{"id":217,"date":"2017-07-03T09:10:28","date_gmt":"2017-07-03T14:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/?p=216"},"modified":"2020-04-05T19:10:52","modified_gmt":"2020-04-05T19:10:52","slug":"straw-dogies-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/03\/straw-dogies-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Straw Dogies (3\/4)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Myth of Progress and Knowledge<\/span><\/h4>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Knowledge<\/span><\/h6>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the forward of the paperback edition of Straw Dogs, before we even reach page one of the actual text, Gray states that \u201coutside of science, progress is simply a myth.\u201d He goes on to say that religious believers today have been \u201cdriven to the margins of a culture in which science claims authority over all of human knowledge\u201d<span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_217_1('footnote_plugin_reference_217_1_1');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_217_1('footnote_plugin_reference_217_1_1');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_217_1_1\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">[1]<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_217_1_1\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\"> &nbsp;John Gray. <i>Straw Dogs<\/i>. 1st ed. N.p.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print. (xi).<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_217_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_217_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });<\/script>. This is just the beginning of a book-long attack against the existence of progress and knowledge anywhere outside of science itself.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of these two attacks, the attack against knowledge is the least prevalent. Perhaps this is so because it is also the easiest to refute. One can simply point to the scientific method and ask whether or not &nbsp;we have knowledge of it. If we do, then the idea of all knowledge somehow being under the authority of science alone is absurd. If we know anything to be true as a result of science, and\/or the scientific method, we must, then, by necessity know that science itself is a valid method for obtaining said truths. If we don\u2019t know science to be a valid method then the results of applying it certainly do not constitute knowledge in any sense of the word.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In short, this is scientism and it is itself a proposition of philosophy and not science. It also happens to be, according to Moreland and Craig in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">widely accepted as a self-refuting proposition which, besides meaning that it can never be true, also means that \u201cno amount of scientific progress in the future will have the slightest effect on making (it) more acceptable\u201d<span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_217_1('footnote_plugin_reference_217_1_2');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_217_1('footnote_plugin_reference_217_1_2');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_217_1_2\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">[2]<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_217_1_2\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\"> &nbsp;Ibid. (348).<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_217_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_217_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });<\/script>. What this means in its simplest form is that scientism is a philosophical claim that refutes the validity of all philosophical claims. It does this by trying to elevate science above the presuppositions by which it hangs and in doing so the entire claim falls apart and thus it becomes an impossibility for science to ever put the pieces back together.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container\"> <div class=\"footnote_container_prepare\"><p><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_label pointer\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_217_1();\">References<\/span><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\" style=\"display: none;\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_217_1();\">[<a id=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_217_1\">+<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/div> <div id=\"footnote_references_container_217_1\" style=\"\"><table class=\"footnotes_table footnote-reference-container\"><caption class=\"accessibility\">References<\/caption> <tbody> \r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_217_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_217_1_1');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_217_1_1\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>1<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\"> &nbsp;John Gray. <i>Straw Dogs<\/i>. 1st ed. N.p.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print. (xi).<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_217_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_217_1_2');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_217_1_2\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>2<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\"> &nbsp;Ibid. (348).<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n <\/tbody> <\/table> <\/div><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function footnote_expand_reference_container_217_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_217_1').show(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_217_1').text('\u2212'); } function footnote_collapse_reference_container_217_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_217_1').hide(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_217_1').text('+'); } function footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_217_1() { if (jQuery('#footnote_references_container_217_1').is(':hidden')) { footnote_expand_reference_container_217_1(); } else { footnote_collapse_reference_container_217_1(); } } function footnote_moveToReference_217_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_217_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } } function footnote_moveToAnchor_217_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_217_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Myth of Progress and Knowledge Knowledge In the forward of the paperback edition of Straw Dogs, before we even reach page one of the actual text, Gray states that \u201coutside of science, progress is simply a myth.\u201d He goes on to say that religious believers today have been \u201cdriven to the margins of a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions\/252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardian.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}