Hello Reverend, I’m not sure what is annoying you so much that you would revert to ad hominem attacks. I very much enjoy engaging on Medium with people with whom I disagree, but not when the discussion becomes disrespectful and personal.
You don’t need to inform me of your academic credentials for me to appreciate and respect your point of view. The fact that I also taught at the university level and have an honorary doctorate has nothing to do with whether or not my thoughts are valid and worthy of respectful consideration.
You seem to suggest that because of your degrees and teaching career only those who can match or exceed that have a right to express opinions on “social media sites,” or if not, then only those deserve consideration. All the rest of us are “out of our league.” Or maybe just I am because you don’t agree with me.
The definition of science that google provides suggests that you are too limiting in your definition: “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”
You may disagree but I would include everything that happens in the physical and natural world. Does consciousness happen? Do conscious events happen? If so, then consciousness is a scientific study, but one you disallow unless it is limited to neurophysiology. As I’m sure you know, many scientists (as least they would call themselves that) are tending toward panpsychism where consciousness is an attribute or aspect of all things animate or inanimate. Are they wrong to consider this a scientific endeavor?
That definition of science is a contemporary one. Consider this analysis:
“Science is one of hundreds of thousands of words in English that has an extraordinarily long etymological history. Its popular meaning has changed, century by century, and sometimes even more rapidly than that.
Yet even among those words there are core meanings that have remained consistent. In English, science came from Old French, meaning knowledge, learning, application, and a corpus of human knowledge.
It originally came from the Latin word scientia which meant knowledge, a knowing, expertness, or experience. By the late 14th century, science meant, in English, collective knowledge.
But it has consistently carried the meaning of being a socially embedded activity: people seeking, systematising and sharing knowledge.”
There are, most people would agree, examples of knowledge that are not limited to what physical science deals with and can provide. If I “know” that Rembrandt painted and that he used techniques that demonstrate great skill and induce a powerful aesthetic response in viewers, is that knowledge that physical science provides?
By the way, I looked up definitions for “reverend.” It means member of the clergy. Does that mean you are? It also is an expression of respect, reverence even. Without annoying you any further, I’d be interested in hearing an explanation of this honorific you use.
