Revisiting NOMA - what can't science enter into?

[TithonusSyndrome]

Everyone here is familiar with Stephen Jay Gould's notion of NOMA, but what I didn't know until recently is that he had actually envisioned three magisterias - science and religion are the ones everyone already knows of, but Gould had also set aside one for art. Since most of us would probably agree or at least be sympathetic to the idea that the religious magisterium and it's privacy aren't effective ideas that fail to pull their own weight in society, it might be a better use of NOMA to reassign this magisterium to morality. So, as I thought of it, there are now three magisteria, but is it really so?

I was recently expelled from another forum for being a "science fetishist" who clashed with other users less apt to allow scientific methods and findings to deliberate on what choices I made with my time and my personal support for various ideas. I feel that both morality and art would be significantly cruder without science. We would lack the ability to probe the effects of seemingly innocuous pastimes in depth and see who they hurt, and art without science would pretty much be limited to piling twigs on one another. It may be that a world without the other two magisteria would be dull and unrewarding (and possibly inconceivable as a simple matter of fact) but either way, if the magisteria don't overlap, then science certainly encircles them and informs their every move and doing.

Was I being overboard, though? Are there simply some choices that can be made effectively and accurately while living in an absolutely vacant ignorance of science? And are there other magisteria aside from the three I suggested?

[Darth Wong]

Everyone here is familiar with Stephen Jay Gould's notion of NOMA, but what I didn't know until recently is that he had actually envisioned three magisterias - science and religion are the ones everyone already knows of, but Gould had also set aside one for art. Since most of us would probably agree or at least be sympathetic to the idea that the religious magisterium and it's privacy aren't effective ideas that fail to pull their own weight in society, it might be a better use of NOMA to reassign this magisterium to morality. So, as I thought of it, there are now three magisteria, but is it really so?

I was recently expelled from another forum for being a "science fetishist" who clashed with other users less apt to allow scientific methods and findings to deliberate on what choices I made with my time and my personal support for various ideas. I feel that both morality and art would be significantly cruder without science. We would lack the ability to probe the effects of seemingly innocuous pastimes in depth and see who they hurt, and art without science would pretty much be limited to piling twigs on one another. It may be that a world without the other two magisteria would be dull and unrewarding (and possibly inconceivable as a simple matter of fact) but either way, if the magisteria don't overlap, then science certainly encircles them and informs their every move and doing.

Was I being overboard, though? Are there simply some choices that can be made effectively and accurately while living in an absolutely vacant ignorance of science? And are there other magisteria aside from the three I suggested?

I think you understated it, if anything. Without science, we would be, as Einstein put it, "primitive and beast-like", and we would behave accordingly, with beast-like "morality" (which is to say, very little morality at all). Art quite frankly doesn't accomplish shit in terms of human progress. We made cave drawings for tens of thousands of years and we were still living in goddamned caves. The same is true for religion; every culture from the most primitive to the most advanced or from the most moral to the most depraved, all had religion.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Everyone here is familiar with Stephen Jay Gould's notion of NOMA, but what I didn't know until recently is that he had actually envisioned three magisterias - science and religion are the ones everyone already knows of, but Gould had also set aside one for art. Since most of us would probably agree or at least be sympathetic to the idea that the religious magisterium and it's privacy aren't effective ideas that fail to pull their own weight in society, it might be a better use of NOMA to reassign this magisterium to morality. So, as I thought of it, there are now three magisteria, but is it really so?

I was recently expelled from another forum for being a "science fetishist" who clashed with other users less apt to allow scientific methods and findings to deliberate on what choices I made with my time and my personal support for various ideas. I feel that both morality and art would be significantly cruder without science. We would lack the ability to probe the effects of seemingly innocuous pastimes in depth and see who they hurt, and art without science would pretty much be limited to piling twigs on one another. It may be that a world without the other two magisteria would be dull and unrewarding (and possibly inconceivable as a simple matter of fact) but either way, if the magisteria don't overlap, then science certainly encircles them and informs their every move and doing.

Was I being overboard, though? Are there simply some choices that can be made effectively and accurately while living in an absolutely vacant ignorance of science? And are there other magisteria aside from the three I suggested?

I think you understated it, if anything. Without science, we would be, as Einstein put it, "primitive and beast-like", and we would behave accordingly, with beast-like "morality" (which is to say, very little morality at all). Art quite frankly doesn't accomplish shit in terms of human progress. We made cave drawings for tens of thousands of years and we were still living in goddamned caves. The same is true for religion; every culture from the most primitive to the most advanced or from the most moral to the most depraved, all had religion.

Minor nitpick

Morality is a social and evolutionary construct used as a tool to facilitate in-group cooperation and survival within an environment... So it is meaningless to use terms like most moral or most depraved because you would be making the judgment based upon moral rules that apply and work within your cultural group but not another. Ex. To us, infanticide is repugnant... to some south american tribes, infanticide is sometimes necessary and not immoral. And both are correct. The most you could say if one wanted to be objective and not bring your biases to the table, would be to say that this or that behavior is maladaptive

That having been said, I reject completely the idea of the NOMA. Why the fuck is a priest specially gifted with the ability to determine what morality is? When one asks the question "why is the universe here?" and starts asking questions of ultimate purpose the priest is about as qualified as a janitor.

The priest serves a social function. A social function predicated on his ability to answer such questions and give guidance to his congregation, to help them communally raise offspring etc etc etc. But that does not mean he is specially qualified to be factually correct with the bullshit he is spouting, or to actually teach us anything other than what we, due to cultural evolution(moral rules), already know to be true, but just need a way to transmit to our offspring. The fact that teachers and relatives serve this function just as well without a lot of the baggage is another argument entirely.

The simple fact is, science is the only way we have of actually finding knowledge in the universe. Appealing to nature to test our ideas, and reach objective, verifiable (in so far as we avoid affirming the consequent) truths about nature. Saying that this is some sort of lower-case-t truth and that there is some ultimate Truth in the universe is disingenuous and meaningless, because people who say this cannot ever know or demonstrate what this Truth is.

Ex. Let us examine the claims about god. We will assume for the sake of argument that a god exists.

There are two claims. God is a chicken vs. god is a lizard. I know this seems a bit silly, but it allows me to illustrate the point.

Looking at holy texts we can create a dichotmous key of sorts. We can "key out" god, and find that he is a bilateriate. He has bilateral symmetry. We can also know that God is a deuterostome, a chordate, craniate, and a tetropod. We can even know, if given only these two holy books that God is a diapsid... but we get stuck once we get to whether or not he is a lepidosaur(the lineage leading to lizards and snakes) or an archosaur (the lineage leading to birds, dinosaurs and crocodiles) Using the claims of the priests we can never resolve this conflict about the systematics of God. And that is only with these options! What if someone comes along and claims that God is a cnidarian? We would be fucked!

But then again, I am one of those filthy baby-eating positivists... what do I know?

Then there is art. Did you know that there are evolutionary themes in art, and the beauty is not some subjective thing, but rather hard-wired into our brains? Science can actually predict what it is we will find to be beautiful. Science not only makes art better, but it can be used to teach us about art itself.