From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!ihnp4!ihuxv!portegys Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Re: Mystic-Scientists Article-I.D.: ihuxv.435 Posted: Thu Jan 27 13:01:11 1983 Received: Sun Jan 30 06:16:24 1983 Reply-To: portegys@ihuxv.UUCP (Tom Portegys) I personally do not like the tremendous distinction made between "science", and "art" or "mysticism", etc. I sometimes think this compulsion to see a black-and-white world without differences of degree is a disease of the human brain. To be a scientist means to hold to the scientific method, which, to be true, involves an assumption on its own part, but is nevertheless a useful tool for probing into the unknown, whatever that unknown may be. This includes physics as well as parapsychology. The scientific method has nothing to say, good or bad, about things which are not within its domain of testability, such as belief in god or whatever. It does not hold analysis higher than synthesis. It is indifferent to these things. Some things are apples and oranges to each other. So it is perfectly consistent to claim to be a scientist and a blind believer in god. Good scientists can be good artists. Those 1950's SF movies, in which the "scientist" refuses to even enter- tain the concept of ghosts, have done considerable damage. Tom Portegys, BTL IH, ...ihuxv!portegys