science:a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.Kim O'Hara wrote:If religion can be blind to evidence (and I agree, it can), science has deliberately blinded itself to motivation and ethics but isn't even aware of that blindness, let alone able to admit to it.
And so on ...
Kim
systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
science isn't blind to ethics, ethics simply is not part of science (in a strict sense, obviously ethical issues come up in scientific fields of study but it is the human beings, the scientists, not the subject "science" that contain any ethical obligation, duty, or imperative which may seek to limit the boundaries of acceptable methods of gaining knowledge) . scientists may be concerned about ethics but science, the definition of science, is not concerned with ethics or motivation. human beings are motivated to learn and many are motivated to live by some sort of ethical code whether that code is well formulated or vague. so to infer an inherent weakness in science that religion does not have is to ignore the parameters of meaning that the english language has given to the term science and therefore it seems to me that the above quoted proposition is fallacious.
I only seek to clarify meaning, once that is done, truly valuable conversations may be had. If one seeks to make statements about modern society disregarding ethics or proper motivation due to influence from a purely scientific worldview (which states nothing about ethics and describes motivation as a function of evolution) and that that has led to societal problems then that's fine, but science is not to blame, what's to blame (if anything) is a disregard for ethics in our world society which may or may not be larger than it was in scientifically unenlightened times. Ethics is a branch of philosophy, a subject too often relegated by many to the category of "mostly useless"
anyway, I hope my point came across. I have quite a few bones to pick with the article in the OP but I don't feel the motivation at this time to illuminate my thoughts. Perhaps later I will.
with goodwill,
Andrew