Reply #94: Yay! A philosophical argument against science! [View All]

[laconicsax]

Do you understand how scientific theories become widely accepted?

"And as for the reductionistic theories in general, they are just wrong, bad science and worse philosophy and ethically horrible, no matter how widely accepted they are."

I thought not. A theory become widely accepted by virtue of it being right and surviving peer review.

Quantum theory is reductionist. What's more, it's right and is good science. It has no philosophical or ethical implications. It's simply a model that accurately explains how a system works.
Genetic theory is reductionist. What's more, it's right and is good science. It has no philosophical or ethical implications. It's simply a model that accurately explains how a system works.
General relativity is reductionist. What's more, it's right and is good science. It has no philosophical or ethical implications. It's simply a model that accurately explains how a system works.

"Selfishness as such (whether applied to genes of humans), according to Dawkins' memetics, is a cultural meme that Dawkins as part of culture with selfish self-image projects to biology and nature - which projection then in turn is used to justify selfishness. Just another example of same old circular logic."

No one's justifying selfishness. You're projecting an is-ought problem where it doesn't exist. Saying that something is a certain way doesn't mean that's how it ought to be. Dawkins doesn't argue that we ought to be selfish because it's part of nature and biology. In fact, he argues the opposite in several of his books--that our intellect gives us the opportunity to rise above the selfishness of nature and we should do so.