I believe this is the quote your referring to:
http://ravens24x7.com/forum/showthre...orce-Agreement
Thank you for mauling it with your subjective twist.
It seems I'm going to have to clarify my initial point to stop any further misquotes. That quote was targeted at Materialism and Naturalism. This is exactly what Materialism / Naturalism says per Merriam-Webster online:
Materialism: A theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter
Naturalism: The doctrine that scientific laws are adequate to account for all phenomena.
At what point is it illogical to deduce that scientists (the overwhelming majority of which) who support the above, have fulfilled reason to believe that science, as I said in the real quote, "will explain everything in the universe with absolute and definite truth." ? FYI "will" implies futurity.
I imagine you have some familiarity with the intellectuals present in Vienna around the late 1800 to early 1900's. In the early 1900's, Ernst Mach, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and founding father of logical positivism, Mortiz Schlik were the most influential men in every intellectual circle at the time. It is safe to say that positivism was shaping the believed necessary direction for science to maintain its scientific integrity. The extremity with which this manner of thinking was headed was evidenced by Ernest Mach at a meeting of the imperial academy of sciences, where after his nemesis Ludwig Boltzman had finished speaking, he abruptly stood up and proclaimed "I do not believe atoms exist!" Were it not for the powerful influence of Einstein and the anti-positivist means by which Special/General Relativity came about, Positivism would have spread from the intellectual epicenter Vienna, to the world, stifling scientific research by its restrictive sensory demands.
You desperately need to read a book on the history of science. Like-minded men who are educated by like-minded men are likely to be just that, like-minded; Like-minded of the believed "problems" of a field, and as such, available methods of research. I gladly except the fact that the majority of scientists believe the earth is warming due to carbon-dioxide. However, the consensus of science has never in the history of this planet been enough to legitimately clarify any instance in nature. For centuries scientists believed the Earth was the center of the universe, that ether carried light, that Newtonian physics set the parameters for motion. The discovery of oxygen is credited to several men simply because we don't know for certain who was the first. How can that be? Although it was observed, it is was thought simply to be air removed of phlogistion, a substance released by all elements when burned. These are a mere speck of the similar instances in every field of science. It is what led Alfred Whitehead to proclaim "A science that hesitates to forget its founders, is lost." In a field where it is necessary to forget the founders worldviews, how can any contemporary position as ad hoc as Global Warming be safe?
When I hear someone like yourself attempt to throw down the gavel, "scientific concensus" as if its utterance alone can provoke silence, I can't help but chuckle.
