2HousePlague

Sounds very cool. I'll have to rent it.

I think it is possible today to identify, in all the sciences, a threshhold where solid, empirical, verifiable data trails away and a sort of "new-agey", inferential kind of "data" kicks in, that we come to, not via the Scientific Method, but by way of Indirect Perception.

Medicine, for example, for trading in life and death, has always invited religion's attention. But, today, at the level of laboratory-grown life-forms, cloning, stem-cell research, genetically-modified-organisms, etc. the science ITSELF has come into religious territory.

In state-of-the-art Physics, the further IRREDUCIBILITY of particles and of the quantum systems that might govern them, has forced a foray into the ALMOST ENTIRELY THEORETICAL.

Basically: We have no way to "see" any further, so let's change the definition of "see".

In state-of-the-art Medicine, our REDUCTION of life's constituent parts to Lego blocks we can disassemble and reassemble at will has forced a foray into a BASIC QUESTIONING OF THE NATURE OF LIFE.

Basically: Our capacity to Do has outpaced our capacity to assimilate our actions into the current concensus regarding the powers of mankind.

I would like to see Science venture enthusiastically in these new, uncharted directions -- at the sacrifice of long-held belief.

I would like to see Religion shake loose most of its dogma and "silly ritual" and compare its biggest questions and biggest ambitions to those of science.




j-

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tada!