Views of Science & of Religion
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Science has been described as "the stories we tell to convince ourselves that everything is all right in the world." This quotation presumes that science is a comforter rather than a search for truth, a set of stories more important for the effect they have on those who tell and hear them than for their relationship to the facts of the real world. However, the quotation seems misdirected. Science involves experimentation and evidence and not stories as such. The quotation would appear to be more applicable to religion than to science, for religion is to be accepted on faith and might be seen by non-believers as only a set of stories intended to comfort us. Science does not concern itself with whether or not what is learned is a comfort or a source of anxiety--it simply tries to found out the truth and present us with a picture of what the world is really like. There are different views of science, and they can be seen as indicative of the degree to which science can be considered an objective search for the truth. Human beings have sought to understand the world in which they live since the beginning of human thought. At one time, humans ascribed supernatural explanations for the events of the world, assuming that there were spirits that caused wind, rain, fire, floods, and so on. Philosophy began when human beings undertook a more systematic attempt to explain the world to themselves. Such attempts were rational, but they also could fit the quotation above in tha
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not see this far into the structure of matter does not mean those earlier generations were wrong, because following the scientific method they were offering the answer that they could achieve with their level of understanding and their level of technological development. They were in this sensee influenced by their culture and were offering what the Relativist says science always offers--the answer that can be achieved with the cultural tools at hand.
The quotation that started this paper can be considered true in some degree for nearly every field of discipline. We are comforted by knowledge, and the stories we tell may be no more than what we believe is true of the world. We tell stories of history to show ourselves that all is right in the world. We study the lives of famous people for the same reason. Yet, we often discover that much of our knowledge in these areas as well is false, has been culturally conditioned, or is somehow decided by the actions of the observer. Knowledge is always somewhat tentative and may change as we learn more about a given matter. Science differs from other disciplines in that it uses a specific method designed to elicit fact and to eliminate conjecture and cultural wish-fulfillment. To t
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Approximate Word count = 2640
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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