

Why Neil deGrasse Tyson is a philistine - DLay
http://theweek.com/article/index/261042/why-neil-degrasse-tyson-is-a-philistine?

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threatofrain
Actually I do must question what progress philosophy has made. Is there a
bedrock of philosophical knowledge upon which we can rely and do interesting
things?

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belovedeagle
I dunno, a little thing called science was introduced to the world by
philosophers. I'm sure it's not relevant though—no way philosophy could
produce something relevant.

/s

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threatofrain
Try attacking the problem head on. Science most definitely does not stand on
the theory of philosophy (if so, which theory does all of science depend
upon?), and neither would it have disappeared from across cultures simply
because the west forgot to introduce science itself to the rest of the world.
The fact that science arose independently across cultures tells us that it
does not rest on any rigorous philosophical theory. But who gets to space
flight without some theory of gravity and motion? It's because space flight
does depend on a tall body of theory.

Science is simply a community and inter-generational task of causal modeling
via evidence. It cannot be denied simply because the west forgot to tell the
rest of the world of philosophy. Science was invented by no philosophical
theory. Humongous western development may have been spurred by the worldview
of western philosophers, but science does not need such roots.

This is not the same as Newton laying down the groundwork for a physics. Now
that is a pillar of theory that a community builds around. That's no sarcasm
by the way, but rather it is awe and respect for a theory that can act as a
pillar or bedrock of continual community growth and stable theoretical
illumination for hundreds of years.

Have philosophers finally built any pillar by which they may create tall
structures? Or is everything they make made of sand, and thus their buildings
are only waist high after thousands of years across cultures?

At most, science only needs 1% of philosophy in order to have some self-
perspective. But let's not go too deep in, because we know that pillars of
sand cannot build any cross-cultural theory beyond waist-high structures.

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bitJericho
Is the author a philosopher or something? Science is about testing and getting
at the truth. Philosophy has historically been sitting your butt down and
thinking about stuff. Yawn.

[http://www.whoislog.info/profile/damon-
linker.html](http://www.whoislog.info/profile/damon-linker.html)

