[FRIAM] semper fi! (was vax v unvax)

[uǝlƃ ☤>$]

Excellent! But if it's a strawman, it's a good faith one. Tami suggests that her "articles of faith" are as high fidelity as my articles of faith ... purposefully warping my language in order to use the word "fidelity". Feyerabend is one of my favorite people. And the argument is good, one my pluralism allows me to take to heart.

But (weak) Scientism still wins. Even if those other creeds have some fidelity with the world, it pales in comparison to that of science. The monists amongst us may fall to the argument. But we weak Scientismist pluralists will not, primarily because articles of faith are dynamic and evolving. In our discussion, I pointed out that the catholic nature of Catholicism persists. The Pope argues that it's an act of "love" to get vaxxed, despite the reality that many vaccines are produced unethically through cell lines grown from culturing aborted fetal tissue. And the recently instantiated time crystal argues that time and space are not as different as we've usually assumed.

The difference, however, lies in the *driver* for the evolution of the articles of faith. What's the mechanism by which Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is distinct from Sirajuddin Haqqani in considering who will have more influence in the new Taliban? How faithfully do their articles of faith follow reality as they evolve? ... in comparison with those of Cathollicism or whatever batsh¡t evangelical pastor some random Trumpster listens to?

That the drivers are occult, whereas those driving science are (relatively) transparent, is what justifies Scientism.


On 8/18/21 6:37 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> dave west does not recall making such an argument: /"people who talk about science are Scientismists, their God is Science."/ Perhaps this is a straw man of something he may have said? But even that feels weird. He might feel comfortable with an assertion, ala Feyerabend, that the foundations of science include *"articles of faith,"* that are neither 'provable' nor 'objectively more rational' than religious articles of faith. But even here, he would insist that both science and religion have very few actual articles of faith while religion has millions of silly assertions of "TRUTH" while science tries to avoid same.
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2021, at 2:25 PM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ wrote:
>> Ha! Yeah, we have other reasons to fire her, or at least suspend her. 
>> Mainly she doesn't really clean all that well ... albeit according to a 
>> couple of "Virgos" who have obsessive-compulsive tendencies anyway. I 
>> also learned today that she's a "moral intuitionist" (ala silly people 
>> like Michael Heumer). From her perspective, in response to 
>> "censorship", "freedom of speech", and the glut of "information" out 
>> there, the best way to decide what's true is to go with your gut and 
>> pray. I tried to intervene with "science". But she then countered with 
>> Dave West's argument that people who talk about science are 
>> Scientismists, their God is Science. I then tried to explain that 
>> science is a set of behaviors, methods, not a Thing. Nobody prays to 
>> Science ... well, nobody serious anyway. There are many many theists 
>> who also believe in scientific methods. But then she accused me of 
>> appeal to authority, not being a scientist myself. [sigh] Irony is 
>> dead. I apologized for upsetting her and went back to my Zoom meeting 
>> of stultifying bureaucracy.
>> 
>> Why is everything so hard?

-- 
☤>$ uǝlƃ