Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
From: abb3w@fulton.seas.Virginia.EDU (Arthur Bernard Byrne)
Subject: Re: What's so Scientific here?
Message-ID: <1991Nov8.042248.26703@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
Organization: University of Virginia
References: <1991Nov6.213823.1249@usl.edu> <z9d_k3+@engin.umich.edu>
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 91 04:22:48 GMT

After minimal remixing....

In article <z9d_k3+@engin.umich.edu> davidb@caen.engin.umich.edu (David Bonnell) writes:
>In article <1991Nov6.213823.1249@usl.edu>, das9674@usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A) writes:
>> I know Scientologist 'know' Scientology works,....but what makes it all so
>> 'Scientific'??I thought religions were by definition non-scientific. Just
>> saying "oooh, it works, it's true, it must be 'science'" doesn't cut it.
>> 
>> I once has a talk with a Scientologist associate of mine - he sounded *quite*
>> like a quack. Like statement like "Well, matter is energy and _thought_ is 
>> energy therefore thought has mass and NEGATIVE thoughts have MORE mass than
>> POSITIVE thoughts, and the E-METER read the masses of these thoughts,...so it
>> can be determined how much NEGATIVE thought have,....". Things like this.
>> Really hokey. And to think -I actually respected this guy in scientific 
>> matters beforehand! Whew!!
>> 
>> So where's the science? Love potions and hair tonics?!
>> 
>> -Dan
>
>What is the definition of science?  In the Webster's New World Dictionary
>Second College Edition definition number two says:
>
>systematized knowledge derived from observation, study, and experimentation
>carried on in order to determine the nature or principles of what is being
>studied.
>
>If anyone has knowledge of that form then it is a science. If you study
>the mind and you came up with some systematized knowledge that worked 
>everytime you might call it Scientology.  Read Dianetics.
>
	Actually, there's a bit more to it than that. The key question
seems to be, how do you know it works? How is it measured? The procedures
for that in all of the other "hard" sciences are pretty clear about
that. And there are no sacred cows... I believe "The Ring of Truth" was
a book/TV show that proceeded to verify physics step by step, from
basic assumptions up. They only balked at e=3Dmc^2, and that due to the
difficulty of testing in the home (though they tried!).

	What David here seems to be saying in response is that "It
works". What the skeptics out here are asking is, how can we preform
household tests to verify OR disprove the theory. May I also suggest
a quote by another great dead SF writer, Robert A. Heinlein:
	"If it can't be expressed as mathematics, it's superstition."

	Care to name a hard science that violates this?
	Oh, and by what I meant earlier about not trusting those who
say they have the Truth, is thatwhile it can be approached, I
doubt it can be FULLY known. I distrust anyone who thinks that they
have the full and absolute truth on anything, which is why I dislike
most religions, or at least their more fanatic members. Newton was
displaced by Einstein and Heisenberg, and those two aren't fully
consistent with each other, meaning they need to give way for yet
another someday. Et cetera.

AB^2