Cognitive Thrift 7 – Faith and Science
Scott Douglas Jacobsen & Rick Rosner
May 12, 2017
[Beginning of recorded material]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: That sounds like an anthropomorphism and a teleological view tied together that then becomes the lens through which the taxonomical classifications are had or made and the process itself is done.
Rick Rosner: You might be able to argue that all science begins with faith and religion and mystical beliefs. Chemistry comes out of alchemy. Periodic table, you could probably draw its lineage back to alchemy. Newton, arguably our greatest physicist, spent more time on analyzing the Bible than he did on math and physics. Einstein, deep spiritual feelings. It’s only lately and – I mean -it’s not just lately.
Religion and science and unsubstantiated beliefs don’t have to be at cross-purposes. They can inform each other.
In current times in America, when people put religion at cross-purposes to science, a lot of that is shysters exploiting faith for creepy self-serving purposes. Conservative think-tanks, corporatist think-tanks, over the last 35-40 years have spent many hundreds of millions of dollars learning how, learning which voters can be easily moved and learning how to move them.
One of the techniques they’ve learned is to exploit religious faith, which means you have – you know- religious people being used for non-religious purposes. And after decades of this, it seems to natural that fundamentalist people should be anti-science and at least some of that anti-science has been cynically drummed into them by people who are trying to exploit them.
And in an earlier time, 1950s, say, science and religion could more peaceably co-exist with each other, which isn’t a bad way for things to be. Faith offers benefits to people without necessarily impeding change. It is only when faith is cynically exploited that – it’s not only – but it’s often when faith is cynically exploited that faith is used for obstructive and cynical, and non-humanistic purposes. Anyway, that’s what I got.
[End of recorded material]
Authors[1]
Rick Rosner
American Television Writer
Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Editor-in-Chief, In-Sight Publishing
Endnotes
[1] Four format points for the session article:
- Bold text following “Scott Douglas Jacobsen:” or “Jacobsen:” is Scott Douglas Jacobsen & non-bold text following “Rick Rosner:” or “Rosner:” is Rick Rosner.
- Session article conducted, transcribed, edited, formatted, and published by Scott.
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For further information on the formatting guidelines incorporated into this document, please see the following documents:
- American Psychological Association. (2010). Citation Guide: APA. Retrieved from http://www.lib.sfu.ca/system/files/28281/APA6CitationGuideSFUv3.pdf.
- Humble, A. (n.d.). Guide to Transcribing. Retrieved from http://www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/Transcription%20Guide.pdf.
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Rick Rosner 