A lot of people are starting to notice it, but it's not like it's obscure. Science is good for science.
"we seem to favour the empirical side of science" LOL. That's rich. Empiricism has crowded out observation and taxonomy.
I don't think Dawkins classified memes as true or false, just as contageous ideas.
"Yet this makes many questions simply beyond the scope of such a method."
No poo...
I'm writing something that includes this topic and the following is sort of pasted from my current work on "Strategy For A New Human Ecology"..
Where I got into this was from biology., I was wondering about population decline in developed nations and realized something was missing that led to the release and development of moral instincts. Science certainly doesn't suggest why to have a family and philosophy only does to a certain degree. What philosophy can do though is release and cause the development of the moral instincts that do lead to families.
In the larger sphere, doesn't it seem likely that many social problems are due to lack of moral training and instinct? If you ask a person if we are in a moral crisis, their moral instincts may well scream “yes”.
Science has crowded out every other study and basically teaches that philosophy is obsolete. Doing so has crippled science though.
You might ask how this happened. World War I demonstrated the power and wealth of science. The ancient war between science and religion was decisively won in the 1925 Scopes trial, but religion was not the only thing damaged. What if that victory was Pyric? Science is a jealous mistress. It is almost all we teach now, besides perhaps art. (Luckily this is incorrect.) No Home Economics, no Civics, no Manual Arts... What else was lost and does it hurt science? It does. It hurts so many things. Philosophy used to be taught in grammar school. It needs to be again for science, for healthy families, for mental health, for healthy societies, for so many things.
I've been currently looking at what philosophy should be taught in grammar school as it used to be. It must not be taught as history. It is not about advanced philosophy (particularly not about consciousness). No one philosopher really needs to be mentioned, only some basic ideas. Lessons like Benjamin Franklin’s 14 rules of life or the 4H Pledge, some of the Maxims of Ptah-Hotep, or the 147 Maxims of Delphi. Teach the 40 virtues and the 7 deadly sins. Teach what was taught from the start of civilization until science crowded it out. Teach it in a way that will release moral instincts. Science must still be taught. We need science as much as philosophy, but we do need philosophy, both to teach incredibly valuable knowledge and to develop moral instinct... or science will be stuck as it is now. Humanity will be stuck.
I'm actually looking at this same problem in other contexts. Consider that our Western civilization (and it turns out it effects others for the same reason) is really based on philosophy. The Founders of the United States were all educated in philosophy. Can our civilization persist without philosophy?
