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Rob Kay's avatar

Thoughtful and incisive.

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Tim's avatar

I like this article very much, thank you.

I would go further and observe that science as a way of thinking must be subject to the Logos, that is the Word of God in the Person of Jesus Christ. The very earliest scientific thinkers were convinced of this (Francis Bacon and the Novum Organum, for example). This connection is now forgotten - the celebrity christian scientists (like Francis Collins) are clueless about it and have pursued research that is both dangerous and junk.

Once science is adrift from the Logos, then it has neither purpose nor ethical constraint and the the outworking results in junk science or dangerous science. I wrote a substack article on "Science and the Mystery of Lawlessness" which begins to explore this.

So the remedy is not liberal arts per se, but rather a repentance that brings our science back into alignment with the Logos. Eschatologically, this is unlikely.

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Fathom Five's avatar

You’re absolutely right. Christianity in fact aided science, for it teaches that the world is not only divinely ordered in accordance with reason, but also discoverable to human intelligence.

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R Smith's avatar

Very interesting indeed. Great article.

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Fathom Five's avatar

Thank you very much.

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R Smith's avatar

A pleasure.

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Dr Ferdinand Santos III's avatar

Great article. Thanks. I write on Scientism - the same themes. Relativity for example is one of the great philosophical frauds in history. So is much of 'The Science'.

"This is the true heart of scientism in the modern world: it fills the philosophical and moral void that was left by the decline of Western Christianity. Science, often framed more broadly as “reason”, has been sublimated beyond its proper limits, and remoulded into a surrogate outlet for the intellect, the morality and the spirituality of modern Western man."

Well stated. There is precious little 'enlightening' from the Enlightenment, and little 'Reason' from the 'Age of Reason'.

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Fathom Five's avatar

Thank you - that’s a really good point. I didn’t have time to go into the many corruptions *within* modern science, but that could easily be the subject of a future essay. As you say, not only have the arts morphed into pseudosciences, but many branches of science have departed from the traditional principles of proper science in favour of skewed political confirmation-bias.

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