An interest of mine at several points previously, that “wiser” people – writers, thinkers – have often chosen later in life to join the Catholic church, having previously been Anglican / protestant or atheistic. Part of my respect for theology alongside secular science, and religion as “that which binds us” ritualistically.
A wide-ranging “Voicecraft” conversation with Dave Snowden – including his own espousal of Catholicism- too many notes to record (yet) – on so many subjects I agree on. A few linguistic choices where I’d disagree with his choices & rejections of specific words, but absolutely agree with the distinctions (#GoodFences) he’s making.
Rituals ….
(Transcript isn’t great, but I may work on it … to make it usefully searchable.)
Still absolutely baffled by his grip on “science” as his preferred term for (all) his work, given his nevertheless using the pejorative term “scientistic” to label the predictive / causal problem.
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More later …
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Post Note / Aside. Spooky coincidence, but the day before picking up this “Catholic” (name) church reference from Dave, I use the English “catholic” (adjective) in an exchange with him on LinkedIn.
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Scientism is what I criticised, with Midgley, that is making science into a fundamentalist religion a la Dawkins. And we use natural science as an enabling constraint which is different from how you describe it. Otherwise interesting post
Precisely. Yes. I said pejorative, you say criticise. But yes those that take science to be more universally fundamental than it deserves – turning it into a religion – we both call scientistic (in a disapproving / critical way).
Hence my remaining puzzlement that your wide range of “wisdom” around the complexity of “systems” involving humans and our ecosystems, you still label complexity “science”.
As ever – since 2003/5 – I feel we are violently agreeing in terms of our world-views – it’s just choice of words at some of these fundamental boundaries – where I use the #GoodFences metaphor rather than (pedantic) definitions and the like 🙂
Be great to find a “quality time” conversation, but equally great to have these disjointed exchanges, Thanks Dave.
Would love to pick-up on “natural science as an enabling constraint” – I think I get that too, but have the same concern as to whether it’s necessarily “science” – or more than science – I prefer a form of Naturalism / Sacred-Naturalism / Natural-Theology if I had to pick a name for it 🙂