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> Several students spoke up about how science (especially physics)
> and its reductionist methodologies "reduce everything to
> subatomic particles or collections of atoms" and "strip things
> of their human meanings and purposes" by "separating us off
> from the objects of our perception". They called for a more
> "humanized" worldview, and made it clear that this kind of
> view would not be available from science's "disinterested,
> detached" way of explaining the world.

Probably several things could be said in response to this, although I'm only going to address one aspect. I like the hammer example:
> We could think of a hammer as BOTH a "collection of atoms" and
> a tool for human use, simultaneously and without any loss of
> "meaning" that comes from its human uses.

Others similar to it:
Everybody uses cars. Everybody realizes that a car is a collection of parts and that there exist specialists ("auto mechanics") who know a whole lot more about these parts than, say, me. Yet I don't find the viewpoint of auto mechanics to be alienating, or even precluding my particular use of cars. That is, I think of a car as a means of human transportation and when it has a problem I go to the people who think of cars as collections of interacting parts, and hopefully they fix it for me. Their viewpoint doesn't exclude my viewpoint and in fact without their viewpoint (collection of parts which they know how to fix) I end up with a broken car.

Another example: cooking and eating. I can't cook, I don't really want to learn. I like to eat, though. When I go to a restaurant, I can just enjoy eating what's on my plate. Does it make it less tasty if I think of my food as a collection of ingredients? If the chef came out and described to me in detail how it was cooked, what the ingredients are, I might get bored (at worst) but certainly wouldn't find this as dehumanizing the experience of eating a good meal. Unless of course the ingredients included stuff I'd rather not know about... :-) Also, once again, I am very glad that someone out there (the chef) knows all the details, otherwise I'd be getting the same food I can microwave at home.

I think science is the same way -- in the same way I hope auto mechanics love cars, in the same way I hope chefs love the process of cooking, I think I love science – thinking about it, doing it. It's not for everybody, but I would hope science itself doesn't detract from anybody else's enjoyment of the world.

None of this really explains why science is cool, but perhaps it argues that a reductionist approach isn't inherently bad.

--Eric