I’m playing a game of blog-pong with Ron Garrett: entrepreneur, scientist, and Lisp hacker extraordinaire. Join in the fun!

That’s a straw man. No one (except perhaps Richard Dawkins—we scientists have our fanatics too) argues that empiricism is the only valid form of knowledge.

I’m not so sure about that. I know I was wrong in assuming you believed that, but I think it is a very widespread worldview. In our culture, science is considered the gatekeeper of knowledge. Consider the stem-cell debate. (I don’t want to get into the debate itself, just to point out the way the questions are phrased and what that indicates about our culture.) At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Ron Reagan, son of the former president, said people who are morally opposed to embryonic stem cell research have to realize that “their belief is just that—an article of faith.” “They are entitled to it,” he went on, “but it does not follow that the theology of a few should be allowed to forestall the health and well-being of the many.” Since it’s a “morality” issue and not something that has been decided by science, there is no right answer. Since there is no truth, people must come up with their own truths and follow those. The debate should be about the human status of embryos, but since science refuses to give a final say about it, the entire argument is neatly sidestepped.

Again, I don’t mean to say that all scientists believe this. In fact, from what I’ve seen most scientists and hackers are too smart to fall for moral relativism. But I do think that it is an attitude our culture has embraced. (If you want me to, I can post more examples.) It’s quite possible that some scientists (such as yourself) reject the idea simply because they spend so much of their life doing science, and at that point it becomes clear that there is more to life and more to truth. Perhaps people who are further removed from science can see it as a far-off ideal that can solve all problems. (Perhaps I’m conjecturing too much!)

C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man deals with the same questions of truth on the plane of literature—I’d recommend reading at least the first chapter.

It’s been a long time since I was in school so maybe things have changed, but in my day such topics were only ever touched on in history class, and then only in advanced placement classes, and then only to mention in passing that there was this philosopher named Locke who had these ideas that turned out to be very influential and so forth. Never once did anyone even hint at the idea that Lockian empiricism was “true” in any metaphysical sense.

Well you see, that is part of the problem. It’s more subtle than that. If people outright stated in schools that science is the only valid way to gain valid knowledge, people would see that for the narrow-minded worldview it is. No one actually says “Look, here’s Locke—read it and agree!” because (a) no student wants to read Locke (textbooks are marvellously condensed) and (b) then the bright students would argue with the ideas. Ideas that are conveyed subtly and never spoken of directly have a much easier time spreading.

It’s you saying opinion is inferior to empiricism, not me. I have actually argued the exact opposite.

Opinion is indisputably inferior to fact in this: opinions cannot be true or false. The prevalent moral attitude of the day says that one may believe anything he wishes about religion, since it is merely opinion. But this is much worse than saying that his religion is untrue—it goes so far as to say that religion is something that cannot be true or false, since it is merely opinion.

I’ll try to respond to your next post later. In the mean time, thanks for the engaging discussion.