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Entry: Fads, Tradition, and Real Knowledge Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/fads_tradition_and_real_knowledge#24370 Post contents: "It’s also 'crystallized common sense' that the sun circles the earth. I see it with my eyes every day!" You do not. What you see is the sun rising in the east every day. That the sun rises in the east is an inductive proposition; a truth known by induction. That this is because the sun circles the earth or because the earth circles the sun is not something that can be known by induction, but rather only deductively, through its proper causes. When Mr. Roach talks about things known by tradition, he's talking about inductive truths: e.g. the fact that abstinence taught in the context of Christian truth reduces the rate of teen pregnancy and sexual diseases. We know this is true because we have 2000 years of experience to back it up. The effort to supplant such truths with "studies" (controlled exercises in induction) is nothing but an attempt to eliminate alleged errors due to bias. Supposedly, modern science and scientists not being susceptible to bias, their results are more accurate than the experience of millions upon millions of people over the course of 2000 years. (Of course, there's also the fact that what works or what is true in a Christian culture may not work or be true for a secular one. To that extent, modern studies can have some merit. Nevertheless, they are completely incapable of telling us, for example, whether our society should be Christian or secular, which is an underlying question that must be answered first.) Sent at: 2008 07 24