{"id":485,"date":"2010-01-11T23:18:57","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T03:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/?p=485"},"modified":"2010-01-11T23:18:57","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T03:18:57","slug":"scientific-method-scientific-purpose-scientific-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/scientific-method-scientific-purpose-scientific-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientific Method, Scientific Purpose, Scientific Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just found this quote from Chauncey D. Leake in the most recent issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Humanist_Association\">Humanist<\/a> magazine.  He paraphrases <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edwin_Conklin\">Edwin Grant Conklin<\/a> in this beautiful summary of the ways science does what it does:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The <em>purpose<\/em> of science, he said, is like that of religion \u2014 to find out the truth about ourselves and our environment.  The <em>method<\/em> is one of continual skepticism, self-critical and self-corrective, seeking data which are independently verifiable.  The methodology proceeds either by experimental reasoning with logical and consistent coherence as in mathematics, or by observation, tentative explanation, controlled experimentation, and inducible conclusions as in the life sciences.  The <em>attitude<\/em> or <em>spirit<\/em> of science as a concept, is realization that the findings of scientific effort are tentative and relative, that the validity of scientific conclusions rests on <em>voluntary<\/em> agreement among those who examine the evidence, and that unwelcome truth is better than cherished error.  This is a value judgment, and gives moral significance to the whole concept of science.  All of this is based on a concern, in scientific effort, for the welfare of humanity as a whole.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Chauncey D. Leake \u2014 &#8220;Humanistic Aspects of the Unity in Science&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>All of this is based on a concern, in scientific effort, for the welfare of humanity as a whole.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Let me repeat that.<\/p>\n<p><em>All of this is based on a concern, in scientific effort, for the welfare of humanity as a whole.<\/em><strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m a member of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Humanist_Association\">American Humanist Association<\/a>.  How about you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just found this quote from Chauncey D. Leake in the most recent issue of Humanist magazine. He paraphrases Edwin Grant Conklin in this beautiful summary of the ways science does what it does: &#8220;The purpose of science, he said, is like that of religion \u2014 to find out the truth about ourselves and our environment. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,87],"tags":[122,121],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","category-education","tag-epistemology","tag-scientific-method"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}