Science and ethics are irreconcilable

I don't think the standard scientific picture is Descartes style determinism any more. Even simple non-linear systems become impossible to predict without specifying the starting conditions to a truly ridiculous precision. Organisms are complex non-linear systems with many interacting feedback loops and the study of such systems demonstrates that properties can "emerge" from them in a way that simple (linear) deterministic theories would never predict. Many scientists believe that our consciousness is one such emergent property and it seems quite reasonable to me that a meaningful free will can also be considered to arise in such systems.
With regards -
Adrian Crawley
www.bloglikelihood.com

> ethics implies "free will", that
> is, that an individual is free to
> decide what action to take. Science,
> on the other hand, says that every
> action is determined by the laws
> of physics
>
Complete BS. Science is the process of producing better explanations for the phenomenons we see around us.

As such, these explanations are always incomplete, their purpose is only to be the best currently known theory to understand the world.

Thus the fact that some phenomenons (like the movement of stars) are 100% pre-determined doesn't precludes the possibility that some other phenomenons (e.g., human behaviour) are more complex, and that the more complex explanations which are necessary for describing and clearly understanding human behaviour (and its freedom) will be discovered in the future.

Only incompetent scientists will tell you that science is so perfect nowadays that it "tells" us that we have no free will. But science is never perfect, it can only be better than the previous science. Thus real scientists will use their common sense, and recognize that our scientific understanding of free will is currently incomplete (otherwise they could easily explain it convincingly in a crystal-clear way: to my knowledge, such an explanation is not (yet) part of the state of the art. But I'm aware of many works (e.g. in neurosciences, nonlinear physics) which are trying to bear more light to our understanding).

I thus see absolutely no contradiction between science and ethics, or even religion.

What I see is a contradiction between dogmatic science and our current common-sense based understanding of free will.

But dogmatism is not science, it's just the opposite of science.

As Descartes said: doubt is the seminal concept in science.

And also, IMHO, blindfolded certitudes are the root of obscurantism.

Best, Henri