I've trimmed the above to the essential points for comment:
Alexei's statement is certainly the traditional view of science and its
relationship to morals and religion, and I wouldn't argue with it. My point
was that Cliff's statement clearly associated "survival" with "good"
regardless of how it was intended, and there are other alternatives - which
is really your point too if Science doesn't comment on those alternatives.
It does point up an interesting phenomenon, however. Being in a
technological society it seems that our social systems are more inclined to
borrow ideas of "good" and "morality" from Science than the other way
around. "Survival" HAS been co-opted by many social institutions as an
ideal for "good" in our present culture. Science => progress and survival
=> success for many people. Science does not require the hypothesis of
anything beyond what can be objectified, except when one contemplates the
limits of science. The effect is that many people align their religion
similarly, presuming there isn't "anything else." Science doesn't say there
isn't anything else, just that it can't study it if there is.
Now if we discuss the definition of life, as we do on PRNCYB-L, and the
possibility of creating artificial life (as opposed to artifical
intelligence in the usual terms), we are already discussing if "something
else" is required besides the mechanical, objective, or quantitative. We
have to realize that an automatic, impartial, and unintelligent universe
that runs like a machine, within which "survival" is the only discernable
goal, IS in fact the notion of reality we have inherited and employ in
Science. It's beginnings were with Monarchies and hierarchies which
enforced the idea of laws, an external creator which enforced the idea of
inanimate "stuff" which needs to be externally informed (and ruled), and
then science which got rid of the external informant and has yet to replace
it with anything that can yet explain the vitalistic aspects of existence.
Instead, vitalism was denounced (properly, because it was ill-formed) and
Darwin's very successful mechanical theory of evolution elevated "survival"
to the highest recognized level of universal design. In the interim, many
have come to believe, sometimes vehemently, that there is nothing truely
alive in the universe, not even free will, that it is a matter of
statistical liklihoods, accidents in replication, and "blind" selection.
The value of this view in rejecting false alternatives cannot be ignored,
yet it is also possible that there are some not-so-false alternatives. The
"blind" universe devoid of will is also a religious belief. It needs to be
recognized as religion too -- one that stems primarily from the
"mechanical" and hierarchical views that we are begining again to challenge
from new perspectives. Religion is faith in something you can't proove.
Both science and religion are based on metaphysics -- assumptions about
reality. It is understandable that when science reaches its explanatory
limits based on one set of assumptions, it must re-evaluate the
assumptions, and this necessarily crosses with the metaphysics of religions
too, hence the arguements. I think its an avoidable aspect of progress.
-----------------------------------------------
John J. Kineman, Physical Scientist/Ecologist
National Geophysical Data Center
325 Broadway E/GC1 (3100 Marine St. Rm: A-152)
Boulder, Colorado 80303 USA
(303) 497-6900 (phone)
(303) 497-6513 (fax)
jjk@ngdc.noaa.gov (email)