longer, or the EPA workers who conformed by the protocols of the testing that was done in accordance with BP's wishes? (The product that dispersed oil was a product that BP was about to make a lot of money on!)
Additionally, the Big Corporate TakeOver of agencies like FDA and EPA mean that indie researcher are continually asked for their raw data before they have even finished their tests. But, of course, double standards apply. Big Corporate "scientists" are allowed as much time as (or as little time as) they want, they offset the risk to benefit factors by purging data that doesn't meet their requirement and numerous other manners and methods of jimmying the data exist. All that is accepted by the Media and by those agencies allied with Big Industry.
Tony Tweedale points out that additionally: "industry's toxicity studies have failed to modernize in over 100 years, still relying on the visible light microscope to see gross changes in slides of organ tissues. Many biological end points are ignored, and the standards on dosing and and test animals have not advance d nearly as far as those of independent researchers. Very high does are used to assure statistical significance, due to insensitivity of the assays, but such near poisoning levels may have little to do with what happens to organisms that are exposed to smaller, real world doses. Also, the dosing is missing the complexity of development, the cause of many diseases. Lastly, test animals are killed before o0ld age, masking most developing diseases. In short, the GLP manner of testing uses protocols that cannot find the toxicity."
BTW, Tweedale has given up working here in the all too often corrupted laboratories of American, corporate owned Laboratories. He now works in Europe.
On edit: here is all of Tweedale's abstract that I utilized in this reply. Sections I did not quote are even better than the ones I did. http://jech.bmj.com/content/65/6/475.extract
You do realize the rewording you did there not only negates your post that "nukes are safe" is woo, but in fact puts the anti-nuclear fringe in the category of predatory pseudoscience pushers that the paragraph actually addresses...right?
Oh God, wouldn't be a science thread without one of those spectacular fails.
Please continue! Maybe tell us how we don't "grok" how acorns work.
Bonus points if you can cite ENENews.
Though I must subtract points for alleging plagiarism without any sort of evidence.