Quote:
Originally Posted by shahrad
"If the criterion of 'good' is based on invulnerability, happiness and tranquility than science did lead exactly in the other way."
This was the main claim and you didn't refute it. You said it is baseless rambling without any arguments.
Define science: knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation.
Scientists use this knowledge to 'improve' our living but in my opinion they did fail. Improving requires that something becomes better and not worse or unchanged. Our living is only improved when we feel better. More happy, more secure and less restlessness. Happiness is of course really difficult to measure but it is for sure not improved when security and restlessness didn't improve.
The scientific progress has driven us to the limit of extinction. So security has worsen. The technical progress like cars, computers, tabletts have lead to more restlessness. The medical progress did of course find solutions to some diseases but new diseases (some caused by scientific progress) replaced them. Before industrialization only 3% did die on cancer but now cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US. That more people now live on planet earth and that the average age did go higher doesn't mean that the quality of live improved as well. This 'improvement' on its own is putting lots of pressure on the balance of nature hence endangering our survival.
That the progress of science also has the disadvantage of leading to more surveillance, to more manipulation (nowadays very wide spread through media) and to more horrible wars, this argument you didn't refute too.
I partially agree with your main claim. While scientific advancements have clearly, objectively, improved quality of life for billions of people, this does not necessarily translate into a higher degree of happiness.
I would argue that this is mostly due to the human condition rather than a consequence of scientific progress.
In your previous post you seemed to be drawing a sharp distinction between science and religion. I would argue that the two are not mutually exclusive. Many scientists are religious and a significant part of religious people do not see a conflict between science and religion:
http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/2...-and-religion/
To include invulnerability in a criterion of goodness is preposterous and circular. This leaves happiness and tranquility as criteria. Are people on average more happy and tranquil now than before the enlightenment? Are religious people more happy and tranquil now than non-religious people?
More people die of cancer now because earlier people died by the millions of the plague, smallpox, etc before they could get cancer.
Smoking and obesity are also mostly modern phenomena which increase the prevalence of cancer.
This does not take away from the fact that science has increased life expectancy for billions of people all over the world.
I'm not familiar with diseases caused by scientific progress, could you give some examples?
I would disagree that science leads to surveillance, manipulation and horrible wars. Rather, it enables them. This is an essential difference.
My view of human nature in general is that sadly, moral progress has lacked far behind scientific progress throughout history.