Ra-ra re kick 'em in the knee, Ra-ra ras kick 'em in the ...er...other knee

This will just be a quick post.

To the most honorable gentleman on the other side of the isle:

The problem I have with science is not that it actually produces stuff. In fact I think that is its one good purpose.

But we must be careful not to smile at the Soilent Green that solves the worlds hunger problem and ignore Mr. Heston running around falling on his knees yelling at how we get it.

There is one main problem with science that I want to fight, and it splits into two things. When we talk about science it is a cloak for the main problem which is the epistemology that under-girds it.

It started out as foundationalism. We have to fight this theory of knowledge as anti-Christian and theologically unsound. The whole of foundationalism is bases on the ability of man to find a foundation that we then can build knowledge on in a layered and terraced manner.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn does a good job of dismantling this myth. By showing that what happens as we “progress in scientific knowledge” is that we overthrow the past knowledge and start over. The only thing we keep from the past is the technology

Our knowledge is wrapped up in all kinds of things that we only have a shadowy inkling of. And to place a “foundation” under it is purely arbitrary and quite false.

The second thing that usually comes up when one attacks the foundation of science the target usually moves to the outcome of it. The epistemology slides from foundationalism to pragmatism. This school’s epistemology is so joke worthy that I don’t think I need to do much on it.

The thing to use as a defense of science isn’t either of these, but it is a part of one. Make a case that it helps and is one of the best tools for fulfilling the dominion mandate (which I applaud my esteemed colleague for starting) with out appealing to either of these epistemologies and we will get somewhere.

Any ideas on a new epistemology?