pynchon-l-digest V2 #4508

[David Casseres]

Red herring alert!  Nobody around here is advocating scientism. Merely
trying to defend science (different thing) against a lot of
simple-minded canards.

On 10/9/05, Geocoda at aol.com <Geocoda at aol.com> wrote:
> This rhetoric about scientific method being purely self-correcting is just a
> positivist's wet dream. Proposing hypotheses and testing them is a valuable
> technique, but hardly the comprehensive definition of truth some people
> claim. Einstein said imagination was more powerful than knowledge, and
> described the importance of dreams in his work.
>
>  The problem with scientism is that it undervalues anything 'science' in its
> current state does not understand. Some contemporary physicists say string
> theory can't be true for the simple reason that no experiment can ever prove
> it false. What kind of reasoning is that? (Hint: not inductive.)
>
>  Put down that petrie dish and read your William Blake: "What now is known
> was once only imagined." Paradigm shift, anyone?
>
>  --Geocoda