> Everything anyone says is effectively IMO.
>
> Sorry to be rude, but I have no idea what you point is.
> "science" as a word
> in the way I was using it, refers to human beings common
> understanding of
> the world and it mechanisms, science applies to everything.
No offense taken. But you do have some novel ideas. When I say that Calvin
and Hobbes are named after two historical characters, it is not "my
opinion". I have a source that would seem to be more reliable than an
Internet spoof web site. Liking a nice painting or the dinner I ate last
night are opinion, and entirely outside of what historically has been called
science.

You cannot, like Carroll's Humpty Dumpty, have words mean whatever you would
like them to mean. Perhaps in this lies some of the sources of our
misunderstanding. While dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive, in
their definitions, it might do to consult your dictionary on science as you
did on truth. I checked http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=science. And
while some of the definitions are as informal as our uses in everyday
speech, I liked Karslake's comments given at the end of the entry from
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, for the distinction it makes:

Usage: Science, Literature, Art. Science is literally knowledge, but more
usually denotes a systematic and orderly arrangement of knowledge. In a more
distinctive sense, science embraces those branches of knowledge of which the
subject-matter is either ultimate principles, or facts as explained by
principles or laws thus arranged in natural order. The term literature
sometimes denotes all compositions not embraced under science, but usually
confined to the belles-lettres. Art is that which depends on practice and
skill in performance. ``In science, scimus ut sciamus; in art, scimus ut
producamus. And, therefore, science and art may be said to be investigations
of truth; but one, science, inquires for the sake of knowledge; the other,
art, for the sake of production; and hence science is more concerned with
the higher truths, art with the lower; and science never is engaged, as art
is, in productive application. And the most perfect state of science,
therefore, will be the most high and accurate inquiry; the perfection of art
will be the most apt and efficient system of rules; art always throwing
itself into the form of rules.'' -- Karslake

> The reason we
> like a nice painting or a film, at some point will come down
> to scientific
> explanation, maybe it's complex or simple, but there is
> always a reason for
> why something happens, including our thought processes,
> choice's of partner and falling in love.
>
> There are no miracles as such, just events that yet to have a detailed
> explanation, but I'm sure eventually they will.
>
> We are just organic machines at the end of the day.
How can you possibly be sure of what has not happened, and may never? Have
you been reading Carl Sagan again? There is comfort in being sure that "the
Sun come out tomorrow". But there is no foundation for such an unscientific
optimism in science.

And your last statement shows what is fascinating about all of this. Ideas
have consequences and implications. What you have is a scientism, a belief
system that is as unverifiable as they come, and as incapable of being
subject to the rigors of a Baconian experiment as any miracle or spirit.

In fact, some have argued that will chemistry deals with quantities so vast
as to behave statistically, 5 billion people are not enough to provide such
certainties, if one could ever hope to scientifically test them all.

Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com

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