Monday, November 07, 2005
Can You Be Too Smart?
Keith over at Mere Orthodoxy wonders
Go back to Keith's point, poorly applied, or inapplicable knowledge is a waste if not wrongheaded. Besides, the "theories" Joe mentions of Leibnitz, Russell, Mill, and Dewey and not so much "understandings" of the equation as they are impositions upon it. Where I come from, asking a question, even if you have an answer for it, does not rise to the level of "knowledge." 1+1=2 has no "meaning," its a statement of counting. Anything else said concerning it does not alter it, it is simply an expression of the prejudices and beliefs of the people making the utterances. Their beliefs are important, but not because of what they say about 1+1=2.
None of the people Joe cites are going to do mathematics any differently because of their "understanding" of 1+1=2. They just have different beliefs.
Another way to express what I am saying here is that belief may affect how one interprets data, but it does not change the data itself. The key to math and science is to listen to the data, and not stray into areas that the data cannot speak to. So, in Joe's original issue, how to have a Christian viewpoint in math and science -- there really isn't one, if one restricts oneself to the data, and only those things which the data addresses.
The problems with science today, and they are many, have nothing to do with science, they have to do with scientists not doing science, but doing something else. As someone trained in science, I think the ideal is to separate viewpoint from data and listen only to data when doing science. This limits science pretty severely because to limit ourselves to data means limiting ourselves to closed systems and there are a limited number of those.
Joe is exploring human nature, but ideally in science, we set that aside to search for what answers we can get. When we wander afield, we take off our scientist hat and we lose our scientific authority. The imposition of a worldview on science simply compromises that authority where it should not be compromised.
Do you want to be a person with knowledge, without the knowledge of where to put it?Which made me think about this post from Evangelical Outpost. Joe is wondering about the meaning of 1+1=2. Early in the post Joe says
Perhaps second-order knowledge, knowing what to do with knowledge, is more important than knowledge itself? If not more important, at least primary.
It is a great thing to know how to build a skyscraper. It is a greater thing to know when to build a skyscraper and why.
The reason this idea seems so foreign (if not downright absurd) is that most views have a minimal pragmatic affect on how we actually live our lives. Both my neighbor and I, for example, may get sunburned even if we different beliefs about the sun. The fact that I think it is a ball of nuclear plasma while he believes that it is pulled across the sky in a chariot driven by the Greek god Helios doesn't change the fact that we both have to use sunscreen.Later on he says
For each of these four philosophers what was considered to be divine (?just there?) had a significant impact on how they answered the questions about the nature of the simple equation. For Leibnitz it was mathematical abstractions; for Russell it was logic; for Mill is was sensations; and for Dewey it was the physical/biological world. On the surface we might be able to claim that all four men understood the equation in the same way. But as we moved deeper we found their religious beliefs radically altered the conceptual understanding of 1 + 1 = 2.It's obvious that Joe is trying to build an argument opposed to reductionist views and is going to finish it in another post, and he has a point, but I have to agree with him when he says "if not downright absurd."
Go back to Keith's point, poorly applied, or inapplicable knowledge is a waste if not wrongheaded. Besides, the "theories" Joe mentions of Leibnitz, Russell, Mill, and Dewey and not so much "understandings" of the equation as they are impositions upon it. Where I come from, asking a question, even if you have an answer for it, does not rise to the level of "knowledge." 1+1=2 has no "meaning," its a statement of counting. Anything else said concerning it does not alter it, it is simply an expression of the prejudices and beliefs of the people making the utterances. Their beliefs are important, but not because of what they say about 1+1=2.
None of the people Joe cites are going to do mathematics any differently because of their "understanding" of 1+1=2. They just have different beliefs.
Another way to express what I am saying here is that belief may affect how one interprets data, but it does not change the data itself. The key to math and science is to listen to the data, and not stray into areas that the data cannot speak to. So, in Joe's original issue, how to have a Christian viewpoint in math and science -- there really isn't one, if one restricts oneself to the data, and only those things which the data addresses.
The problems with science today, and they are many, have nothing to do with science, they have to do with scientists not doing science, but doing something else. As someone trained in science, I think the ideal is to separate viewpoint from data and listen only to data when doing science. This limits science pretty severely because to limit ourselves to data means limiting ourselves to closed systems and there are a limited number of those.
Joe is exploring human nature, but ideally in science, we set that aside to search for what answers we can get. When we wander afield, we take off our scientist hat and we lose our scientific authority. The imposition of a worldview on science simply compromises that authority where it should not be compromised.
