Dogma or Science, a few words by Jacob Bronowski

[alexasmithy]

some really good stuff here

[archsceptic]

Tomorrow, science will know more than it knows today - which will be true whenever you read this. This incremental building of knowledge is the cornerstone of science and is the antithesis of dogma.

[shockraid1]

When you stop thinking, stop criticizing, and begin to act only on belief, you have opened your doors to fascism.

[chrisdryer]

the problem isn't the science, or religion... it's the same argument of "Guns don't kill people... people kill people." It will always be up to humans to realize/know themselves and then see themselves in others.

[Chingfordassociates]

A brilliant polymath. The amazing thing about Jacob Bronowski was that he was outstanding in so many fields and that he could perceive links between diverse disciplines. A wonderful educator.

[toddstark]

re: "priestly class of scientists" ... I suppose people can justify any idiosyncratic concept by an appropriately selective interpretation of historical events, but this one requires an especially narrow view of history. We;d have to agree first that the Soviets and the Nazis were doing science in the same social process sense as we use the term today, which they clearly were not by any reasonable interpretation (although they obviously developed technology). The phrase is dishonest.

[CroatAndNettles]

Not good enough...The issue is never dogma or science. After all, the Nazi atrocities were not the result of dogma, they were in large part vicious misapplication of what was believed to be the "science" of eugenics, and a lack of courage by those who knew better. Sadly, we have learned again and again that the priestly class of scientists who define the paradigm separating truth from non-truth often do harm to the human spirit in ways they little understand.

[OhmgrownCron]

4:13 - Oh shit, totally forgot that puddle was there...

[narizbola]

@OhmgrownCron No one forgets what was left there, sir.

[ellandelachapelle]

Yes men (some of them) wants to be God. (hopeless aspiration. Since it is impossible.) You know what Robert Oppenheimer thought when they had detonated the very first atom bomb (in the desert)? "I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds"! (quotation from Bhagavad Gita.)

[Zareste]

What he basically said is the holocaust would have worked out well in the end.

[fifimsp]

Sends chills down your spine every time.

[clodoff3]

Greatest documentary (piece of knowledge) ever made..the conclusion of all what man has ever achieved

BTW it is religion or fascism the biggest killer...it is dogma!

[clodoff3]

Greatest documentary (piece of knowledge) ever made..the conclusion of all what man has ever achieved

[koenraad72]

This touches me very deeply, here is a man, a formidable mind, enormously knowledgeable and with the experience and wisdom of an aged man reaching inside deeply to carefully express his thoughts as he always does so eminently with his hand clutching, voicing what is obviously the most important notion in his life, being a scientist and a survivor, making this profound statement and supporting his powerful speech by humbly stepping into this puddle, getting his feet wet and grasping the soil.

[muttley641]

@koenraad72 Your summary shows your passion!

[triton300b]

parousia: and the Nazis were secular? I think not. Fascists yes, but religious ones with "Gott mit uns" inscribed on their belt buckles.

[parousia2]

Fascism & Marxism - secular ideologies that have killed more than any religion.

[ChantsEvensong]

This video, or rather the statements made by Prof. Brownowski, captures the essential question we all face and try to answer everyday:

"Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known. We always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every Judgment of science stands of the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible."

If you replace the word "science" with "philosophy", or even "law", it's still true.

[clodoff3]

@ChantsEvensong I will have to disagree with you as philosophy is based on any test in reality and law doesn't feel forward but backward....only science fits his speech.....good day :)

[tuckerch]

@ChantsEvensong A mastery of philosophy is about as useful as a mastery of phrenology.

[ArmadaOfFloaties]

What happened to television like this.

[muttley641]

@ArmadaOfFloaties People like their own version/versions of history,religion,science , humanity!

[orp0piru]

@ArmadaOfFloaties People stopped reading books.

[turbozed]

There can be no such thing as a 'dogmatic belief in science' as science is an never-ending inquiry and is the exact opposite of dogma. You can, however, have dogmatic attachment to a certain theory of science which may turn out to be incorrect, and many great scientists in the past have been guilty of this. However, Bronowski is right in saying that the worst deeds done by man are done by those who ignore further inquiry and act on a belief of absolute certainty and righteousness.

[TheStigma]

@turbozed This is so right. The fundamental tenant of scientific thinking is that you are only tentatively corect as long as there is no proof to the contrary. Science is allmost exclusive in the way of thinking that admidting that you were wrong and revising your hypothesis is actually considered admirable. Nearly everywhere else people look at that as weakness. I wish politicians in particular would think more like scientists. War on drugs didn't work as expected? ok lets revise the hypothesis

[muttley641]

@turbozed Ludwig Boltzman was a classic case in this respect! His passionate belief of the Reality of Atoms, followed the scorn of his contemporary,s S=K. LOG W

[odinata]

The tragedy is that those with a political agenda use science for their battles.

[suddenlyitsobvious]

It's obvious to see what's going on here:

the message is: if you don't BELIEVE in science you're irrational. If you believe in religious dogma too. The implications:

The nazi's were driven by irrational hatred.

Irrational hatred leads to catastrophy.

Consequently you must believe science or you're a hater.

Kill God or you're a pathological danger to society. "Edifying" message...

[suddenlyitsobvious]

If we really must make an Auschwitz connection, darwinist narratives rather than Christianity explain much: natural selection, survival of the fittest, an explosion of blatantly racist scientific "research" and theories etc.

JB is COMPLETELY off-base with his glorification of science. Science is a religion. Scientism. & people BELIEVE. They believe you're MAD if you don't BELIEVE.

Yes indeed, science can make computers & lightbulbs but has failed miserably where LIFE is concerned...

[suddenlyitsobvious]

Completely disinformative propaganda. What's this working on viscerae using Auschwitz?!

End justifies means certainly is the mindframe that controls the evolutionist dogma & science in general. Evolution MUST come true AT ANY COST. The amount of hoaxes & foul play are simply staggering. There is no "objective" science. It is mixed up with interests, pregnant with metaphysical assumptions, it's conclusions pushed through media-shows...

Dawkins & his "supers" from the BRIGHT's club. Pathetic.

[doorcodad]

I am a retired physics teacher. This series was the best thing I ever saw on TV. How appropriate it is for today's world!

[solnegrolunaroja]

I don't think religion or science are the problem. It's dogma and arrogance as he says. Religion and science are mere tools. The one that uses, MAN, is responsible of all this.

History has examples of both cases. If you kill someone with a hammer, wich is not a weapon, just a tool, then who's the blame? certainly you cannot blame the hammer.

[Jlipnicki]

@manchesterfellow : I am not ignorant and an assumption is insulting and an expression of your own lack of comprenhension. I watched this programme when 17 and it is of a quality you do not have on television currently. Do not make wild responses and try and consider what 'science' has realy given to the world as opposed to just living life without trying to explain it and religion, which is not just dogma, that is the preserve of beaurocratic politicians, has offered. Councils of perfection.

[manchesterfellow]

@Jlipnicki I am sorry, but the comment stands. You simply don't understand science at all. And you have missed the point of this video entirely.

Listen to what Bronowski is actually saying.

[mrskcleek]

As brilliant, profound and timeless now as when I saw it almost 40 years ago. Thank you so much for posting this.

[hdtwoodsman]

Bruno brilliantly addresses certainty. All great scientists understand its fallability, it is the religious nuts who inflate and highlight the gaps in science. 

[Jlipnicki]

Science does tend towards claiming " absolute knowledge and power. "

I am afraid, I am very afraid.

[manchesterfellow]

@Jlipnicki No it doesn't. You don't understand science at all - you are the ignorant person that Bronowski talks about reaching in this video.

[3point14rat]

@Jlipnicki "Absolute knowledge" is one thing that science does NOT claim.

Seriously. Do you even know what you typed? Was this a typo?

Science is only possible if people are willing to change. Only religion claims absolute knowledge. Science and religion are on opposite ends of the 'dogma' spectrum.

The internet abounds with explanations of what science is- spend a few minutes (or months or years) and check some of it out.

[dominictemple]

A powerful and well needed message. A shame that those who need to hear it the most are those who will never listen

[Oscar301]

Very powerful clip of a truly brilliant series. However, it should be pointed out there have been some notoriously unbending dogmatists in science as well

[IExposeMormonism]

We haven't learned a thing and its worse and getting worse, so wake up.  I just came across this video. I was thinking of JB standing in the thin gray soil. And here it is!! I hadn't seen this since 1973.

[AYRLARDANAYARBEGEN]

Fake

[bowman2061]

Religion, the biggest killer of them all.

[oirambros147]

@bowman2061 let see this equation

human +religions = mass murderer

human + sciences = mass murderer

human + atheism = mass murderer

can we see the pattern here? its human thing! hahaha

[fntime]

@oirambros147 your comment is both

boring and foolish.

Before you comment on humans

you have to be one first!

[OlenkaWagner]

@bowman2061 - In fact, the highest number of people in 20th century were killed by communism - an atheist ideology

[polymath7]

Suggested rival candidates:

-"Reason led to the guillatine."

-"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"

- "One must respect other cultures."

- "Foucult and Derrida are truly great thinkers."

-"Christ died for your sins." "Islam is a religion of peace."

-"*Whooose* truth, maaaaan?" (interogative, I know;but certainly not Socratic)

-"The American people are not stupid"

-"I incline to Searle' s view of consiousness."

Other suggestions?

[polymath7]

If one were to think long and hard, taxing the resources of your imagination to the full, for months on end, in a strenuous and exhaustive attempt to deliberately craft and assemble the one combination of English words that will result in the very stupidest sentence that could possibly be produced, might it not very well be "Science leads to killing people"?

[theblackcomp111]

Religion must be silenced

[MortQ42]

No.  All must be heard. Religion must be challenged... not martyred.

[polymath7]

"Religion must be silenced"

I enjoin you to become a religious apologist.

Please.

You share with them the quality of being inversely persuasive, and will do far more good to the world -inasmuch as you have any effect upon it whatever- arguing *against* science, reason and secular humanism.

[Antiks72]

Religious ideas are dangerous and have no room in public discourse.

[ndyt]

ALL the relatives on my dad's side of the family are in that mud : (

[Jitpring]

"Dogma or Science."

Are you really so naive that you believe that science - or rather, today's scientism - has no dogma of its own?

[ryujio85]

It can't. Because the foundation of science is always to question. Perhaps to what you refer to is not science. If someone can validly disprove a given law of science than they will not be chastised.

[Jitpring]

How charmingly naive.

[ryujio85]

How conceited and descending. Lets take global warming for an example. If you are a scientist that believes it is an invalid theory you are not shot, chastised or removed from the scientific community.

[Jitpring]

Again, charming naïvety. I suppose you believe that this is also true of those who question evolutionary theory?

[ryujio85]

Of course. What percentage of U.S. citizens think the theory of evolution is legitimate? It is after all only a theory of science. Honestly there is a large portion of respected scientists that don't believe in evolution. I get told about them all the time by Christians.

[Jitpring]

Cute.

[MichaelSJLH]

Examples of this scientific dogma would be helpful, or would you rather I stay naive.

[Jitpring]

But I didn't refer to dogmas of science. I referred to dogmas of scientism. One of these dogmas is that reality is limited to the material. Another is that faith and reason are opposed.

An excellent book related to all this is E.F. Schumacher's A Guide for the Perplexed. Also see G.K. Chesterton's Heretics, along with his Orthodoxy.

[ThisRandomGuy]

one of the most powerful moments in the history of television.

[xefrainingsz]

Hi i live in SFrancisco ca i'd like to find people with real interest in science, arts, philosophy, this is the most important things humans must value, instead all the garbage we learn and is useless, see the streets? i live in vain every day, don't even know why. see the world, so confused.

[neosynbios]

I wonder how much human ash he's standing on.

[xefrainingsz]

millions of poor souls, rest in peace i love all of them, our ignorance is so big, and this wont scar,it is a wound forever.....

[pots5jak]

this is the most moving and important television show ever made. thank you, jacob.

[morgandrim]

I think that is a fair comment, pots5jak.