No.
Oh, you want details? OK then.
If you read any antiscience screeds, at some point or another most will claim that science is based on faith just as much as religion is. For example, the horrific Answers in Genesis website has this to say about science:
Much of the problem stems from the different starting points of our divergence with Darwinists. Everyone, scientist or not, must start their quests for knowledge with some unprovable axiom—some a priori belief on which they sort through experience and deduce other truths. This starting point, whatever it is, can only be accepted by faith; eventually, in each belief system, there must be some unprovable, presupposed foundation for reasoning (since an infinite regression is impossible).
This is completely wrong. It shows (unsurprisingly) an utter misunderstanding of how science works. Science is not faith-based, and here’s why.
The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That’s it. There is one corollary, and that is that if the Universe follows these rules, then those rules can be deduced by observing the way Universe behaves. This follows naturally; if it obeys the rules, then the rules must be revealed by that behavior.
A simple example: we see objects going around the Sun. The motion appears to follow some rules: the orbits are conic sections (ellipses, circles, parabolas, hyperbolas), the objects move faster when they are closer to the Sun, if they move too quickly they can escape forever, and so on.
From these observations we can apply mathematical equations to describe those motions, and then use that math to predict where a given object will be at some future date. Guess what? It works. It works so well that we can shoot probes at objects billions of kilometers away and still nail the target to phenomenal accuracy. This supports our conclusion that the math is correct. This in turn strongly implies that the Universe is following its own rules, and that we can figure them out.
Now, of course that is a very simple example, and is not meant to be complete, but it gives you an idea of how this works. Now think on this: the computer you are reading this on is entirely due to science. The circuits are the end result of decades, centuries of exploration in how electricity works and how quantum particles behave. The monitor is a triumph of scientific engineering, whether it’s a CRT or an LCD flat panel. The mouse might use an LED, or a simple ball-and-wheel. The keyboard uses springs, the wireless uses radio technology, the speakers use electromagnetism.*
Look around. Cars, airplanes, buildings. iPods, books, clothing. Agriculture, plumbing, waste disposal. Light bulbs, vacuum cleaners, ovens. These are all the products of scientific research. If your TV breaks, you can pray that it’ll spontaneously start working again, but my money would be on someone who has learned how to actually fix it based on scientific and engineering principles.
All the knowledge we have accumulated over the millennia comes together in a harmonious symphony of science. We’re not guessing here: this stuff was designed using previous knowledge developed in a scientific manner over centuries. And it works. All of this goes to support our underlying assumption that the Universe obeys rules that we can deduce.
Are there holes in this knowledge? Of course. Science doesn’t have all the answers. But science has a tool, a power that its detractors never seem to understand.
Science is not simply a database of knowledge. It’s a method, a way of finding this knowledge. Observe, hypothesize, predict, observe, revise. Science is provisional; it’s always open to improvement. Science is even subject to itself. If the method itself didn’t work, we’d see it. Our computers wouldn’t work (OK, bad example), our space probes wouldn’t get off the ground, our electronics wouldn’t work, our medicine wouldn’t work. Yet, all these things do in fact function, spectacularly well. Science is a check on itself, which is why it is such an astonishingly powerful way of understanding reality.
And that right there is where science and religion part ways. Science is not based on faith. Science is based on evidence. We have evidence it works, vast amounts of it, billions of individual pieces that fit together into a tapestry of reality. That is the critical difference. Faith, as it is interpreted by most religions, is not evidence-based, and is generally held tightly even despite evidence against it. In many cases, faith is even reinforced when evidence is found contrary to it.
To say that we have to take science on faith is such a gross misunderstanding of how science works that it can only be uttered by someone who is wholly ignorant of how reality works.
The next time someone tries to tell you that science is just as faith-based as religion, or that evolution is a religion, point them here. Perhaps the evidence of science may sway them. Perhaps not; it’s difficult to reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. But the next time they get on a computer, maybe they’ll take a slightly more critical look at it, and wonder if its workings are a miracle, or the results of brilliant minds over many generations toiling away at the scientific method.
*The irony of Answers in Genesis denigrating science on a website is not lost on me.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Quote from “god Is Not Great” by Christopher Hitchens (atheist):
And here is the point, about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically: the disagreement between Professor Stephen Jay Gould and Professor Richard Dawkins, concerning “punctuated evolution” and the unfilled gaps in post-Darwinian theory, is quite wide as well as quite deep, but we shall resolve it by evidence and reasoning and not by mutual excommunication.
Give it as a gift to all the religious people in *your* life:
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0446579807/
February 18th, 2008 at 11:52 am
If your TV breaks, you can pray that it’ll spontaneously start working again, but my money would be on someone who has learned how to actually fix it based on scientific and engineering principles.
As long as it’s within warranty.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:55 am
In actuality, there is an omnipotent and omniscient deity watching over all of the Universe, coordinating all of the myriad interactions between objects to make them seem to be collections of particles and waves that behave in perfect harmony with an inviolate set of natural laws. This is all an illusion, however; this deity is the Great Comedian, Shecky. At some point, known only to the mind of Shecky, He will abruptly drop the facade that causes the Universe to appear to make sense. This will happen at the Moment of Greatest Comedic Effect, when all will know Shecky’s Truth, and there will be much wailing and moaning and gnashing at teeth. So perfect and pure is the Comedy, however, that mere days later everyone will think back to the MGCE, nod their heads, and with a thoughtful and appreciate grin remark, “Yeah, that was pretty funny.”
February 18th, 2008 at 11:57 am
That should have been “gnashing of teeth,” of course. Oh, and “appreciative.”
*sigh*
It’s true what they say — Comedy is hard.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Phil, I completely agree with you on this one. Faith cannot be proven at all but in science one can prove or disprove any theory by adhering to certain strict principles.
I am a scientist but I also believe in God as the creator of everything we see. I regard the young earth creationists as plain stupid and the publishers of Answers in Genesis even more so. I find solace in my relationship with my Lord although I cannot see him or cannot prove him to exist. My faith in God in no way detracts from my responsibility as a scientist.
Bottom line is that one can be a great scientist and still believe in God. I have come across many over the years
Philip
February 18th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Aside from the aforementioned irony, I personally love the “Since an infinite regression is impossible.” line. Of course (Phillip, maybe you can back me up on this one?) “God” itself (the concept as generally expressed) is just such an infinite regression. Of course, for some reason, THAT doesn’t count.
I can certainly understand what they think they are saying (in AIG) – even though completely incorrect, it is what you would get from nearly any “off the street” person who would admit to any time spent thinking about it.
It would still be wrong, but that doesn’t stop the viral effect of a silly phrase such as “science is faith-based”.
JC
February 18th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
It is possible to be religious and a good scientist to the extent that it is possible to be a smoker and run marathons.
Yes, a few great scientists believe in God, but many more are atheists.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Of course fundamentalists & creationists believe in science even though they won’t admit it …. Why go to doctors to get help when “faith” would cure you. Good Grief we Americans waste an extraordinary amount of valuable time on this issue while the rest of the world is getting on with educating their kids for the 21st century. If our leaders continue to pander to those promoting this tripe then the next 25-50 years won’t be pretty as we lose the real war — science & economics.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Actually Phil I kinda disagree. I’m pretty sure it was Feynman who said that science does not require the initial assumption that the universe follows predictable, observable, and “knowable” laws. I believe it was part of the same interview where he talked about how an experiment does not have to give the same results here as in Australia, as is often claimed in highschool science classes (i.e. look up at the stars, they’re different).
Feynman says that if we ran experiments and observed weird and irregular behaviour from the universe, then we would conclude that it does not follow regular laws, and that would be perfectly scientific.
The only assumption that science asks of us is that we generally trust our senses and our memory. Not all the time, every scientist knows fully well his own ability to be fooled by his brain. But in general, if a bunch of people see the same phenomenon or read the same result off their instruments, we can be confident in their observation.
I actually think the only fundamental difference between scientists and dogmatic supernaturalists is the word “generally”. Where a scientist is aware of his/her brain’s ability to fool itself (pattern seeking, confirmation bias, optical illusions, gambler’s fallacy, and myriad etc) the faithful zealot takes him/herself TOO seriously, so when they feel a presence, they believe that means there most certainly IS a presence. It is why a scientist does not see Jesus in a piece of toast but a fundamentalist does.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Science has only one assumption? You mean when you perform an experiment you don’t assume the results are real and not an illusion in the mind of a dreaming butterfly?
February 18th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Now think on this: the computer you are reading this on is entirely due to science.
I’ve had a creationist argue that a computer is technology not science and then try to argue that there was some way to separate them. They simply would not hear that the technology was developed from scientific research and couldn’t be separated from it.
That’s the day I learned that you can’t simply use reason to debate a creationist.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I sometimes suspect that the science of the modern world is becoming so complex that it is on the verge of being out of the reach of the average Joe (or perhaps is already so). This means that Clarke’s third law goes into effect, and they can’t distinguish between technology and magic.
A couple of decades ago, my grandmother pointed at her TV and said to me, “Do you know how that thing works? I don’t. To me it’s all black magic.” Grandma was a pretty sharp cookie, and I could tell it irritated her that she didn’t know how it worked. However, she’d seen technology go from the horse and buggy to the space shuttle in her lifetime, and there just wasn’t any way for her to keep up with all the changes.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
BA writes:
[[The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That’s it. ]]
And that the Universe is real in the first place. And that it’s worth worrying about. And that it will continue to obey the same set of rules in the future that it has obeyed in the past (see David Hume for an extended discussion of that particular assumption). And so on.
Science is based on evidence, and science is based on assumptions, which are based on faith. Sorry, you can’t confine faith to religion or to “antiscience.” All worldviews are based on faith at some point. Including yours. Arguments have to have premises.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
[...] No. [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
That’s the part that really blows my mind, that followers of many religions interpret evidence that contradicts their beliefs as a test of their faith, and that clinging to that faith — even when common sense and evidence shows it wrong — somehow strengthens their conviction.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Christian X Burnham writes:
[[It is possible to be religious and a good scientist to the extent that it is possible to be a smoker and run marathons.]]
After all, look at Isaac Newton — his deep religious beliefs prevented him from making any worthwhile contributions to science. Ditto James Clerk Maxwell. And Louis Pasteur. What a bunch of morons.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
“Science is not simply a database of knowledge. It’s a method, a way of finding this knowledge.”
it seems to me that the biggest leaps in science came from people that were open to both sides. shunning the intuitive half of your brain, or vice versa, doesn’t get you anywhere, kinda like a boat with the rudder jammed to one side. it’s hard to believe that evolution could be sloppy enough to create a species where half of the population is stupid and half are geniuses. both sides have their place and until people get off their asses and genuinely try to understand their opposites, we will stay exactly where we are.. buried in hate until our society self destructs.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
MikeMarsh: “This is all an illusion, however; this deity is the Great Comedian, Shecky. At some point, known only to the mind of Shecky,
I am interested in your religion, and would like to join.
Christian X Burnhamon: It is possible to be religious and a good scientist to the extent that it is possible to be a smoker and run marathons.
HA HA HA HA! Religion = smoking.
OK, C.X., you win the thread.
Kirk: Good Grief we Americans waste an extraordinary amount of valuable time on this issue while the rest of the world is getting on with educating their kids for the 21st century.
Good Grief we Americans forget the there’s more to “the rest of the world” than Europe. A major portion of the world is hopelessly poisoned by religion. It isn’t that we here in the Colonies are much above amateur status in such things, it’s that we don’t want to “go pro”. You savvy?
And failing to educate our kids for the 21st century has little to do with religion and much to do with an educational system that was broken way before the creationist loons started getting vocal.
Doc: A couple of decades ago, my grandmother pointed at her TV and said to me, “Do you know how that thing works? I don’t. To me it’s all black magic.” Grandma was a pretty sharp cookie, and I could tell it irritated her that she didn’t know how it worked.
Well, the real key question is: did she ever try to find out? There’s plenty of “How Things Work” types of books on the market, and television broadcasting is pretty much a staple of such tomes.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Again, science most certainly does not require us to assume that the same set of rules will apply at any point in the future. If tomorrow we started observing light travelling at 314,159,265 m/s then scientists would incorporate that bizzare and unexpected change into their worldview. They wouldn’t start burning ‘heretic’ physics labs. Why is it such a common belief that science requires homogeneity? We find homogeneity, but we don’t presuppose it.
I think I can basically summarize my long earlier comment in one sentence: science requires us to believe that we do not live in the Matrix.
Religion requires that we do.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Godless Geek:
I’ve come across creationists who take that one step farther: All our technology is invented by people who are inspired by God. I find it strange, then, that God only inspires people to invent new electronics after they’ve been spent years learning about electronics, while people who get inspired to build perpetual motion machines never get them to work.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
“And that the Universe is real in the first place. And that it’s worth worrying about. And that it will continue to obey the same set of rules in the future that it has obeyed in the past (see David Hume for an extended discussion of that particular assumption). And so on.”
Geeze Barton, I think you’re really struggling here.
Let’s keep our two feet on earth here and stop being overcomplicated. The universe is real enough. Lay off the Matrix.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
It is kind of sad to think of what Newton might have discovered had he not become obsessed with Biblical literalism. Although I don’t think that was the point you were trying to make.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Barton Paul Levenson:
“And that the Universe is real in the first place. And that it’s worth worrying about. And that it will continue to obey the same set of rules in the future that it has obeyed in the past (see David Hume for an extended discussion of that particular assumption).”
Actually, that’s not true.
“And that the Universe is real in the first place.”
Um what? First of all, science doesn’t require that the universe is real (as opposed to a dream, or something). If we all exist inside The Matrix, that doesn’t mean science, within this computer-generated realm doesn’t work. Second, even if I actually agreed with you on this point, it is really a big leap of faith to say the universe exists?
“And that it’s worth worrying about.”
Science doesn’t require that it’s worth worrying about. Science works whether or not you happen to be suicidal and disinterested in it.
“And that it will continue to obey the same set of rules in the future that it has obeyed in the past”
That’s already covered under “the Universe obeys a set of rules.”
The other unspoken thing going on here is that you are trying to conflate “unproven” with “faith”. Obviously, there is a continuum of positions ranging from “unsupported ideas” to “almost certainly true”. You could claim that the belief that the world is spherical is based on faith because it cannot absolutely proven to be true. And you could claim that intergalactic reptilian aliens are controlling the world’s population through mind-control fields. The fact that neither are proven doesn’t put them on the same level. That’s what you’re trying to do here – put the wild, unsupported speculation of religion on the same level as the well-established evidence from science – by calling them both “faith”. How ridiculous.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
QD writes: [[A major portion of the world is hopelessly poisoned by religion. ]]
And the rest of it is hopelessly poisoned by atheism.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Michelle writes:
[[Geeze Barton, I think you’re really struggling here.]]
When I feel a need for your advice, kitten, I’ll drop you a line.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
TheBlackCat writes:
[[It is kind of sad to think of what Newton might have discovered had he not become obsessed with Biblical literalism.]]
Observe the “reason” with which atheists of TheBlackCat’s stripe will save the world:
C: Scientists can’t be religious.
B: Newton was religious, and he was a great scientist.
T: If he hadn’t been religious, he would have been a greater scientist.
In other words, there’s no possible way to falsify the hypothesis in question. Any possible evidence is evidence for the theory. If poor scientists are religious, it’s their religion that made them poor scientists; if great scientists are religious, they would have been better still without their religion. Honestly, anything fits! Any observation you can make proves the theory!
Excuse me if I’m not impressed with atheist “reasoning.”
February 18th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Barton: After all, look at Isaac Newton — his deep religious beliefs prevented him from making any worthwhile contributions to science.
Not a very good example. Newton was more of a mathematician, and lived in a time when NOT believing in God could be bad for your health. He was a product of his times. One wonders what more he could have accomplished if he hadn’t been distracted my mysticism and his interest in occult topics like alchemy.
How about: “Science and religion, as they stand now in modern times, are incompatible.”
February 18th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
“The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That’s it. There is one corollary, and that is that if the Universe follows these rules, then those rules can be deduced by observing the way Universe behaves.”
For a minute there I thought you were going to claim that science has no assumptions. It seems to me that there are a great many assumptions that the scientific method makes, not just one, but I understand why it would be convenient to limit it to just one or a few for agumentative purposes. Some other assumptions are:
1.) The universe is real (i.e., my senses give me information about a real external universe).
2.) The universe has order (i.e., is a cosmos as opposed to chaos).
3.) My five senses (vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch) are sufficient to find out all the data I need about the universe.
4.) My brain is capable of recognizing all relevant patterns brought to me by my senses.
5.) If I see event A happen just before event B many, many times then I know that event A causes event B (although “many, many” is never defined).
6.) I can construct a mathematical function relating feature A (e.g, time) to feature B (e.g., distance) by plotting a curve fit through data points. The random variations of the actual data points from the curve fit are observational error and may be ignored.
.
.
.
And on and on. All of these assumptions must be believed without proof and thus, constitute faith.
And as to the argument that science is true because technology works, I can imagine 500 years ago the Aztec high priest making some kind of similar agument: “See, we cut out the hearts of 5,000 people at the Great Pyramid yesterday so that the universe could continue. And it worked! The sun came up today. I shudder to think of what would have happened if we hadn’t conducted the bloody rituals.”
.
.
.
And there is one final assumption that I’m sure science students of now or days gone by can appreciate. And that is this: You’d better get the expected result in your Chemistry 101 lab or it means you screwed up and you’re going to get an F.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
[...] Phil (the Bad Astronomer) addresses the old canard “Is science faith-based?” Science is not based on faith. Science is based on evidence. We have evidence it works, vast [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Barton Paul Levenson:
“look at Isaac Newton — his deep religious beliefs prevented him from making any worthwhile contributions to science.”
Isaac Newton made contributions to science precisely because he had a commitment to testing things and his methodology was sound. He succeeded precisely because he kept God out of his scientific method. He might’ve explained things philosophically by referencing God, but that doesn’t mean his experiments or ideas were intrinsically tainted by thoughts of the supernatual. Further, Newton could’ve been a greater scientist had he not wasted so much time to trying to figure out when Jesus Christ would return according to the book of Revelations.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
As many people pointed out, science does not require that the universe obey regular, rational rules. In merely requires that we do.
It also works just as well in a solipsist universe (the dreaming butterfly someone else mentioned), because science does not presume to describe metaphysics.
Science makes controlled observations, and then draws reasoned conclusions from them. If the universe is a carefully constructed illusion, there are two possibilities:
1) The illusion can be revealed by careful inspection. That is to say, the illusion is incomplete; like the Matrix, there are “exceptions”. In that case, the best approach to uncovering the illusion is to carefully inspect everything we observe, and the best tool for that is Science.
2) The illusion is utterly complete and we can never gain information about the real world. Well, when you put it that way, your statement is never provable. We can never know, with any degree of confidence, what the “real” world is. If the illusion is complete and inviolable, how, exactly, is it not “real”? In any case, the hypothesis is untestable, and hence unknowable. Since we’re stuck in the illusion with no escape hatch, we had best make ourselves comfortable and learn as much about our confines as possible. And the best tool for that? Science.
It’s not a materialist worldview, it’s an empiricist worldview. The belief that we can observe something (possibly an illusion) and draw conclusions from those observations, and test those conclusions.
Science gets a bad rap for being a materialist worldview, and that’s wrong. Science works just as well if you’re a metaphysical idealist (there is no matter, everything is ideas/information). I fall into that category. The only thing empiricism doesn’t play nice with is Dualism- the blending of a Spiritual and a Physical world- because Dualism tries to hide anything spiritual behind a non-rational, non-testable facade.
If it’s observable, it’s testable. That’s science’s core claim. If someone observes spiritual phenomenon, we can test those observations.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
You know, it’s impossible to exactly define what science is, but the BA did a pretty good job.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I’ve always translated that argument from creationists as a very solipsistic or post-modern argument…that they’re arguing that you, personally, have to take on faith the instructions from your teachers, and that most folks who ‘believe’ in science do just that, to one extreme or another.
Which I suppose is true, after a fashion, but seems to dilute the word ‘faith’ to the same level as the kind of ‘faith’ I have that Albuquerque exists even though I’ve never been there, or that the back of the room is still there, even though I can’t see it at the moment.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
BPL – think of BlackCat’s comment more along the line of [[It is kind of sad to think of what Newton might have discovered had he not become obsessed with (creating the perfect pasta).]]
Newton did so much to advance humanity before he got sidetracked by an obsession that had relatively little gain to humanity, such as the literalism of a collection of parables written over the past few thousand years.
As to your “poisoned by atheism” comment – most poisoning of mankind has been done in the quest for power. There have been societies where atheism was condoned (or required) by the rulers (20th century Communism comes to mind), but most abusive societies have been aided or propelled by religious fervor as opposed to atheism. That fervor may have been over a single god, or many gods, but the ease in which a leader claims to be powered by their god of choice is scary.
Oh, and your comment of “When I feel a need for your advice, kitten, I’ll drop you a line” is nonsense. You posted on a public blog, opening yourself (as I am here) to public comment – including advice when someone thinks you are reaching.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Well, Barton, we don’t have many examples of atheist scientists from Newton’s time because your precious religions would have persecuted and murdered them all. How’s that for plain old black and white, “kitten”?
Religion is POISON. Your own attitude here demonstrates it clearly.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
QD repeats himself:
[[How about: “Science and religion, as they stand now in modern times, are incompatible.”]]
How about: “QD doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” That seems more likely.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Frumple writes:
[[Well, Barton, we don’t have many examples of atheist scientists from Newton’s time because your precious religions would have persecuted and murdered them all. How’s that for plain old black and white, “kitten”?]]
For a black-and-white example of a fantasy of yours, it does fine. As a logical argument, it’s a little sickly.
[[Religion is POISON. Your own attitude here demonstrates it clearly.]]
No, the attitude of prejudiced people like you is POISON.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Good luck trying to convince Mike Huckabee of this. By the way, Phil, you do realize that if he somehow manages to become President, you’re going to be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay?
February 18th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Newton was also a committed alchemist of the really weird and mystical kind. That doesn’t mean that an interest in alchemy is helpful for doing science.
Barton: You seem to have misread my post. I explicitly stated that a few great scientists believe in God.
It is plainly false that a belief in religion is compatible with science, for exactly the reasons outlined by the BA above.
The religious consider that belief without evidence is a good thing. Science is completely the opposite approach in which evidence is valued over belief.
There is also the sticky question over what religious people do when they find out that the Bible is in error wherever it makes scientific claims. For example, the Biblical account of Genesis cannot be literally true unless evolutionary theory and modern cosmology are false.
——————————————————————-
To avoid confusion, I’d like to point out that the BA has never to my knowledge claimed that he is an atheist (or that he is religious). Nor has he claimed that all religion is wrong.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Barton Paul Levensonon: How about: “QD doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” That seems more likely.
I bow to your well reasoned intellectual discourse.
Would you like some more rope, by the way?
February 18th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Barton:
“How about: “QD doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” That seems more likely.”
Wow Barton, thanks for providing us with that wonderful insight while making it more difficult for those of us who do follow science yet still hold religious beliefs to actually be taken seriously. With childish comments like that, no wonder we can’t get any respect.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
“Science is completely the opposite approach in which evidence is valued over belief.”
Assumption 7.) All reasonable people looking at the same piece of evidence will interpret it the same way.
Corallary 7A.) In case they don’t, our interpretation (i.e., the interpretation of the scientific elite) should be considered the correct one. If they still persist then that is proof that they are unreasonable.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Aw, poor little Barton-kitten. Reduced to one line insults because his intellectual capacity is all tapped out.
C’mon. Hit us with another strawman where you fallaciously turn isolated comments about Newton into a generalized argument no one made. Quote us a relevant passage in the Bible or Torah or Koran or whatever your personal poison is. How about another trite, hoary, long-debunked example?
February 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
[[Assumption 7.) All reasonable people looking at the same piece of evidence will interpret it the same way.]]
I don’t suppose you’ve heard about relativity then?
February 18th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
religion is a poison?
i think what you mean is that greed, hatred, ignorance, & desire are poisons. the things that lead men to use religion as a weapon are the poisons. religion is something to be used on a PERSONAL level to conquer your own self-destructive states of mind. if the masses don’t realize it, you can’t hold it against them…there isn’t anyone leading by example.
why not wage war on the real poisons? all you’re doing is making it worse for everyone.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Ender: You mean quantum mechanics. There are many wildly different interpretations of QM, which all give the same predictions and all fit the data.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
[[You mean quantum mechanics. There are many wildly different interpretations of QM, which all give the same predictions and all fit the data.]]
No, I meant relativity. Quantum mechanics I’d use as an example of science coping with events that don’t have simple A-causes-B explanations. Relativity I use to show how science can explain problems where different observers see different results.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
@Tom MArking
1. If it’s not real then what is it? This is a silly abstraction.
2. The whole order thing went out the window with the advent of quantum theory. There’s an entire science of chaos now.
3. Relying on “what I can see or feel” is the realm of religion. cience builds devices capable of seeing and sensing things far outside the realm of normal human physical or temporal experience.
4. Science long ago learned that perception can be untrustworthy, and has devised methods to mitigate the situation.
5. No, the next step is to find a causal link between A and B. Leaving it like it is give mere correlation without causation. In fact, simple correlation without causation is a common cause of accusation of junk science.
6. Well, this is statistics now, and it’s a much more complicated situation than you describe. It depends on the particular situation, the nature and frequency of the outlyers, and so forth. Far too much to go into here, but there are many books.
7. Nonsense. Look up the Dawkins/Gould punctuated evolution debate mentioned in the Hitchen’s quote I posted. There is always debate. Debate is the lifeblood of science. Conformity is the lifeblood of religion.
7A. Requote from above: “but we shall resolve it by evidence and reasoning and not by mutual excommunication.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard about relativity then?”
I was thinking more along the lines of blackholes versus gravastars, emergent complexity versus natural selection, etc., etc.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I forget where I first got it from (it certainly was not an original thought of own) but I subscribe the idea that there is an axiom that science relies upon and it is this: “The Universe does not lie”. It is not really much of an axiom, as unless we assume that the universe is not something that was constructed with the appearance of age then there is nothing to be learnt by looking at it.
On a totally separate points. Phil, any idea when your new book is planned for publication in the UK ? I finally gave into to my ban on buying any new books until I have made inroads into the pile I have waiting to be read, and ordered your first over the weekend.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
CXB writes:
[[It is plainly false that a belief in religion is compatible with science, for exactly the reasons outlined by the BA above. ]]
Sorry, but that’s “plainly false” only to you. Repeatedly making the same assertion does nothing to prove it. In fact, it’s dead wrong.
Modern science was actually made possible by the Christian worldview, and when that worldview is gone, modern science won’t survive it for very long.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Aerimus writes:
[[Wow Barton, thanks for providing us with that wonderful insight while making it more difficult for those of us who do follow science yet still hold religious beliefs to actually be taken seriously. With childish comments like that, no wonder we can’t get any respect.]]
Was I not deferential enough to my superiors, Aerimus? Should I have tugged the ol’ forelock a little bit more? Maybe you can give me lessons in ass-kissing.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
[[“I don’t suppose you’ve heard about relativity then?”
I was thinking more along the lines of blackholes versus gravastars, emergent complexity versus natural selection, etc., etc.]]
Oh you’re saying sometimes scientists disagree. Well duh…
However guess what the solution to the problem is… MORE SCIENCE! My science knowledge isn’t up to the level of black holes vs gavastars, but I do remember something about light being a wave… no a particle… no a wave… and somehow some more scientific investigation discovering a better explanation that explained both observations.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Tom Marking:
You’re trying remarkably hard to come up with a list of assumptions, aren’t you? Well, I don’t find them very convincing.
“3.) My five senses (vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch) are sufficient to find out all the data I need about the universe.”
No science says my senses are sufficient to find out *some* things about the universe – and only in the cases of well-designed experiments. No one claims that you must believe your senses can tell you “all the data”.
Number 5 is a joke: “If I see event A happen just before event B many, many times then I know that event A causes event B (although “many, many” is never defined).” Science tries to tease-out the cause and effect. All you’ve done is try to make scientists and the practice of science into something stupid.
Your numbers 4 and 6 are remarkably similar:
“4.) My brain is capable of recognizing all relevant patterns brought to me by my senses.”
“6.) I can construct a mathematical function relating feature A (e.g, time) to feature B (e.g., distance) by plotting a curve fit through data points. The random variations of the actual data points from the curve fit are observational error and may be ignored.”
You’re number 7 is wrong, too. “Assumption 7.) All reasonable people looking at the same piece of evidence will interpret it the same way.”
Actually, science is a way of teasing out the truth. If you don’t believe it, then do another, different experiment. It’s about finding arguments that convince people (or at least people who have a reasonable idea about the facts). Your “Corallary 7A” ignores the fact that science does accept that some things are merely hypotheses or that some things simply aren’t known. You’re obviously trying too hard to make science look authoritarian.
All of this raises a question: why is is that the religious people on this thread are FAR more likely to attempt to tear-down science with stupid arguments, and then try to turn around and say they aren’t anti-science? This thread alone provides some interesting evidence for religious people’s anti-science views.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Wow, Phil – this is one of the best things you’ve ever written. Thanks!
February 18th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
["it’s difficult to reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into."]
Phil,
That one line says it all–it’s not only succinct but apt.
I’ve never commented here before (if you don’t count pingbacks, which you curiously post as comments), so let me take this opportunity to say that I absolutely loved your book, Bad Astronomy, and have thoroughly enjoyed your appearances at the Amaz!ng Meetings over the years–I’ve never been able to attend, but I purchase the DVDs “religiously” (sorry!) from the JREF.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
“Modern science was actually made possible by the Christian worldview, and when that worldview is gone, modern science won’t survive it for very long.”
Huh. That will come as a great surprise to the Greeks.
“Modern science was actually made possible by the Christian worldview, and when that worldview is gone, modern science won’t survive it for very long.”
I will reply using your own words, “Repeatedly making the same assertion does nothing to prove it. In fact, it’s dead wrong.”
February 18th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Barton:
“Was I not deferential enough to my superiors, Aerimus? Should I have tugged the ol’ forelock a little bit more? Maybe you can give me lessons in ass-kissing.”
It’s not a matter of ass-kissing. But responding to someone that you disagree with just by saying “You don’t know what you are talking about” without actually saying anything of merit is about on the same level as a third grader in a school yard argument resorting to saying “well, you’re a poopy head!” In the end, you say nothing important and just make the rest of us look like immature morons.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Barton Paul Levenson said:
Way to show your misogyny. Is that mandatory where you come from? Did it come for free when you signed up with whatever religion you’re with? Most of what you post here seems nothing more than ad-hominems, and you seldom seem to respond to the arguments.
As for your arguments, you don’t need to assume that the universe is real if you don’t want to. You don’t need to worry about how it works either. I just don’t think that if you did that, you’d be very successful at living at all. So your arguments are actually in favor of science: assuming the universe is real and trying to understand it works, which is why we do it.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Hmm, modern science was made possible by the Christian worldview?
Might want to tell that one to the (ethnically) Jewish physicists who dominated physics in the 20th century.
Or maybe Abdus Salaam, the muslim Nobel prize winning physicist.
Or the numerous great Indian physicists and mathematicians.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
“2. The whole order thing went out the window with the advent of quantum theory. There’s an entire science of chaos now.”
Modern chaos theory is not the chaos I was talking about. Chaos theory still allows predictions. Philosophical chaos means totally unpredictable.
“3. Relying on “what I can see or feel” is the realm of religion. cience builds devices capable of seeing and sensing things far outside the realm of normal human physical or temporal experience.”
Hmm, I wonder how human beings know about the data those devices generate if not via their senses. Could it be telepathic communication?
“4. Science long ago learned that perception can be untrustworthy, and has devised methods to mitigate the situation.”
That said methods actually work is yet another assumption adding to the growing body of scientific faith.
“5. No, the next step is to find a causal link between A and B. Leaving it like it is give mere correlation without causation. In fact, simple correlation without causation is a common cause of accusation of junk science.”
And how to do you propose to find this causal link without observation of event A happening before event B? Whatever method you come up with is yet another assumption which must be believed in based on faith.
“6. Well, this is statistics now, and it’s a much more complicated situation than you describe. It depends on the particular situation, the nature and frequency of the outlyers, and so forth. Far too much to go into here, but there are many books.”
Whatever statistical methods you devise are yet more assumptions to add to the scientific faith pile.
“7. Nonsense. Look up the Dawkins/Gould punctuated evolution debate mentioned in the Hitchen’s quote I posted. There is always debate. Debate is the lifeblood of science. Conformity is the lifeblood of religion.”
Yeah, when I want advice about reasonable debate I need look no further than the reasonable Mr. Hitchens who is a paragon of tolerance for other viewpoints.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Question everything and do away with preconceived notions.
As long as religion and science stick to their ’spheres of influence’ (or magisteria) there doesn’t need to be a war.
Religion hasn’t anything useful to say about the physical universe, and science hasn’t anything (at all) to say about the supernatural, it just doesn’t deal with that stuff.
I mean, how do you falsify a concept like God?
Modern science was actually made possible by the Christian worldview, and when that worldview is gone, modern science won’t survive it for very long.
Tell that to Galileo.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Re Barton Paul Levenson
I find it interesting that all of Mr. Levensons’ examples of great scientists who were also religious are from the pre 20th century. In the 20th century, most of the great scientists were agnostics or atheists. Some examples below.
Richard Feynman
Murray GellMann
Julian Schwinger
Werner Heisenberg
Paul Dirac
Albert Einstein
I suppose that Mr. Levenson will argue that those listed above were not really great scientists.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Re Barton Paul Levenson
I would add Steven Weinberg to the above list.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Solopsistic sophistry ftl!
Real: Immaterial. We use simulations all the time.
Senses: see above.
Can we test it, and repeat the test. That’s it. Model works, until test fails and we rework the model until again test and repeat the test.
Faith: Can we test it? No. It’s not faith, then. If we rework it, we have a schism, fundamentalists, and probably two charismatics as a result rather than a modified faith. Faith is fissionable at best, but not pliant.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
dear dr.plait and bloggers:
do you know that there is a thing call “Epistemology”????
have you ever read something about that “thing”??
do you know who was Thomas Kuhn?? do you know that he wrote a book called “The Structure of the scientific revolution”??? and the “paradigm shifts”??’
and do you know something about his ideas of the “irrationality” of sciencie?
what about the school of Edimburg???
please take a read, and then, if you are sure of what are you saying, write.
NOTE: i’m an agnostic, i also think that the modern science is the greatest achievement of western europe, and that “science” was always under attack from the “right” (religion) but to from the left too. (now under the name of “social sciences”
again, i’m an spanish (in truth “castilian” spanish don’t exist) speaking person, so i’sorry if i make some mistakes
February 18th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Scientists of the 20th century who were religious:
Francis Collins – director Human Genome Project
Arthur Eddington – died 1944, British astrophysicist
George Lemaitre – died 1966, Roman Catholic priest, cosmologist
William Phillips – received Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997
.
.
.
I’m sure we can find many others. The point is not that religion involves faith. Duh, we all know that it does. The point being asserted by the original post is that science does not involve faith.
I think people are confused by the word faith and are assuming it can only mean faith in a God or in a religion. There are many kinds of faith but at the root level they all involve belief without proof.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Alex, again – solopsism is a navel-gazing exercise for new philosophy majors. Science doesn’t have to care about philosophy; it really doesn’t. Science has no truck with meaning.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Barton writes:
“Modern science was actually made possible by the Christian worldview, and when that worldview is gone, modern science won’t survive it for very long.”
You mean the Christian worldview that:
1. Forced Galileo to recant helioscentrism, banned his book, and placed him under house arrest for his (correct) scientific deductions?
2. Tortured and executed thousands of innocents under bogus charges of witchcraft, despite there being no real evidence of their guilt?
3. Gave us the Spanish Inquisition and several thousand more people tortured and burned at the stake for ridiculous religious reasons?
Here’s a good quote from Wikipedia on the effect of Christianity on science in the middle ages:
“Christianity asserted religious certainty at the expense of scientific knowledge, by giving more explicit sanction to officially correct views of nature and scripture. Similar developments occurred in other religions. This approach, while it tended to temporarily stabilize doctrine, was also inclined toward making philosophical and scientific orthodoxy less open to correction, as accepted philosophy became the religiously sanctioned science. Observation and theory became subordinate to dogma. In Europe, scientists and scholars of the Enlightenment responded to such restrictions with increasing skepticism.”
Well, you are correct in one aspect: modern science exists because of a Christian worldview. In fact, modern science is essentially a reaction *against* a Christian worldview full of superstition, dogma, supernaturalism and hearsay.
So you got *that* going for you..
February 18th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Tom: Faith is unprovable. Assumptions are testable. The fine difference is what makes up thumping on tomes.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Ty writes:
[[“Modern science was actually made possible by the Christian worldview, and when that worldview is gone, modern science won’t survive it for very long.”
Huh. That will come as a great surprise to the Greeks.]]
The scientific revolution began in four places and times: ancient Greece, the middle east of the dark ages, midieval Europe, and midieval China. It petered out in all of them except one — midieval Europe. That wasn’t because of random chance. The midieval Christians had come up with the doctrine of secondary causation — that God created a nature that could bring things to pass on its own, without constant divine intervention. That, and the belief in an orderly universe ruled by laws given by a law-maker, were what permitted modern science to succeed.
In ancient Greece, nature was viewed as capricious — plants, animals, the Earth, the sky were alive, and could do things at any moment for any reason. The Earth was not an orderly place. And in discussing nature, Greek science held that you must proceed from first principles according to pure logic — NOT consult the evidence. Experiment was work, and work was fit only for slaves. Contrast the Christian idea of vocation, that all types of work were respectable, and that “ora labora est” (”work is prayer”).
In the middle east, secondary causation was explicitly rejected. The pen moves, wrote one Arab philosopher, because Allah moves it, and the ink appears on the page because Allah puts it there — the two things are not connected; they only seem to be. With a philosophy like that, empirical science was stillborn.
In China, experiment was considered a novelty, a novelty was a bad thing — the only learning worth having was knowledge of the classics, and if you had that, you could reason out any conclusion you needed about nature or anything else. Again, empiricism for empiricism’s sake was ruled out.
So yes, the Christian worldview was what permitted modern science to arise, and the elimination of the Christian worldview will eventually take science with it. We see the signs already — multiverse theories are increasingly held instead of creation at the Big Bang because creation ex nihilo is “religious.” No matter that there’s zero empirical evidence for the multiverse — theory is more important than evidence. That’s the death knell of empirical science right there. Once the facts are bent to fit the conclusion, science per se is doomed.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Beowulff writes:
[[When I feel a need for your advice, kitten, I’ll drop you a line.
Way to show your misogyny.]]
Ah, so it’s okay for Michelle to be condescending and patronizing to me, but if I respond in kind, I’m wrong? Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t a double standard like that make you a flaming hypocrite?
Way to show your misogyny.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
“Can we test it, and repeat the test. That’s it. Model works, until test fails and we rework the model until again test and repeat the test.”
Then I guess the ancient Aztec worship of Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird of the South) must have been science then:
Test 1: Rip out hearts of 5,000 victims on steps of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan. Universe is saved. Expected result: Sun comes up next morning.
Result 1: Sun came up the next morning. Model works.
Test 2: Rip out hearts of 5,000 victims including some captured Spanish conquistadors who died screaming. Universe is saved. Expected result: Sun comes up next morning.
Result 2: Sun came up the next morning. Model works.
.
.
.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Formal methods makes assumptions, empirical does not: the proof is in the pudding. (I.e. it works.) I learn from Jolly Blogger that I claim the same as Feynman – I could have worse predecessors.
While the scientific method is the only known way to get to knowledge (which can be defined as “validated beliefs”, when dropping unnecessary philosophical presumptions, as noted here it shouldn’t be confused with unknowns such as metaphysics. Pretty much all we can say there has been summed up here – dualism is not an option, solipsism is unparsimonious, and religious views are either falsified or improbable.
As information is relative and any given measure can’t capture all structures, and ideas are contingent, I couldn’t accept such a view. I’m however sympathetic to Tegmark when he notes that matter is an unnecessary middle man between the math of physics and its observations.
Which kind of sucks, because platonism sounds like another faith. (”Oh, math – math is great – it works surprisingly well (since we molded it after empirical observations of counting, grouping in sets, and what not) – let’s worship math.”)
February 18th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
semi writes an extended ad hominem argument:
[[You mean the Christian worldview that:
1. Forced Galileo to recant helioscentrism, banned his book, and placed him under house arrest for his (correct) scientific deductions?
2. Tortured and executed thousands of innocents under bogus charges of witchcraft, despite there being no real evidence of their guilt?
3. Gave us the Spanish Inquisition and several thousand more people tortured and burned at the stake for ridiculous religious reasons?]]
I specified the Christian worldview of the middle ages, did I not? If you check — i.e., if you go by evidence, empirical research, rather than dogma — I think you’ll find that the heyday of the witch trials was the Renaissance, not the middle ages. Intellectuals of the middle ages did not believe in witchcraft. Thus a book like De Tonitruorum, arguing against the popular superstition that witches could affect the weather. Witch burning was a popular, bottom-up mass movement, which swept the professors out of the way. Thus the faculty at Tubingen issuing their famous declaration that it was “better to cure the mind than to torture and kill the body” where witchcraft was concerned.
Do you understand why a belief in witchcraft which had been rejected during the middle ages might suddenly be embraced during the Renaissance? Can you think of anything which changed?
February 18th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
“The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That’s it.”
Actually, I don’t think science even makes that assumption — at least not directly.
I believe the assumption is “if we are to be able to understand the Universe, the Universe must obey a set of rules”.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I don’t think it matters too much what assumption you start with: it’s what you do when you get feedback from following it that counts.
What AIG seem to be relying on is the fallacy that assumptions must be self-confirming: if you start with ‘materialistic’ presuppositions you are incapable of discerning evidence for God. That sort of thing can work in mathematics (change the axioms and you get a different self-consistent system) but the real world hurts your toe no matter what you are believing when you stub it.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Tom Marking:
Then I guess the ancient Aztec worship of Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird of the South) must have been science then:
Your experiment is missing a control, in which no one is sacrificed, to see of the cause/effect still holds. Without verifying cause/effect, it’s not science.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Re Barton Paul Levenson
Mr. Levenson also neglects to mention many of the French scientists of the 18th century who were not particularly religious. For instance , Laplace, who famously responded to Napoleons’ query about the contribution of god to the stability of the solar system by saying that he had no need of such a hypothesis.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Test 2: DO NOT rip out hearts of 5,000 victims…
February 18th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
And that the Universe is real in the first place.
Whatever real is… If the universe is not real, then neither science nor religion matter. That “assumption” is a non-sequitur. In any case, one need not assume that the universe is real to carry on with science.
And that it’s worth worrying about.
As above, whatever “worrying about” it means. If the universe is not relevant, then neither science nor religion matter. That “assumption” is a non-sequitur. The statement is also factually incorrect because the universe is clearly worth worrying about simply BECAUSE some people do worry about it.
And that it will continue to obey the same set of rules in the future that it has obeyed in the past (see David Hume for an extended discussion of that particular assumption).
No, the scientific method would detect a change in the rules. In fact, the scientific method has SOUGHT changes in the rules, such as a changing speed of light, to explain some facets of the universe. And even though that turned out to be a dead-end, it was considered as an hypothesis, tested by experiment, and discarded.
Science may PREDICT that the rules of the universe as they are today are the same as yesterday and will be the same tomorrow, but that is not assumed.
Science is based on evidence, and science is based on assumptions, which are based on faith.
On which faith is science based? You have shown no evidence that this claim is true, and there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Sorry, you can’t confine faith to religion or to “antiscience.” All worldviews are based on faith at some point. Including yours. Arguments have to have premises.
Your statements are factually incorrect. You have no argument.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
“Tom: Faith is unprovable. Assumptions are testable. The fine difference is what makes up thumping on tomes.”
Yes, faith is unprovable but so are assumptions/axioms/postulates. I think I said this on another thread. If you didn’t have principles within the system that were not provable from within system, then all arguments within the system become circular and fall apart.
Let’s take one of my original posited assumptions, say 3:
My five senses are sufficient to find out all the data I need about the universe.
Now, you might use that assumption to go off and study the workings of the eye, ear, etc. to find out how they work. Your conclusions would be dependent on that assumption (in mathematical terms your theorems would depend on your axiom). Now, let’s say you turn things around and you’re going to prove assumption 3 based on your research of the sensory organs.
Well, now your research results become your new axiom but they were proven assuming axiom 3. Your new axiom proves the old axiom 3 which is essentially circularity. So if all assertions in the system are provable from within the system then all arguments within the system become circular. I don’t think that’s what you want. So you need your axioms/assumptions/postulates in science and that’s where faith comes in. There is no other basis for believing them.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
midieval
I think you mean medieval. Of course, I’m making an unfounded assumption…
February 18th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Barton Paul Levenson :
Frumple writes:
[[Religion is POISON. Your own attitude here demonstrates it clearly.]]
No, the attitude of prejudiced people like you is POISON.
Wonderful example of the situation on the old BBSes that allowed me to derive The Rule Of (Neo)Conservative Correctness #14:
Always take everything personally.
Summary: Two neocons were debating two ‘liberals’ (def: non neocons) over who was a ‘bigot’. I posted a dictionary definition of the term to “all”.
Immediate response: both neocons attacked me as claiming they were bigots. I saved their comments for about a week, then re-posted the entire thread in a message (only editing was to remove details, e.g. time and date of post and other redundant materials) including my observation that the original post I made was to “all” – not to either of them, and that it was no more than a dictionary definition.
To their credit, both of them immediately dropped the thread after a post similar to the quote above from this blog… one more “well, I still say you’re a bigot”.
J/P=?
February 18th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
“Your experiment is missing a control, in which no one is sacrificed, to see of the cause/effect still holds. Without verifying cause/effect, it’s not science.”
Was a control specified in Pat’s definition? He just said test the model to see if it works and it does in the Aztec case. Is there a control when we formulate our theories about dark energy, dark matter, etc.? What is the control when we dig up a dinosaur bone and theorize about what species it belongs to?
February 18th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
And the rest of it is hopelessly poisoned by atheism.
Which part would that be? I can look all over and see the damage wrought by religion.
Where is the atheist damage?
February 18th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I was under the impression that in Europe that modern science began in the Renaissance with the translation of Greek manuscripts (about the same time as the loss of the stranglehold the Catholic church had on religion in western Europe) but didn’t being to reach maturity and being flourishing until the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. This also corresponded to a period of increased religious tolerance and decreased influence of religion on society. Deism became particularly popular during this era. Overall the middle ages, although not devoid of scientific progress, produced considerably little scientific progress compared to the renaissance, age of reason, age of enlightenment, and the modern era that followed. Each produced considerably more progress than the previous, and for the most part each having less overall influence of religion on society and increased religious tolerance and diversity.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
The scientific revolution was a long process, but not that long. Most would place its beginnings at the 16th century. This coincides with mercantilism, and while I’m not a historian I would assume that the necessary technology got its boost with capitalism.
However we cut the cake, religion and especially Abrahamic religions had very little to do with empirical science. They mostly suppressed it, as knowledge is dangerous to faith and new knowledge is dangerous to an existing societal order.
Again, I’m not a historian, but I can’t square that with chinese mathematics which by all accounts was much more empirical than greek. Instead of relying on formal models they developed a method and then applied it exhaustively in an empirical fashion. Quite like scientists may choose to do today at times.
On the contrary, trying to learn more I find this:
But later:
which of course seems to tie in with my speculations above.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Ah, funny Tom. Funny you always come up with absurd extremes, but really never argue a point.
That’s not a test.
Their faith makes them believe there is an association; testing it would be stabbing somebody at midnight (does the stabbing really cause the sunrise?), or not stabbing them next morning.
You know; apostasy. Sacrelige. The same accusation that killed Socrates, put Galileo under house arrest, and threatens to mire Florida in the 1840’s.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Well, Tommy, your main point seem to be that “we cant trust any observation whatsoever” so I give up. It’s an utterly anti-intellectual position. It’s really just a (barely) more sophisticated version of closing your eyes, plugging your ears and chanting to yourself that nothing exists.
But I’ll bet you can play a mean pinball.
And the Aztecs were not conducting expereiments. They were following their religion. If they had been scientific, a control experiment where they DIDN’T tear out a heart, and the sun still came up, would have put an end to their brutal sacrifices.
Bemusing tangent: In Alan Moore’s “Tom Strong” comics, there’s a parallel Earth where the Aztecs *were* scietifically minded. When the Spanish came, the Conquistadors were met by Aztecs weilding automatic weaponry. The Aztecs went on to conquer the world and a couple thousand other parallels before being stopped. They had a facade religion, and even a serpent god that they built themselves. It was subversive actions by the serpent god’s artificial intelligence that was theur undoing.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
BPL, in re:
“The midieval Christians had come up with the doctrine of secondary causation — that God created a nature that could bring things to pass on its own, without constant divine intervention. That, and the belief in an orderly universe ruled by laws given by a law-maker, were what permitted modern science to succeed.”
I liked the little essay of which that is a part, when I first saw you use it over at “Deltoid” (where you do good work rebutting climate-change denialists, by the way). However, granting its factual status (which I am in no position to refute), it does not lead in my mind to the conclusion that science owes a debt to Christianity in general, but rather to some specific Christians who were open to reason and empirical evidence. To this day there are professed Christians who are quite hostile to science (yourself not among them), so it is hard for me to accept that science gained a critical mass of acceptance at a time and place where Christianity dominated due to the innate benificience of Christianity rather than as an historical accident.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
If you insist on making non sequitur arguments on formal systems, I will use Gödel and claim that the methods used in his first incompleteness theorem not only provides such results but show that any sufficiently advanced formal system can be extended to cope with all observations.
But we shouldn’t confuse formal methods with empirical science. A theory and the facts that it contains by its predictions are circular (if it is complete). Going full circle back to the argument that which makes observational science work is that it … is observed to work.
[Oh, you can make up elaborate schemes whereby observational data are pulled back from nature by observations. But instead we can note that if a complete theory is circular by definition, and hopefully isomorphic to the underlying nature, doesn't it mean that nature is "circular" too?
So maybe anthropic principles tell us the correct physics because they too work by observations, avoiding the formal dilemma.
]
February 18th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Tom, solopsistic sophistry.
Nothing is certain; but you know what?
Science doesn’t care about meaning.
Again, Tom – science doesn’t care. It doesn’t care that you worry that all assumptions are predicated on one assumption, and therefore a stack of lies upon also lies.
You equate this with faith.
Faith would be screaming in terror and soiling onesself that the lies and also lies would collapse and take one’s worldview with it.
Science insetad is getting up in the morning and shaking that stack. If it doesn’t fall down, one gets on with one’s day.
Why do you think Einstein wondered about people in elevators, on trains, and in spaceships? Why wonder about that? Faith would say you see the same thing. Science asks and tests. Constantly.
Science is not faith. It might be based on the shared assumption that things exist, but at that point it ceases worrying. Paralyzation through endless navel-gazing is not going to get you that grant or cure polio.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
everyone here sounds pretty faithful to me
February 18th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
“That’s not a test.”
How is it not a test? It’s a repeatable action which has a predicted result. The observed result agrees with the prediction. Now, you may say they are obligated to try all sorts of actions to see what the result is in each case, but why should they bother to as long as their model accurately predicts what will happen? And how many modern scientists spend their time trying to come up with alternative explanations for time dilation when they know full well that Einstein’s special theory of relativity adequately explains the data?
And the reference to “mire Florida in the 1840’s” has flown over my head into the stratosphere. I’m racking my brain thinking … Florida … 1840’s… Hmmm. Wasn’t Florida a Spanish colony at the time? So when you say “mired like Florida in the 1840’s” I know just what you mean as I frantically turn the dial on my AM radio searching for someone who puede hablar Ingles. Not sure if that’s what you were referring to.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Funny, G. Next time you attend wherever, ask if you can perform some experiments like drinking the font of whatever, or reversing the ceremony. See what it gets you.
Science says knock yourself out. You might find something new.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Maybe I should add to my last comment that I sincerely hope nature is “circular”, implying complete and self sufficient. Not that my absent metaphysics care, but I would sleep better at night…
February 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Mr. Levenson,
I find your comment that a Christian worldview, particularly that of medieval Europe, made modern science possible and is essential for it to continue rather perplexing. Modern science is the collection and incorporation of all scientific discovery since humans first made observations. It is built on past discoveries and moves forward regardless of any particular religious worldview.
You mentioned scientific revolutions in areas outside of medieval Europe. Modern science incorporates many discoveries from these areas/eras because of what they have found and explained, not how they fit into a Christian worldview. Take, for example, rocketry. This field would not have been possible without the scientific work undertaken by non-Christian China and their discovery and development of gunpowder.
You claim that scientific revolutions petered out in the dark ages middle east, China and ancient Greece, but did not in medieval Europe. Actually, scientific discovery never really flourished in Europe until the Renaissance, when a totalitarian control over knowledge by the Christian church gave way to free inquiry and acceptance that the individual actually mattered. Mediveal Christians destroyed a hell of a lot of knowledge that did not fit with their worldview or threatened their control.
Your claim regarding ancient Greece and their view that experimentation is work and work is only fit for slaves is false, in some degree. Experimentation led to the observation that the Earth is, in fact, round. Further, the view that nature was chaotic likely was a result of a young grasp of scientific knowledge about the world, one that we have now, though still limited.
As for China, the squashing of novel experiment [which did not directly benefit those in power] may have arisen from a dogmatic reverence for the classics. A similar phenomenon can be seen in the Bible literalists of today: a discovery does not fit a literal interpretation of the Bible, therefore it is either a) false, b) useless triviality, or c) both.
I guess what I’m trying to get at, is that the view that the universe is rule-driven and that nature can run on its own without any divine intervention is not necessarily a Christian viewpoint (and indeed runs contrary to a stricter, dogmatic Christian interpretation). Also, that bursts of scientific discovery occur and will continue the world over, until they are stopped and suppressed by dogma and totalitarianism.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Tom, if you don’t get why that’s not a test, I suggest you stay far away from science. And yes, we do constantly test Einstein, and refine the measurements for the actual effect to check his calculations.
Pay attention: creationism trying to turn back to before Darwin.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
This only works if you are using a deductive argument and not an inductive one. A deductive argument starts from initial premises and using formal rules draws conclusions based on those premises. If science was based on that sort of system than using the conclusions to prove the premises would indeed be circular. But science does not use deductive logic, it does not use proofs and it does not use premises. It uses evidence. Evidence can never prove a given conclusion (or disprove it if you are willing to get really picky), it can only increase or decrease its likelihood of being correct. In this case using something assumed initially as evidence to support that assumption is valid in some cases.
For instance, to use your example if our five senses were not sufficient to learn about the universe then there would be situations which are five senses are not sufficient. We have numerous such examples, for instance seeing outside of the visible spectrum, so we developed mechanisms to expand our senses. To give a more concrete example, evidence indicated communicable diseases were real but were being causes by something invisible to our senses. Expansions of our senses (microscopes initially) allowed us to observe these organisms directly. We have been very successful at determining when our existing sensing capabilities are too limited to answer certain questions and have then gone about expanding our sensing capabilities. Space telescopes like Hubble are a great example. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is another.
If there were things that were fundamentally inaccessible to our senses no matter how were to expand them then we should be able to detect that by means of evidence we cannot collect. And we do that all the time. We know that we cannot directly observed particular events prior to a certain point (for instance we cannot directly observe the extinction of the dinosaurs). We know that we cannot simultaneously measure the velocity and position of a particle past a certain resolution for both. We know we cannot directly observe the behavior of animals for which no DNA is left. We know we cannot observe events that have not happened yet.
So the problem you describe is not at all a concern for inductive logic since it does not rely on premises, only evidence, and it does not rely on proofs, only probabilities.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Tom Marking:
“I’m racking my brain thinking … Florida … 1840’s… Hmmm. Wasn’t Florida a Spanish colony at the time?”
“The Adams-Onís Treaty was signed between the United States and Spain on February 22, 1819 and took effect on July 10, 1821. According to the terms of the treaty, the United States acquired Florida and, in exchange, renounced all claims to Texas. Andrew Jackson formally took control of Florida from Spanish authorities on July 17, 1821 at Pensacola.”
February 18th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
“A theory and the facts that it contains by its predictions are circular (if it is complete).”
Huh? Speaking scientifically, that would mean finding the T. rex bone (a fact) proves the theory of natural selection AND the theory of natural selection proves the T. rex bone. Hmmm, I’ve got to think about that one. I thought observations, facts, whatever you want to call them stand by themselves. They are not provable from the theory as far as I know. I’m not even sure that would have any meaning.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
pat:
sorry, i’m not agianst you, but 1) “science” is a “brach” of philosophy (don’t you remember socrates, plato, et.al??), as ethic, esthetic, etc. 2) epistemology studies science and it is teach in my university (and i think in yours univesities too) My professor (i think all the rest do the same) said that “sciende” is a “paradigm” made by the society to cope with the external world. and have the same value of a religion!!!! and he is marxist!!!!
and if you think that science don’t need etimology i think you are right, but if the univesitaries begin thinking that science = religion, we are in a big trouble…
i think that all of you must read and take note of social science teachings…
February 18th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
it’s obvious that there is no other approach to take Pat. no one here has the desire to actually better anything other than their own egos. mending our society, who would wanna do such a thing? the bigger the ego, the bigger the shadow. the more you swear your faithfulness to the Scientific method, and don’t bother to understand what life has taught any of your other brothers… the bigger the cultural rift grows until we all fall down.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I want to second Jolly Blogger (and Dr. Feynman), above. You have one too many assumptions, Phil.
Imagine we lived in a universe in which the law of gravity had a random element. If I built a catapult to carefully launch an object with the same force every time, the height and distance it would travel would vary every time in an unpredictable fashion. Heck, sometimes, when you launched the object, it would shoot *down* and break the catapult!
I could still use the scientific method to determine that the universe does NOT “obeys a set of rules” (at least where gravity is concerned). In this example, I am obviously glossing over the fact that life would be likely to arise or exist long in such a universe…
The only assumption of science is that the observations I make have a direct (albeit imperfect) relationship to reality. Obviously, a very early and obvious conclusion of science in the universe we actually live in is that it IS a universe of rules. But, that’s not an axiom of the scientific method – just a very, very early conclusion.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
[[Ah, funny Tom. Funny you always come up with absurd extremes, but really never argue a point. ]]
To be fair he is arguing the main point of this thread: is science faith-based. He’s saying, form what I can work out, that because currently our scientific knowledge doesn’t explain everything, everything that science has proved so far is based on assumptions at some level – even if that is “causality will continue to work” – and thus is based on faith.
Scientific investigation may well be able to prove that the 5,000 hearts theory is wrong, but that doesn’t mean that when science says something positive it isn’t based on some level of assumption. Classifying dinosaur bones makes many assumptions.
Remember the argument here isn’t “which is a better method of discovering knowledge: faith or science” but whether science, or scientific theories, are based on some level of faith.
Personally I don’t think science is based on faith, given that science will always change whenever an area of assumption, or faith, is explained. However I’m sure Tom will tell us why that involves an assumption itself…
February 18th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Read it again. He said “predictions”, not “proofs”. Finding the T rex bone (or, rather, the fact that the T rex bone exists) provides evidence for natural selection specifically because it fits with the predictions made by natural selection. Hence the circularity (I think that is what he meant).
February 18th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
“Faith would be screaming in terror and soiling onesself that the lies and also lies would collapse and take one’s worldview with it.”
LOL. Don’t know where you’re getting this one from. Perhaps the same place as: FATALITY! FATALITY! FATALITY! Remember that one?
Anyway, take a look at
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith
Function: noun
1 a: allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1): fidelity to one’s promises (2): sincerity of intentions
2 a (1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust
3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs
I’m using definition 2b(1). Which one are you using?
February 18th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I see. Of course if one professor says it then it obviously must be true, right? No professor has ever been wrong before, right? No need to actually deal with the arguments or evidence put forth in these comments and countless others, just citing one professor is enough.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
No, the proof is in the EATING.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
The one that doesn’t make the existence of the universe a matter of faith. That is, every other definition there (or your definition if you replace “proof” with “evidence”).
You are using the standard equivocation fallacy. We are talking about faith in a specific sense, that is accepting something without (or directly contrary to) the evidence. In fact Phil specifically states this right up front:
Yet you ignore this, ignore the definition used by everyone else here. Instead you pick a definition that, in the manner you are using it, everything must be faith. And of course you don’t actually tell anybody that you are changing definitions on them, you just secretly pick a different definition that fits your purposes and then start debating that while everyone else thinks you are still using the definition they are using.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I agree that ’science’ is not faith-based, as a process. That being said, I am sure you have met individual scientists or groups of scientists that seem to latch onto particular paradigms pretty damn hard. You almost have to wait for the old guard to die off before the new models can start making progress.
Would you disagree with that?
February 18th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
“To be fair he is arguing the main point of this thread: is science faith-based. He’s saying, form what I can work out, that because currently our scientific knowledge doesn’t explain everything, everything that science has proved so far is based on assumptions at some level – even if that is “causality will continue to work” – and thus is based on faith.”
Not only that, I would argue that ANY system of human thought, whether it be science, religion, mathematics, etc. involves principles that are assumed to be true without proof.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Tom,
By your definition of faith, “firm belief in something for which there is no proof”, and adding in the definition for proof “noun 1. evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth” (from dictionary.com), science actually is not faith-based.
Through science, we observe a phenomenon, make a guess as to how that works, make a prediction based on the evidence, then test our prediction against more evidence. If something doesn’t fit, we change our guess and our prediction, then test again. Once there is sufficient evidence to establish the truth of our guess/prediction (i.e., proof), then belife in that guess/prediction is not based on faith.
Science, therefore, eradicates faith, by definition.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
“The one that doesn’t make the existence of the universe a matter of faith”
Which one was that in Webster’s again?
“ignore the definition used by everyone else here.”
And which one was that in Webster’s?
February 18th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
And, since we’ve started dealing with definitions, here’s one for “science” from the American-Heritage Dictionary, which I believe is what most in the thread mean when they say “science”:
“n. 1. a. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
b. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.
c. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.”
February 18th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Please read what I posted again:
(emphasis added)
You seem to really like asking questions that have already been answered, especially questions that are answered in the sentence after the one you quote.
Why should we have to follow one of Webster’s definitions when the definition we are using is in the original post? And why Webster’s when there are many other dictionaries out there. And who gave you the right to pick which dictionary we are using? How about the American Heritage Dictionary:
Definition 2 there matches Phil’s definition exactly, and it would match yours if the used “evidence” in place of “proof”.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
It seem italics don’t show up on block quotes, what I was trying to emphasize was the sentence immediately after the one Tom quoted:
“That is, every other definition there”
February 18th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Language is created by man and is used under the assumption that when it is communicated to another person they are properly relayed the information that was intended to be conveyed.
Tom Marking has put out an argument about how anything involving human thought, including language, relies on faith and despite how many times we can read various books… we really can’t say that we know what the person is trying to say. To say we know exactly what they are saying is to have faith that we can comprehend language.
So, while I see him making some argument about the role of human perception in science… he could just as well be telling us a delicious recipe for cookies… and we are just biased and driven to believe otherwise.
Try French… i’m really interested in this recipe!
Merci Beaucoup
February 18th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Well, I’m not usually one to comment on these things but I think that this article has a logic flaw at the very beginning.
Our good friend Phil quotes the following as incorrect:
“Everyone, scientist or not, must start their quests for knowledge with some unprovable axiom—some a priori belief on which they sort through experience and deduce other truths. This starting point, whatever it is, can only be accepted by faith; eventually, in each belief system, there must be some unprovable, presupposed foundation for reasoning”
So, apparently, science does not need any starting axiom. He then follows with the line:
“The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules.”
Which is… an axiom. Admittedly, it’s a very reasonable axiom (along with the underlying axiom that there is such a thing as the Universe) but it is still an axiom.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
@ Kevin:
It is not an axiom in the conventional sense because it is backed up by evidence. It is not just “presupposed”, it is not only accepted by faith, it is accepted because it works. There are no known instances where the universe does not obey rules, no matter how closely or how broadly we look at the universe. An axiom has no evidence behind it, it is a basic rule on which a system is built. That the universe follows rules is a basic rule on which science is built, but it is also backed up by evidence.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I am amazed that in the 120+ comments here, there has been not one mention of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
(Uh, I’m just echoing my agreement with the BA in this comment. I think he got it exactly right the first time. The BA really nailed it on this one.)
It’s true that inductive logic is a bit of a puzzle to philosophers of science and that we can’t really be sure that the universe operates according to natural laws.
It’s possible that a magical leprechaun moves all the particles in the universe with a little stick. It’s also possible that Satan buries dinosaur bones under the ground to tempt the unfaithful into believing evolution. Maybe God set up the photons from stars to make it look like the universe is billions of years old when in fact it was created only a few millennia ago. It’s also conceivable that we’re all floating brains in briny tanks and that ‘life is but a dream’.
So yes, it’s true that individual scientists accept, probably without giving it much thought, that the universe runs according to physical laws and isn’t deliberately set up to deceive them.
Yes we can’t prove that leprechauns don’t make electrons spin around atomic nuclei. But that’s not the point.
The point is that we only make progress if we assume that the universe is rational. It’s a demonstrable fact that science has got us to the Moon and back, whereas prayer has not been shown to have any effect whatsoever.
We will never be able to disprove the existence of miracles or magic, but we do know that belief in supernatural causes is of no help when trying to make a toaster, or in making predictions about quantum tunneling in nuclei.
Answers in Genesis may be excellent Biblical scholars (I doubt it), but it’s a sure bet that they and their adherents won’t be making any progress in solving our energy crisis, or developing nanotechnology, etc. etc. Studying the Bible just doesn’t get us anywhere when solving scientific problems.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Torbjörn actually mentioned it here. [Link edited by The Bad Astronomer for formatting reasons]
February 18th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I sit corrected.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I’ve struggled with a couple of thumpers over time. What I see in many thumpers is that they have zero tolerance for the unknown. Rather than try a rational explanation or simply leave it as “science has not explaned that yet”, they make “the leap of faith” and declare that their deity did it. At that point, the conversation is over. Any further discussion is disrespecting their religious beliefs.
I’ve given up. Thumpers are delusional psychotics and should be institutionalized.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Alex:
My professor (I think all the rest do the same) said that “science” is a “paradigm” made by society to cope with the external world. And has the same value as a religion!!!! and he is Marxist!!!!
Fashionable post-structuralist humbug. Never trust a French philosopher.
(And Marxism is fashionable 19th century humbug. Never trust a German philosopher.)
I’m sure that that professor doesn’t teach science, and knows preciously little about it.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Brett, I don’t think the assumption is unwarranted. There is randomness in the Universe, of course: quantum mechanics demands it. But that randomness still follows rules. We don’t know when a particular uranium nucleus will decay, but put a few x 1020 of them together and we can predict how many will decay over time with high accuracy.
Even randomness follows rules.
As far as solipsism goes, feh. I think it makes for fine discussions late at night in college bull sessions, but as a real philosophy it’s a dead end. If you cannot study it, and it has no evidence or effect, then how is that any different than it not existing?
People have been making lists of other things we need to assume, but I don’t think any of that is terribly relevant. Observations don’t have to be the same everywhere, but the set of rules governing those observations does (I don’t see the same stars in Boulder as I do in Sydney, but that’s because the Earth blocks my view; other wise I would see the same stars). Local effects can be counted for in observations (like light aberration, parallax, the fact that we live in a spiral galaxy, and so on).
I am talking about basic stuff here, not nitpicks. Think globally!
February 18th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
In short, philosophy is humbug.
Equal opportunity dis.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Einstein said it best: “God is subtle, but he is not malicious”.
(Of course, this being Einstein you have to translate God=laws of physics.)
Famously, Einstein also claimed that “God does not play with dice”, to which Bohr apparently responded “Stop telling God what to do!”
February 18th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Well said.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
You’re preaching to the choir, friend.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Well, we have no need to have “faith” that the universe will follow rules. We need only have that as a hypothesis. If the universe did not follow any rules that hypothesis could be flushed down the drain. It is not faith, it is tests that have shown this to be so. Many wild ideas have been tested and failed, and abandoned. Others have passes the tests repeatably. Evolution, math, physics have many theories that have passes every test thrown at them. If anyone doubts the tests, they only need to test it themselves. The basic theories have been doubted, and retested. That is the ONLY reason that these theories are held in such high regard. Not faith. It seems odd that the people who will doubt so much proof, refuse to doubt their own faith. Doubt is the basis of advancement in science, other world views only pay it lip service.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
“I am amazed that in the 120+ comments here, there has been not one mention of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems.”
I was going to bring it up but I have been severely chastised for equating science to a formal system even though I believe there are close similarities. Of course, Godel said that given any formal system there are true statements that are unprovable from within the system. It supports my position but I am forbidden from using it. Drat.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
@Tom Markingon 18 Feb 2008 at 1:07 pm
You said a bunch of stuff – I’ll to address them…
[quote]… It seems to me that there are a great many assumptions that the scientific method makes, not just one… Some other assumptions are:[/quote]
I don’t mean to quote mine or anything, forgive the ellipses please.
[quote]1.) The universe is real[/quote]
Actually, I don’t think this assumption is necessary. It might be real. It might be unreal. If I can devise a test to tell, I test this and mark it done. I don’t need the universe to be real. Just to operate according to a set of rules.
JBS
… BA – is there a way to turn on previews for comments? I always find spelling and grammar errors after hitting submit!
[quote]2.) The universe has order[/quote]
I suppose that is contained in the one assumption that the universe operates according to rules.
[quote]3.) My five senses … are sufficient to find out all the data I need about the universe.[/quote]
Are you suggesting we don’t need radio telescopes? I don’t make this assumption.
[quote]4.) My brain is capable of recognizing all relevant patterns brought to me by my senses.[/quote]
Specifically not assumed. My brain and senses can easily be tricked. So tests are designed to determine when that is occurring. In fact, there is a whole branch of science that deals with that.
[quote]5.) If I see event A happen just before event B many, many times then I know that event A causes event B[/quote]
Actually, you’re pushing too hard for causality. We devise a test to see if we can may B happen without A. We devise a test to see if A always precedes B. We test it. We don’t assume it.
[quote]6.) I can construct a mathematical function relating feature A (e.g, time) to feature B (e.g., distance) by plotting a curve fit through data points. The random variations of the actual data points from the curve fit are observational error and may be ignored.[/quote]
Er, what? Math isn’t the be all, end all, though it is a very useful abstraction. But how is that an assumption. Sometimes we find we can’t make a nice curve that fits the data. We don’t ignore that data! We also note that we apparently don’t know enough yet to describe the feature (such as once upon a time when Sir Newton noted the aberration in the orbit of Mercury and couldn’t make the math work). If we have error bars needed to include all the data, then we know we need to do more research. We don’t give up and say, well that’s as good as we can measure it. Even the speed of light is constantly retested to refine the accuracy.
[quote]And on and on. All of these assumptions must be believed without proof and thus, constitute faith.[/quote]
I disagree. Wholeheartedly and without reservation. None of any assumption is required to be believed with out proof. Now on the initial assumption, we work with it as a basis, but we are testing that assumption all the time. Any time we find something that invalidates that assumption, we will work to find out why and refine our base precept. But we don’t accept it on faith and faith alone. That would be absurd.
[quote]And as to the argument that science is true because technology works, I can imagine 500 years ago the Aztec high priest making some kind of similar argument: …[/quote]
Except the Aztec Priest would never test that assertion to see if it is true. Science would. Does.
[quote]And there is one final assumption that I’m sure science students of now or days gone by can appreciate. And that is this: You’d better get the expected result in your Chemistry 101 lab or it means you screwed up and you’re going to get an F.[/quote]
Possibly as an undergrad. They better not in real research! But again, that is not an assumption. Or were you just trying to be silly. I never can tell with sophists.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Very late to add to this thread, but Ed Minchau, you must have missed T. Larsson’s comments @ 3:27pm.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
faith
“2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief, trust.
Definition 2 there matches Phil’s definition exactly, and it would match yours if the used “evidence” in place of “proof”.”
O.K. Definition 2 is acceptable to me. I forget where you stand. Were you the one who said “faith” as defined here is not part of science at all? If so then it seems to contradict the initial post which talked about an assumption – which is nothing but a proposition taken on faith as defined in definition 2.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Care to post some referers, Phil? From the first round of commenters, it seems you’re being linked from an ignorance society.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Drat, very late indeed. Much more added btt I posted.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I see you’re still trying to teach pigs to sing. How frustrating that must be.
I guess this just proves Arthur Clark had a point. In this case we have a classic example of technology too advanced to be seen as anything other than magic, to most folk,,,I guess this also applies to the Scientifc Method.
Bummer.
GAry 7
February 18th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
It was the Church, who usurped property and money in their pursuit of witches, as well as downsizing women’s role in society. That is the time the Catholic Church and its Popes became over-bloated with jewels. Nice, huh?
February 18th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Read Phil’s post again. The whole point is that there is evidence that the universe follows rules. Therefor it does not follow that definition, which requires that there not be evidence.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
“If science was based on that sort of system than using the conclusions to prove the premises would indeed be circular. But science does not use deductive logic, it does not use proofs and it does not use premises. It uses evidence.”
I did want to go back to something BlackCat posted which was that science is 100 percent inductive. I think there are two phases to science: 1.) model building, and 2.) model usage. So, let’s take gravity for example. Newton went out and collected data and tried to come up with a theory that accounted for it. That part of the process is indeed inductive. It involves a collection of observations, anything from the apple falling on his head (probably an apocryphal story), observations of the moon, sun, and planets. So he uses it to come up with the equation: F = GMm / r^2.
The next part is model usage which is not inductive, but rather deductive. You use the model to make predictions. For example, where will Mars be in the sky on January 1st, 1690? Well, you can plug in a few parameters like the semi-major axis, eccentricity, position on some previous date, etc., etc., do some calculus and arrive at the prediction for the date in question.
Now to be sure, phase 1 and phase 2 are locked in a loop. Observations are compared with predictions from phase 2 and any discrepancies can be used to tune the model developed in phase 1. But to say that science has no deductive logic to it at all is just not true.
And as such, it should adhere to the same restrictions as any logical formal system insofar as its deductions are concerned. For example, the theory cannot predict that Mars will be a declination +5 deg on January 1st, 1690 and at declination -5 deg on January 1st, 1690. That would be a logical contradiction of the deductive system. So having the deductive part of things causes certain restrictions in the valid predictions.
So science is a hybrid beast, not purely observational, and not purely theoretical/deductive/formal but somewhere in between.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
@ Tom Markingon 18 Feb 2008 at 3:49 pm
[quote]I’m using definition 2b(1). Which one are you using?[/quote]
Since I do not find that 2b(1) fits the endeavours of science particularly well, and I do not find any of the other definitions do, I’m not using a definition of faith concerning the endeavours of science.
jbs
February 18th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
BC: “Read Phil’s post again. The whole point is that there is evidence that the universe follows rules.”
BA: “The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules.”
Gol darn it. Now look what you made me do. I have to go and use that dictionary again:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assumption
5b: a fact or statement (as a proposition, axiom, postulate, or notion) taken for granted
If there’s evidence then you don’t have to take it for granted or treat it as an axiom. You folks are getting mighty slippery to pin down.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I just spent 20 minutes formulating a response, prequiled with, “Note: I didn’t bother reading the above 140-odd comments, so if something is repeated here, I apologize.”
Then I read a bunch, and realized everything I wanted to say has been said.
In short, assuming regularity in the universe is bad philosophy but necessary of science. BA falters when he claims that science is different from the religious group’s definition, as the assumption of regularity is circularly logical (i.e. assuming the universe is regular/deterministic/causal/whatev’s, then we can use said regularity to predict future occurrences of regularity).
However, he makes an excellent point with, “Faith, as it is interpreted by most religions, is not evidence-based, and is generally held tightly even despite evidence against it. In many cases, faith is even reinforced when evidence is found contrary to it.”
This, to me, is the pivotal difference between science and religious faith (not science and faith-without-the-religion). Science is pragmatic and draconian and wonderful and rational this way. Religion is the very opposite.
So, given science must make certain assumptions about the regularity about our universe and thusly requires (what I like to call “small f”) faith, it is by no means a religion (as our observations have clearly shown, but so many religious folk claim).
To this I say, “Ain’t science grand!”
February 18th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Even if true, that doesn’t support your assertion that science depends on faith.
Once again, you take a quote out of context and completely ignore the rest of the post which directly deals with what you said. Phil does say this, but then goes on to say this just two paragraphs later:
February 18th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
@ Tom Markingon 18 Feb 2008 at 6:35 pm
[blockquote]I was going to bring it up but I have been severely chastised for equating science to a formal system even though I believe there are close similarities. Of course, Godel said that given any formal system there are true statements that are unprovable from within the system. It supports my position but I am forbidden from using it. Drat.[/blockquote]
Funny, that. I laughed out loud. You are not forbidden to bring up Godel’s Incompleteness theorem. You may do so at your whim. However, it will be thoroughly trounced as irrelevant to the current discussion. That’s calling your bluff, not forbidding it.
Godel’s Incompleteness theorem only applies to systems that can be proven solely using the logic and rules of that system. The universe, unlike logic and mathematics, is not an abstract invention of man designed to model aspects of the universe. It IS the universe. The universe does not attempt to describe itself using man made rules of logic and mathematics! It is not subject to Godel’s law. Science isn’t a system of logic – though it does make heavy use of various forms of logic in it’s pursuit, it is a system of refining models to explain the universe. Short of replicating the entirety of all existence, Science by definition will always be incomplete.
And by definition, your argument is incomplete.
JBS
(Eventually I’ll figure out this quoting thing).
February 18th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
“Through science, we observe a phenomenon, make a guess as to how that works, make a prediction based on the evidence, then test our prediction against more evidence. If something doesn’t fit, we change our guess and our prediction, then test again. Once there is sufficient evidence to establish the truth of our guess/prediction (i.e., proof), then belife in that guess/prediction is not based on faith.”
The initial observation is a sensory perception. The prediction is a foretelling of a future sensory perception. You compare the predicted sensory perception versus the actual sensory perception. Everything is based on sensory data. You are still assuming my assumption #3 which is that your senses are adequate and giving you good data. If the prediction says that such and such object will be straight ahead, but there is something screwed up with your vision so that an object at an angle of 15 degrees appears to be straight ahead, then your observation will agree perfectly with the prediction, even though the real object is off by 15 degrees. Your theory will be verified even though it is false.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
“Science isn’t a system of logic – though it does make heavy use of various forms of logic in it’s pursuit, it is a system of refining models to explain the universe.”
The deductive part of science is indeed a system of logic. The proof for this is that it is forbidden to make predictions that are logical contradictions. A prediction may NOT be like one the following:
The fluid in the beaker will turn blue and the fluid in the beaker will not turn blue.
The earth rotates counterclockwise as seen from Polaris and it also rotates clockwise as seen from Polaris.
The average density of the earth is 5.5 gm/cm^3 and the average density of the earth is 0.5 gm/cm^3.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Guys try to remember that theres a big difference between fundamentalist / creationist and people who believe in religion normally.
For example, I believe in God. Yet I have no issue accepting the findings out science.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
“So, given science must make certain assumptions about the regularity about our universe and thusly requires (what I like to call “small f”) faith, it is by no means a religion”
I never claimed that science was a religion or equivalent to religion. If you want to call yours faith and theirs Faith, that’s fine by me. I never claimed that faith and Faith were the same anyway. Probably ‘nuf said on the topic.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
You touched on the particular thing that I always like to bring up.
Let’s see them living without all the modernity that science has brought us.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Evolution is faith-based. For example, all dating systems (especially potassium-argon dating) are trusted to be just as valid at any time in the past as it is now, even though we can’t go back in time and make sure of that. So the reliability of many dating systems are based on more faith than facts.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I’m not for organized religion, but I gotta say, logic and rationality are way overrated. Science may not be based on faith, but its based on another set of principles, which I find highly disagreeable for reasons I won’t explain myself right now. Try reading the dada and surrealist manifestoes.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
What religious people who comment about the belief of science don’t understand is that if a system is built that works with evidence upon a foundation that is essentially a mystery, it still works. Even if we don’t know why quarks or whatever do what they do, we can still build a completely accurate system of knowledge around it. We can prove things with our mysteries–religion cannot say the same.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
It is not an assumption. If our senses were giving us bad data then information based on this data would be wrong and so any predictions based off of it would be false. Even if our senses were somehow wrong that does not explain why we can move single atoms around with scanning tunneling microscopes. The only way all the predictions could be right yet our senses be giving us completely wrong information is for the universe to be specifically set up to give the same results as if our senses were correct. We are getting back into Matrix territory with that.
That is why you compare your results to those of other people. If their vision is messed up in the same way then we would know because people would be unable to agree on the location of the object. If you try to triangulate the position based on the perceived direction of a bunch of people then the directions won’t line up on a single point. If they move these intersection points will move as well instead of staying stationary at the target. If we add a sound source to the object our hearing must also be off in the same manner. If the object hits us in the head it will hit us on the side of the head not on the front. If we move straight at it the it won’t hit us at all, but if we move off fifteen degrees to our right it will still hit us. If we add a radio beacon to the object the tracking device would tell us it is 15 degrees off to the side. If the object is metal and we aim a directional microwave transmitter at it the directional transmitter would only cause a reflection if it was straight ahead. We can attach a laser pointer to our head so that it shoot a beam straight ahead, but it won’t appear straight ahead. We can ask someone else to put their hand directly in front of our face, but it won’t appear to be directly in front of our face. There are numerous inconsistencies that would be evident if our visual perception was off by 15 degrees to the right.
What would have to be the case is that our wrong perception fluctuates in such a way that when a group of people are looking at an object their perceived directions all intersect at a single point. These perceptions would have to change so that no matter how they move they all remain intersecting at the same, wrong point. It would have to be that our movements and other senses are also off by the same amount (and also that we somehow miss obvious, constant medical problems due to always walking funny). It would require that all our instruments are off in the same way, and that the amount and direction they are off is perfectly tuned to the constantly changing discrepancy of the one using it. If multiple people are using it they must somehow get different readings from the same device. The list of absurdities goes on and on. At a certain point you have to say that we have tested it enough, the evidence supports the conclusion that what we perceive as straight ahead is most likely fairly close to what is really straight ahead.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Cool. This page has reached #1 on Digg. Doing pretty good on Reddit too.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I see you’re still trying to teach pigs to sing. How frustrating that must be.
And it annoys the pig.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Yeah, and I think the server is on fire, too.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
>The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That’s it.
Well, that means that science is also “faith-based”… Weather we call it an assumption or a fact, you have to believe that God is not in control your scientific experiments skewing results in ways that appear to follow its own rules.
What the “Answer in Genesis” meant to say was that there are those who believes in what they believe (in religion), and those who “assume” that universe obeys its rule that we can understand. Whatever the method of understanding this world is, they are all based on some form of faith. (Have you prayed during your last science-lab just in case that doesn’t skew the result? Why not?)
If I have to choose which method to use to understand this world, I would choose scientific method. I have a “faith” that it is the best tool available after all these millions of years of human evolutions. Religion, however, is as dead as astrology or alchemy.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Now the creationists start coming out. First, evolution does not require dating methods period. It can be directly observed in the lab. Second, data systems are not trusted to be just as valid. This has been confirmed by comparing dating systems based on totally unrelated principles (like ice cores, carbon-14, and tree rings). If they were wrong then they wouldn’t be able to agree on the date for specific events. Some dating methods, particularly those that look very far in the past, have built-in checks. If there was a problem with the dating method then the data would not be self-consistent. Other methods, if there were a problem, would require fundamental changes in the nature of the universe which would be easily detectable. Further, if there were discrepancies then the our extremely sensitive analysis of the principles underlying these events (like radioactive decay) would have detected changes over time. So in order for these techniques to be wrong then both very closely related and very distantly related techniques must all be changing in completely different manners that still somehow always give the same wrong dates and those changes must not have affected very similar physical processes and these changes must have stopped just before we developed the technology needed to detect the changes. Forgive me if I consider that just a tad improbable.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Dear author,
A few things struck me as I read your thoughts.
“The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules.” A careful observer would ask how does this differ from, “The Universe was created by God and He created all the laws of physics, biology, chemistry, ect..
You then go into a fair amount of detail of the scientific method but offer no reason why this denies faith. This Red Herring argument only prove there is, currently, an established method for doing scientific research. The concept of science suffers from Argumentum ad Verecundiam; science itself cannot be an authority only those working within science. I understand this may sound like splinting hairs but an argument which states science is not faith based cannot, therefore, say science is faith based because science says so.
You also stated:
“All the knowledge we have accumulated over the millennia comes together in a harmonious symphony of science. We’re not guessing here: this stuff was designed using previous knowledge developed in a scientific manner over centuries. And it works. All of this goes to support our underlying assumption that the Universe obeys rules that we can deduce.”
“Are there holes in this knowledge? Of course. Science doesn’t have all the answers. But science has a tool, a power that its detractors never seem to understand.”
Again, the universe obeys rules and the scientific community placed their faith in the scientific method to understand those laws, but this offers no tangible evidence for your argument. The whole argument seem based upon “post hoc ergo propter hoc”, a logical fallacy.
Science does stem directly from religion, but hardly an evolution of it. Until the 19th century learned individuals used science to understand the world better, and thus God. Science has a stronger “mathematical” structure which sprouted from philosophy.
This is where I start to rant:
A better position to take on this issue would be science bases itself upon…err…science has an internal logic that does not allow outside “supernatural” being’s wills to shape. The law of gravity is itself the law of gravity untampered, unmovable by sentient life. Religion, itself, grounds itself within text that accept a consciouses force capable of manipulating the “the laws of physics” by two possible ways. One, working within those rules; two, as being the source of those rules capable of negating them entirely.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Tim wrote:
“Guys try to remember that theres a big difference between fundamentalist / creationist and people who believe in religion normally.”
Are you saying that fundamentalists and creationists are not normal religions?
This website is a bunch of scientists who have a faith.
http://www.asa3.org/
February 18th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
So what is wrong with saying God set in place all of these laws that make up the Universe and then gave us the knowledge and ability to unravel his creation and figure out why things work the way they do? Why can’t you say that God himself is somewhat of a scientist and he wants everything to fall into place and work the way it is supposed to? Sure some people might disagree, but I think in this way, faith and science can be related to each other.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Science is based on faith. Science, as you stated, is based on the assumption that the universe obeys certain laws. That is a very vague way of saying that the universe has some kind of uniformity about it. That is, when you throw a ball up in the air, it comes back down. When you stub your toe, it hurrts. Science would be impossible if there were no unifimity. Philosophers call it the uniformity of nature and skeptic and philosophical great, David Hume, noted that this uniformity (what Hume called induction) has no rational warrant.
Let me explain. Hume was well aware that we all assume that nature is uniform. That is, based on our past experiences we make inferences to the unknown future. If I stub my toe, it hurts and I try not to stub my toe again. But Hume also noted that we have no rational basis for making such an inference. The reason for this is because to say that tomorrow will be like today because the past was like today is to beg the question. When you beg the question (viciously) you argue in a circle and the conclusion assumes the premise in question. It is an error in reasoning. Well, hence it is with the uniformity of nature (also called the problem of induction).
This may sound silly to the average reader (because of ignorance of the true problem), but philosophers have struggled with providing a rational justification for induction for centuries and it is a huge problem in philosophical circles.
The point here is that, contrary to your claims, while science may be evidentiary in nature, the basis of all of science is in fact faith based. You have no rational warrant to assume that tomorrow when you stub your toe that it will not be the greatest feeling ever! You may respond and say that the probabibilty is high that tomorrow will be like today but a quick reflection reveals that this is just as question begging. When you use probability, you are assuming the past event to make an inference into the future, i.e. begging the question of induction.
Yeppers, you have faith. You may not admit it and you may place science and rationality on your side (”we have science, facts, logic, etc. and you have faith.”) but that is only rhetoric. It places reasoning, facts and logic on your side *at the start* so that any disagreement with you amounts to a disagreement with reasoning, facts, and logic. We all have faith, some are just honest enough to admit it.
Thanks
February 18th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
What your article says is true. In theory.
In practice, many so called scientific believers don’t practice what they preach. They are rank ideologues, as bad as any fanatic.
Because many people misinterpret what they have perceived as the “rules”.
Scientists are constantly having to change their definition of the rules. Which is fine, except many people blindly accept whatever rules they were taught as the (pardon the pun) gospel truth.
Hence, we have the Anthrogenic Global Warming believers who take theories adn see whatever they want in the tea leaves of the weather.
Hence we have Darwinists who believe in evolutionary theories Darwin himself later discounted.
The universe is a lot stranger and harder to pin down than we thought. We are finding this out as we go along.
So called science believers have a tendency to undermine their own arguments by behaving like religious followers. Thus, the confusion.
Me, I believe in science, but I’m a skeptic of what we believe to be true. Because in my 50 years on this earth I have seen scientists change their stories a lot.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
There is no real conflict between religion and science. To many engineers and scientists I know, science studies the universe around us. Faith explains why its all here and governs other concerns (like morality , write and wrong, etc, that aren’t really applicable to the scientific method. To say that a scientist is held back by faith is not correct. Faith usually makes a better person and that can play an important role in the quality of a persons life and work. For many, its a motivating factor -to understand the universe God built. Just like I would not turn to faith to explain a scientific phenomenon, I wouldn’t turn to science to explain morality or other similar questions.
But that’s enough on this topic. One thing that this blog and all of the comments show is that there are lots of extremists in the faith and scientific camps.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
The problem is that the AiG crowd also has to make the assumption that the universe follows rules. Otherwise they have no way of being sure that they won’t fall through the floor and sink to the center of the Earth when they step out of bed in the morning. Otherwise they have no idea that their car won’t turn into a walrus that eats their house when they turn on the ignition. They have to assume the universe follows rules. They just make the additional assumption that there is a being that is not bound by those rules, and then add a whole heap of other assumptions as well. But in the end they must make the same assumption (consciously or unconsciously) that science makes in order to even begin to function in the world.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
You should read more. Living and breathing requires presuppositions. Try starting with Descartes. You’ll see that “faith” has many definitions in relation to philosophy, science and religion. Your attempt to distill hundreds of years of thought into a blog post is admirable. Unfortunately, you are as smart as the people you ridicule.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
OK, for those of you think that science is faith-based:
——————————————————————————
I’m right now denouncing my faith in science and all of its axioms.
——————————————————————————
Is my microwave oven still going to work?
To quote Philip K. Dick (who was a complete nut):
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
February 18th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I’m aware I’ll get buried under the comments here, assuming I’m even read, but here goes. Science does involve an element of faith. The faith involved is the faith in your senses. You believe that they do not lie, be they your sight, hearing, or your electron microscope (space telescope may be more appropriate here
). You believe that the data they relay to your consciousness is reliable. You believe you are not living in a perfect reality simulation ala the Matrix. There is no way to prove or disprove this, and thus we take as an article of faith that what we observe IS in fact reality. Now, given that first assumption everything Phil said follows. If your senses are truthful then you can do math and get everything from your basic machines to LCD TVs to space probes. If we assume that reality is real, then no other leaps of faith are necessary given time to observe and apply logic. However, we still must take on faith that reality is real because there is no way to prove or disprove this postulate.
Now, I’m quite aware that I’m arguing for an invisible pink unicorn. The point here is that we assume we exist. Cogito ergo sum. We take this as an article of faith and build upon it. Given that assumption, all else falls into place. But you have to admit, it’s a pretty big assumption.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
[...] One thing that doesn’t get brought often is that science is not another form of faith. Science is a method to understanding. It is the ability to look at a problem, suggest a solution, test it, allow other to independently test it, and be able to accept that knowledge is ever changing. Here is a great article on the topic. [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I’d like to veer away from the primarily metaphysical bent of most of the discussion here and get back to what scientists may or may not take on faith.
For the most part, I do agree with the BA’s position. However, there is also a sense in which much of what a scientist believes may have been taken on faith. Phil talks about the “rules”. But how do we learn those rules? We could, in principle, perform the experiments by which other scientists have inferred them. But we do not. We accept the results as reported and we often accept the interpretation put on them by those other scientists. In other words, when we apply rules that were inferred by others, we are doing so without having independently confirmed them ourselves. This strikes me as an acceptance of the validity of the rule based on a faith that the scientists reporting the rule have behaved responsibly. This does not strike me as being all that different from the way one acquires beliefs in a religion-based context. You accept what you are told by someone who you believe. The real issue for a thinking person is how one decides which authorities are to be believed and which are less credible. For me, those who have been pursuing the methodologies of science are the ones who deserve the most credibility; but we must remain wary of those who would cloak themselves with the appearance of science while trying to delude us.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
[...] Find out more here… This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 6:04 pm and is filed under le Chat Marchet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Someone above stated that induction was an assumption of science – it is not. Induction has since long been replaced by the method of hypothesis and deduction as well as falsifiability. As the blog post mentions, David Hume discussed causality and that we cannot directly experience it, thus we cannot rely on induction to generalize observations to principles or rules.
Science and solipsism aren’t necessarily incompatible either, your own personal universe (or dream or psychosis) can be observed empirically and may exhibit quite rational principles. Solipsism is simply rejected by many. See Wikipedia for an in-depth discussion of solipsism.
Science says that the sun doesn’t rise because it has always done so, or God made it so, no it does so because our planet orbits it, which is a result of physical forces. Religion relies on ad hoc hypotheses that are mean’t to patch up the holes in a faulty theoretical framework. Contrary to religion that just gathers inconsistencies, science appears to evolve through paradigm shifts that occur when previous theories have turned out to be burdened by too much non-supporting evidence and a new set of theories take their place.
In the end, we cannot know for sure whether God does, or does not exist. Logically, agnosticism is where you end up. Personally, I cannot accept the Christian notion of God which I find absurdly bizarre given the reality we’re facing every day – conclusion would be that God does not exist or is negligent or perhaps even morally corrupt. Religion should be a personal matter, you cannot generalize based on it.
It’s also worth noting that some philosophers have been better than others at finding room in the universe for both, for example Kant. Remember that all that believe in Christ aren’t necessarily nutcases, the former arch bishop of Sweden didn’t believe in miracles and virgin birth. You don’t have to accept everything you’re told or read in your holy books just because you cling to the hope of there being a/many benevolent supreme being(s), though sadly many people seem to through in sanity with their hope of “salvation”.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Disclaimer: I have a PhD in Physics from an Ivy League institution and I love science
To the Author,
This argument is very weak. You are re-hashing simplified forms of the philosophy called ‘Logical Positivism’.
Logical positivism was championed by someone called Karl Popper around the 1930’s. Essentially they claimed that science was privileged when seeking “truth” because the scientific method subscribed to the principal of ‘falsifiability’. That is, the method of making predictions and allowing science to be revised when those predictions fail to materialize is the lone path to truth.
Unfortunately, positivism has been dismissed by virtually all Philosophers of Science since then. There are a number of issues with it. For example, a philosopher named Lakatos observed that there really is no objective reality we can confirm outside our perceptions of it: falsifiability goes down the drain if all of our testing is a victim of our own subjectivity. Thomas Kuhn further observed that the revision of scientific theory has more to do with the culture and posturing of scientists of the moment than it does with anything else.
I am not scholarly enough to enumerate all of the reasons why Positivism is considered debunked, but if you are interested any good book or course on the Philosophy of science (with excerpts from those Philosophers mentioned) should provide a great overview on modern thinking.
By the way — I have many friends which are scientists. Most have not studied the Philosophy of Science…many fall into the trap of the author and subscribe to some sort of simplified Positivism. I myself believe in science, it is a faith-system that has served me too well to abandon.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Let me dispel one argument that keeps cropping up.
Doing science has nothing to do with trusting your senses!
Most astronomy and biology is done with electronics these days. The scientists aren’t spending their lives looking through optics at stars.
It doesn’t matter if a scientist is color blind or even blind. She will still be able to collect and interpret the data.
Nobody can see into the infra-red and ultra-violet. That doesn’t mean that we are limited to studying the visible spectrum.
Nobody has directly seen (or felt!) a water molecule. That doesn’t mean that we can’t understand the chemistry of water.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
“If tomorrow we started observing light travelling at 314,159,265 m/s then scientists would incorporate that bizzare and unexpected change into their worldview.”
If it were possible to flick that switch I suspect we wouldn’t be observing it any longer. Indeed there probably wouldn’t be a universe to observe.
Anyhow:
“The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules.”
It’s amazing that this current scientific method was established by the belief that in nature there must be order because God created it. It’s a response to pure intelligent design. The idea that if it’s designed we can categorise it and abstract the principles of the design and in doing so learn about the creator.
How do you do science without [mathematical, logical] axioms? Which set of axioms forms the true algebra (read on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems? Is the speed of light fixed (ensuring relativity is consistent) or not?
You may not have the answer to that last one, but I’ll bet you have a default that you acknowledge a priori as the truth.
One last quicky: have you already proven that the world existed before you were achieved consciousness / were born? If yes, please share. If no, do you believe it did? If you don’t (perhaps only because you haven’t sat down to do a rigorous proof, well done scientist), if you do … that’s faith.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
This is a bad argument, an inflammatory piece of writing, and contains major fallacies.
The author states “Science is not based on faith. Science is based on evidence.” Faith and evidence are incomparable. Evidence is a testimony about natural phenomena; faith is belief in the validity of a testimony. The author of this work presupposes that evidence must have validity in order to attack the cited passage–but evidence need not be valid.
The evidence of bloody gloves in OJ Simpson’s trial did not have any ‘inherent validity,’ in fact there were enormous argument made over the validity of that evidence.
In the realm of science, Physicists often disagree on how to assign validity to the evidence of observed natural phenomena. Consider contemporary disagreements between those for String Theory and the Standard Model and how disagreeing Physicists will provide competing interpretations for evidence of observed (or unobserved) natural phenomena.
Moreover, not everybody believes in determinism, as phrased in the claim that “The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules.” Society’s stance on determinism (or more importantly–the _degree_ to which the world is determinism) is not clear nor unanimous, so it is improper to presuppose determinism is correct and then use it as a basis for arguing against the cited passage.
One fundamental commonality between science and religion is that both dogmas require constructing far-reaching arguments grounded in unprovable axioms. Perhaps we may argue about how “scientific faith” and “religious faith” differ, but it would be hard to avoid the observation that all explanations of natural phenomena presume some sort of set of axioms or premises that are not unanimously intuitive to the entirety of mankind. The passage cited from the Genesis website is a more enlightening piece of writing and thus does mankind more service than the rant posted here.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
CXB >>> Doing science has nothing to do with trusting your senses!
Er, how do you know anyone said that?
February 18th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I agree with Betrand above. This is an “attempt to distill hundreds of years of thought into a blog post”.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Where do those rules come from? What the hell is gravity?
not religious.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
[...] by mikesalmo on February 18, 2008 I hate pseudo-philosophical bullscat like this. Science is not an ideology nor philosophy. Empiricism, upon which the modern scientific method is [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
D minus. Author has faith in “general reliability of the senses”.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Where do the rules come from? What the hell is gravity and how did it come about?
not religious.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
“@ rguinnon
“Evolution is faith-based. For example, all dating systems (especially potassium-argon dating) are trusted to be just as valid at any time in the past as it is now, even though we can’t go back in time and make sure of that. So the reliability of many dating systems are based on more faith than facts.”
Your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premise. Evolution follows form observed evidence. If it were faith-based, we’d simply say “there’s zero evidence and we’re not gonna follow up on it, we’re just going to say somebody else liked it over a century ago”. By definition, evolution is science-based, which is the opposite of faith-based (belief regardless of what actual evidence shows).
@Soichi Hayashion
“Well, that means that science is also “faith-based”
Actually, that’s not what that means. For ti to mean that, it would have to suggest that we’ll have belief in something even when evidence shows otherwise
“you have to believe that God is not in control your scientific experiments skewing results in ways that appear to follow its own rules.”
Nope. You don’t have to.
“What the Answer in Genesis meant to say was…”
If we get to decide what Aig meant to say, then I suggest they meant to say “Because we want our specific religion to maintain/gain its power structure, we’re going to spew irrational argument and make it look like controversy because we’ve learned that it helps support our erstwhile socio-political agenda.”
@Ryan
“Science does involve an element of faith. The faith involved is the faith in your senses.”
When I was younger I loved that philosophical argument. But, from a realist standpoint, it argues that science can only be practiced by non-humans. What would be the point?
February 18th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
“A simple example: we see objects going around the Sun. The motion appears to follow some rules: the orbits are conic sections (ellipses, circles, parabolas, hyperbolas), the objects move faster when they are closer to the Sun, if they move too quickly they can escape forever, and so on.”
What you fail to mention is that there are no explanations for the two planets rotating in the opposite direction.
Evolution is faith based, debate has shown this as well as increasingly ridiculous scientific “claims.”
I will agree with you on one part of this argument that science has provided us with computer and the means for me to even leave a comment here. (That is physics (non theoretical) and engineering that has done that and a large amount is from engineering). What has evolution given us other than dumber and dumber scientists (seems to go against evolutionary though…)?
February 18th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Your claim is not a parallel argument. Your definition of science being based on empirical findings is largely correct, but you do not address the argument that, to describe something such as “the big bang” what most hold as “science” is an approximation, extrapolated from known/empirically gathered data. To accept this extrapolation DOES take faith. As many technically/science minded readers should acknowledge; extrapolation is never an acceptable form of proof. Until a point of reference can be established and dirty little points of interpolation can be shoe-horned into your hypothesis to form a trend, you’re taking a guess.
The quote that you used:
“…some a priori belief on which they sort through experience and deduce other truths. This starting point, whatever it is, can only be accepted by faith; eventually, in each belief system, there must be some unprovable, presupposed foundation for reasoning (since an infinite regression is impossible)…”
Is arguing that empirical evidence can only take us so far back. Eventually, to guess our origins “Scientists” had to take a guess by breaking a rule of Science, and EXTRAPOLATING backwards. …All points beyond known, verifiable data is…NOT SCIENCE!
So, while you can be proud that Engineers and Scientists have made snazzy gadgets. I’ll rest at night knowing they’re playing within the physical boundaries of God’s design…And then go to work the next morning as an Engineer.
-Aaron
February 18th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
You should read Michael Polanyi’s “Tacit Dimension”. He was a physical chemist turned philosopher of science- did a lot of work discussing the personal component to knowing. A good read, if thick, and might aid the conversation of “faith-based” science. He didn’t refute science, or findings as products of science, but noted that “doing” science doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Rather, science requires a personal component, and is not strictly objective (he also broke down the objective/subjective dichotomy of science and faith). Anyway, really good stuff and I highly recommend the read.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Science is what happens when philosophy grows the hell up and realizes that it has to pay the bills.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Science is what happens when philosophy grows the hell up and realizes that it has to actually work to pay the bills.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
[...] This is a reaction to Bad-Astronomers’ post on faith and science. [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I agree with you that science is based upon a person’s experience, however, I disagree with you when you suggest that faith is not evidence based. There are three major arguments that suggest science provides evidence for the existence of God, the ontological, cosmological and physico-theological (argument from design). Obviously these arguments bring up tons of arguments but nevertheless, they make use of science to prove the existence of God. That is if we all agree on what you mean by science.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I just finished reading all comments and found it very interesting and entertaining. It seems to me however the whole debate relies on defining faith. As originally defined by BA faith is believing something without ANY proof/evidence or even contrary to it. Even a small insignificant shred of evidence is still evidence and eliminates faith.
Anyone who has ever seen a miracle, or believes that they have, no longer has faith. They have an evidence based belief. Anyone who actually hears god talking to them, on top of being delusional, has no faith they now have an evidence based belief.
Science requires no faith. Trusting your senses is not faith no matter how poor your senses might be.
I’ve often wondered how science has survived for so long with so many and so much against it. Then one day I either read it or heard it or thought of it myself. Reality is a powerful ally and it seems to trump all of our wishes.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I believe in white unicorns, and the sparkly pink faeries that ride upon their backs. Yet I have no issue accepting the findings of science.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
science is based on faith in the evidence
religion is based on faith in the evidence
see? they’re the same. Religious people just have a broader and more widely accepting definition of what “evidence” is. This article is stupid. we should just call it”I need science to be the antithesis of faith or I will cry”
I care a great deal about how this shouldn’t even be a question amongst adults who have an appreciation for discovering how the universe works. This article is about how the scientific method isn’t faith based (not science itself). But hey, what if (and I’m sure this probably NEVER happens) you believe the results of a tested hypothesis, then what is that called? oh yeah, FAITH!!! ahhhh!
Tested theories can be disproven. they are every year. perhaps even every day. science is a ever changing search for fact. When facts are pliable and some change often how can you call that anything but faith based?!
February 18th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Bah, two words for you when you say that science only makes one assumption: infinite density.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
@David Vanderschel
I like your comment.
One of the differences, however, is that, in Science, any experimenter is allowed to repeat the results and support/disprove (see recent Cold Fusion claims). In faith, there is no experimentation, there’s just belief in what you were originally told.
@Michael I
Good stuff. Thing about Logical Positivism, though, is that it was debunked by Philosophers. If I recall correctly, the proposition isn’t that science is practically deficient outside of the LP construct? (nod to @autumn)
@hmmmm
“Evolution is faith based, debate has shown this as well as increasingly ridiculous scientific claims.”
People claim this and then when you ask them to supprt this claim with evidence…
There are increasing claims. Thousands and thousands. And they all support evolution. If one, just one succeeded in debunking evolution, it would be a BIG deal. It wouldn’t be a small notice on Page 10, it would be massive world-changing news. None have.
@Aaron W
Again, though. Evidence we have gathered continues to support, not disprove the model. This evidence continues to accumulate. Why not accept the evidence and rest at night, too?
@johnnytran
“That is if we all agree on what you mean by science.”
Actually, you’ve changed the definition of “faith”, not the definition of “science”.
As for our only using our senses to observe fact:
Fermions
February 18th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
“”"I care a great deal about how this shouldn’t even be a question amongst adults who have an appreciation for discovering how the universe works. This article is about how the scientific method isn’t faith based (not science itself). But hey, what if (and I’m sure this probably NEVER happens) you believe the results of a tested hypothesis, then what is that called? oh yeah, FAITH!!! ahhhh!”"”
Uh no. “Having faith based on the evidence ” is kinda impossible. if you have evidence you don’t need faith in fact once you have evidence its impossible to have faith in that which you have evidence for. I don’t see how this can even be argued.
Faith is the belief in something for which there is no evidence. or belief in something contrary to the evidence.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
I find this whole great “debate” a bit amusing… on the one side, we have the “religious zealots” and on the other side we have the “stalwarts of rational thinking” with each side out to prove the other wrong.
These types of articles are nice for those that are like-minded — the premise being “Did you see what wrote? [He/She] really made a number of great points! Why, oh why can’t just see the err of their ways and admit that they are wrong and our side is right?”
My point is that true enlightenment never comes out of these quid pro quo antics.
Science is the search for understanding of the physical laws of the universe, but it is not the realm of science to provide answers to the questions of “why are we here?” and “what is the meaning of life?” and “does God exist?” To my knowledge, there is no “scientific” explanation for why one person loves another. It is as if to say that only things that can be measured, tested, or proven are to be given a measure of “worthiness” above all else. For those people who subscribe to this notion, science is your religion. It is to this gestalt that you ascribe all value and sense of worth. “If it cannot be proven, it must not be so!” That may be fine for you, but understand that it is not so with others.
Please understand that there are others who do not hold science in such regard. I am not in any way intimidated by science — on the contrary, I fancy myself to be quite the technologist. It’s just that in my view, there is room for both the notion of science and religion and they are not mutually exclusive to one another. I don’t go to the field of science to search for the meaning of life any more than I try to pour a cup of coffee into a thought. I am completely fascinated by the new revelations of our universe that science has provided, yet I hardly find any of this new information to be conclusive evidence that there is no more to the universe than the narrow understanding science offers.
Why must these topics always be treated as mutually exclusive ideas? Maybe we should draw a lesson from this topic from the field of science itself. Consider the duality of light. Does light exhibit the properties of a particle? Yes. Does light exhibit the properties of a wave? Of course. There was a period of time in science in which only one concept was thought to be true, not both. Had you been the type of person to choose sides, you would have only been partially correct in choosing one or the other.
So, the real question is this… if there is more to the universe than just that which is “observable”, does God give partial credit?
February 18th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
scientific findings neither prove nor disprove phenomena, science produces results that either are in accord with, or against, empirical data. however, it is the best tool civilization has to understand or try to guide phenomena.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Sorry… I need to revise a paragraph from my previous post… apparently using certain characters results in words being parsed out… Below is the way I intended the paragraph to read…
These types of articles are nice for those that are like-minded — the premise being “Did you see what [He/She] wrote? [He/She] really made a number of great points! Why, oh why can’t [the other side] just see the err of their ways and admit that they are wrong and our side is right?”
February 18th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Holy crap! Nobody in their right mind would argue with biochemistry, microbiology, nuclear physics, botany, human physiology, etc…
Evolution is what is on trial here, not science. See, you people constantly get these 2 things confused…buying into what your public education has blended and offered you.
“Hey kids, here is a plant and all its intricacies and it has been here for millions of years.”
Did you see how subtle it is? Now comes the hard part- learning to distinguish what is science (observable) with what is fantasy (a long time ago…)
But please tell me how evolution has advanced your knowledge for observing microorganisms, using evolution to fix a tv or build a plane, learn what chemicals react with each other, ect…
February 18th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Follow up on my previous comment. I stand by it…but my Philosophy of Science is a bit rusty and Wikipedia helped me catch a few incorrect labels:
When I said ‘Logical Positivism’ I meant ‘Critical Rationalism’. (Popper’s Falsifiability actually was a criticism of Logical Positivism).
When I referred to Lakatos, I really meant to refer to Feyerabend. Both were students of Popper. Feyerabend is well known for maintaining that you cannot differentiate between myths and science.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Science makes observations, and reports on results. Reading the New Testament if find people reporting first hand observations. This is called evidence. The Greek word translated “faith” also means “trust”. Trust is something that is not blind and most people think of “faith”. If I tell me child I have a gift for them in the closet, they would stop, think, then go to the closet because they have built up a trust in me that what I say is true. Trust develops from evidence. But then, I’m only an engineer, what do I know about science and evidence?
February 18th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Three problems confront this discussion.
1) Two fundamentally different social institutions–with differing social functions–are being compared, at the insistance of an organization pushing a political agenda, which uses religious terms to frame its ultraright political positions.
2) The genesis and development of religious institutions and of scientific practice can be shown to flow from changes in the material development of society over millenia, and yet both are primarily discussed here as rootless abstractions hovering above the human society which produced them.
3) The perceived need–by some of those wielding the scientific method in their work–for the solace that religious belief provides them from their individual worries–is being crudely abused in this discussion to denigrate these people on a personal level.
The scientific method has been of irreplaceable value in our ability to understand, explain, and predict natural phemomena. There is no question that scientific progress in our understanding of nature has fueled economic developments that have improved our ability to withstand nature’s caprice and prosper. Defending the scientific method from reactionary politicians is certainly progressive.
But there is nothing progressive in demanding that defenders of Darwin et al renounce their personal religious beliefs in order to prove their mettle. There is nothing to be gained from denouncing Newton’s inability to attain a consistent materialist outlook.
Religious belief is a throwback to an earlier age, but the alienating conditions of life that make religious solace useful to millions have not been eradicated. Once society can attain the higher levels made possible by advances in production, the need for religious solace will fade away. (I would even assert that religious thought has a hold on a lesser proportion of human society today than ever before in history.)
But until that need for religious solace is gone, those who would defend a scientific outlook against political rightists are shooting themselves in the foot–cutting themselves off from millions of potential allies–if they fall in with this clever rightist maneuver to frame debate over their reactionary political proposals as “religion vs. science.”
February 18th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Just some thoughts:
1. Science does require that one “believe” in inductive logic. Whether you classify that as faith is not impt.
2. A personal opinion, but I think that “good” science concerns itself with stuff that can be repeated.
3. Science is in a crude sense, curve-fitting. As such, individual theories in it may be disproved, but “science” as a whole is not falsifiable.
4. Hence, I do not believe that evolution (in the sense of -creationism arguments) is good science, because (1) history is not a repeatable thing, and (2) evolution can always refine its hypotheses to accomodate new historical evidence — can someone who supports the idea of evolution (again, only in the sense of historical evolution) as science state an evidence for falsification of it?*
* I do not have any problems with the sense of evolution to do with like bacteria “evolving” antibiotic resistance, or evolutionary methods for optimization working.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
[...] Read the rest of the post here [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
>> Frumpleon
Well, Barton, we don’t have many examples of atheist scientists from Newton’s time because your precious religions would have persecuted and murdered them all. How’s that for plain old black and white, “kitten”?
Religion is POISON.<<
It sure is poison, look what happened when we took the poison of the ten commandments out of the public schools- Kids killing kids has become an everyday occurence.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
[...] reading a post about faith and science on Bad Astronomy, I feel compelled to respond to Phil Plait and point out a few glaring flaws in [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
[...] Aquí les dejo un articulo que habla precisamente sobre este tema. ¡Disfrútenlo! [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Science is faith-based in the same way that all knowledge is faith-based (not in the same way as religion), because in order for us to derive any knowledge from our surroudings we rely on sensory perception. You must have faith that our senses are indeed telling us the truth and that we can believe our interpretations of them. For a much more extended and eloquent version of this statement, read Berkley. BTW his arguments have stood up to rigourous tests of contemporary analytic philosophers (i.e. ninja badasses when it comes to formal logic and arguments based on such. I’m not saying I think it makes sense to doubt your senes (that you are indeed viewing a computer screen and all of that), but that in the realm of conceptual possibility, it is imaginable that this is not the case. You much make a (albeit very small and subtle from most people’s perspectives) leap of faith. Again, this assumption is recognized by many prominent thinkers; read John Mcdowell’s works.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
@Aaron
I agree that this article goes about itself the entirely wrong way, The fact that science has nice toys behind it is indeed a fallacy. Religion does a myriad of good things (indirectly or directly is not the point), as well as some less desirable side effects… Using the results of a methodology is NOT grounds to support it.
While your argument re: “scientists having nice toys” is completely valid, your attack on the big bang is somewhat unfounded. Extrapolation is based on something called Bayesian statistics, and before you begin to argue the validity of the big bang, you should come to know it better than you know anything else.
The big bang is the result of a specific cosmological model. The model (given certain parameters) yields a very specific state of the universe at a given age. Thus, our ability to measure the strength of a model can be done by looking at the night sky, and testing our observations against the model. If the model and the evidence agree, then we chalk it up as a win; if not, we change the model. Scientists LOVE when they’re wrong, because it gives way to a deeper understanding. 2 pieces of evidence screaming for the big bang: Redshifting and the CMBR (Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation).
Cosmologists are careful: They do not argue that we KNOW the cause and universe down to the very beginning, They argue only their model. Their model has rigorous requirements placed against it (99.997% of the time it must correctly predict the outcome of an experiment) before it is accepted as an observed feature of the universe. Religion on the other hand does no such thing. THIS is the key difference between science and religion; one is the act of reverse engineering the universe, the other is the act of believing that which makes most sense to you. There is a difference between what makes sense and what is right, and it’s a very important one.
-Adam
February 18th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
lj,
Yeah, I can state dozens of possible refutations of a given evoloutionary hypothesis which could be found in historical (fossil record, climate record, astronomical record) data. Evoloutionary theories could predict specific pathways that one discovered historical structure has undergone on the way to another discovered historical structure. If evidence for the hypothetical morphological changes is found in the fossil record, a particular evoloutionary theory is strengthened, and others are weakened or abandoned.
If, on the other hand, you wish to find a falsification of the changing of species over time, resulting in the abundance of genetic diversity (which all uses the same molecules to do its various jobs), then you are asking something akin to asking for the falsifiability of gravity. Not the falsifiability of a particular theory of gravity, i.e., Newton’s, but a falsifiability test of the notion that things fall down. There is one, but it is an absurdity; if tomorrow morning nothing was falling down, I daresay that you would have much greater concerns than blogging triumphantly about it.
Likewise, if evoloution was suddenly found to not be happening, the complete collapse of modern medicine, geology, physics, and, of couse, all of biology, would be causing large disruptions in the life of everyone.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I admit I haven’t read all these comments, so I hope this hasn’t already be said.
The whole “science is just a kind of faith” thing is pretty much arguing, “You’re as bad as we are”, isn’t it?
And unsuccessfully at that.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:10 am
Tom:
Science fits none of those definitions. Seriously, it doesn’t. The very basest assertions of science can be called into question and tested by anyone. That’s not trust. Faith does not imply testing, in any of those definitions. It’s “complete” trust – science may make many assertions, but nearly everything is couched in terms of “we think” “we assume.” Now, these are very firm assumptions, but science well knows it sits on sand, and shakes it regularly.
Faith doesn’t question. Questioning is not faith: it is apostasy, inconstancy, or sacrelige; anathema, doubt, what have you. There is a reason a “doubting Thomas” is a bad thing, why questions lead to schisms, excommunication or worse.
There will no doubt be attempts to make parallels with poor Ben Stein, but there is a crucial difference: refusal to accept the data presented is more faith than science. Trying to force data to fit to predetermined conclusions is faith, not science. If you accept the method, you accept the assumptions, and accept that conclusions can be confusing or challenging to your worldview.
Faith is incapable of science, as science is incapable of faith. Science accepts risks, like the risk that all protons will spontaneously decay. Given our experience, we can’t say it will never happen, but we can reasonably assert that it probably has a very low chance of happening. If we didn’t dismiss negligible risks, nothing would get done. And solipsism endlessly circling on itself is a roadblock, a sphinx, and does nothing for science.
Summary: science is not faith, not by any definition; science accepts a premise, but that premise is up for grabs, as is everything in science, including science itself. Science cannot contain itself, but it does not insist on itself either. If a better method was found, science would drop away; unlike faith.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Let me see if I can say a few intelligible words on this subject. You may
tell me if they are intelligent…;)
Premise:
We must assume (some form of) logic. And that is your faith, bitch!
Math and science both follow from logic. (But what is the basic
curiosity? why bother to apply the logic? Answer: survival.
Math is more fundamental than science in that it exists in and of
itself. ie. It is a self contained/internally consistent set of rules
which could exist without, say, biology.
Science is an iterative process that is used to construct theories which
**
describe what we observe.* The operand is not necessarily defined.
Science exists as a process independent of it. Nothing more, nothing
less. Science figures out the “rules of the game.” The game you apply
it to is your choice, as far as it applies, of course.
0) Predictions of Theories are represented by mathematical operations
and logic.
1) Theories change over time due to refinements in what
we observe. There can be and have been discontinuities observed in
both Theory and observation (experiment).
2) Can everything be built from logic? You need to answer questions
like how creativity follows from logic, etc.
3) What if the game changes, can science still describe it?
* the scientific process or method, relies only on the assumption that the processes, as it’s self, is sufficient to describe our reality.
**How science came to be, and how, if ever, it would need to be modified
I believe is a separate topic.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Reading many of the comments above and The BA statement read so true
“Faith, as it is interpreted by most religions, is not evidence-based, and is generally held tightly even despite evidence against it. In many cases, faith is even reinforced when evidence is found contrary to it.”
Great Work BA !
February 19th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Wow–I am really late in commenting, I just wanted to say I understand the quote not to mean that science s faith-based but that your “worldview” (earth is 4.6 billion years old, life arose by evolution via natural selection etc.) is faith-based. I am not a fan of AiG but I will say that most “mainstream” creationists do not feel they are in anyway rejecting science just your philosophical presuppositions of how science explains the natural world. I think that is what they are trying to say.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:24 am
science is what will bring knowledge and understanding into greater frontiers. but judging by just an anecdotal history of science, anybody should know that there is a lot more in this universe, the earth, and ourselves, that has yet to have light shed upon it by science, whether its flying cars, cures for cancer, or new math that explains the universe.
science keeps disproving our set of rules and replacing them with new ones, and more recently is giving us more than one et of rules that both work, or work intermittently.
if you accept that science will reveal things that have yet to come, then I think it is pretty hard to make a claim that science, evolution or whatever proves that god or anything ‘higher’ does not exist without invoking some sort of faith. the rationality of science should allow you to accept the possibility, (the strength of that possibility at your discretion) that god or gods or big bang or gravity or all of the above may have something to do with how the universe operates.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:00 am
Interesting discussion – seems to always happen whenever anyone puts up a science vs faith article.
Just a couple of tidbits: regarding the “dichotomy” (religion being diametrically opposed to science). This is only true if you presuppose CONSISTENCY in an individual’s world view. It is inconsistent to base one part of your life on faith (which by definition operates without regard to ‘empirical’ evidence), and the other part on accepting only those models that have been rigorously tested by a multitude of people. But human beings hold inconsistent worldviews all the time. As has been pointed out, many famous scientists have spent lifetimes in trying to prove or disprove theories with empirical evidence, while believing that if they used the wrong name for god they would spend an eternity in infinite torture, without any evidence whatsoever. Plenty of good people are inconsistent in their worldview – very few people are black and white.
Also, everyone who posted here should read Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. It’s about the immense momentum behind existing theories in science; not only from people accepting what their professor says “on faith”, but also from people crafting the experiments/questions to be asked based on their existing paradigm, and the extraordinary psychological defenses put up against new competing theories. Have a look at the life of Lavoisier “the founder of modern chemistry” for an example. Or if you enjoy irony, look at Kuhn’s life – even in philosophy, a field with very little empirical fact, he faced every obstacle he described in trying to get his theory of “paradigms” accepted. Fascinating reading.
OP should change a little wording to be precise: the scientific METHOD is not based on faith – in fact, it is diametrically opposed to it. This does not mean that millions of human beings can’t hold both concepts in their heads and use them interchangeably to describe situations as they please. Inconsistency of worldview seems to be a tolerable, even invisible, error to our brains.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Let me see if I can summarize your argument:
You argue that the scientific method’s only assumption is that the universe obeys certain rules that can be deduced by observing the behavior of the universe because the rules are revealed by the behavior.
Methods of describing and predicting the behavior (e.g. The Scientific Method, Math, etc.) spring forth from prior observation of the universe and strongly implies the truth of what had previously been assumed.
From there, we use empirical data and the scientific method (applying the rules of the universe itself) to create all sorts of technology. As you said:
“All the knowledge we have accumulated over the millennia comes together in a harmonious symphony of science. We’re not guessing here: this stuff was designed using previous knowledge developed in a scientific manner over centuries. And it works. All of this goes to support our underlying assumption that the Universe obeys rules that we can deduce.”
Apparently, it “works” because by using the methods and data that describe the very rules of the universe itself, we can design all sorts of wonderfully complex tools and technology.
Why again is the Universe not designed?
February 19th, 2008 at 1:23 am
You made one assumption as the basis for your argument. That assumption is faith based…
There is nothing in this universe that ultimately says that everything does obey the rules we set out for it. And we are frequently proven wrong as our new methods of experimentation and knowledge grow, and our “rules” are shattered. Galileo once calculated the speed of light to be infinite, which we now know is false. Many physicists now question the nature and even existence of time. So, if “rules” can be broken, who says that they even exist in the first place? What method can you use to prove it?
Just because something follows a certain set of equations, it doesn’t mean it is CAUSED by those equations. Correlation and causation are very different. The leap between the correlation of behavior to equations and the causation is a leap of FAITH.
Now, I’m not saying religion is right, or that science is wrong. I’m merely stating that faith is required in both. Science didn’t create the universe, science is just one method we use to attempt to describe the behavior we observe.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Perhaps what that quote was trying to portray was the fact that no matter who you are, spiritualist or scientist, all our logical reasoning starts from a basic assumption about how all of the universe began.
Science, for all its greatness is based solely on a ‘mystical’ assumption that matter simply always existed in the universe (then the big bang happened). From any logical perspective we as humans are only capable of understanding things that have both a beginning and an end, so trying to justify that the big bang is scientific is flawed – it’s based on the faith in an illogical hypothesis.
So both spiritualists and scientists are indeed faith based.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:37 am
[...] Bad Astronomy Blog » Is science faith-based? (tags: science faith toread) [...]
February 19th, 2008 at 1:42 am
If you must agree that both science and religion have beliefs, make sure you state that religion is belief without any expectation of proof. (i.e. faith). Science is beliefs that DEMAND proof.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:49 am
There are some things that we are not able to subject to the scientific method. If you believe anything with regard to those things it is called faith.
If you believe there is a God, it is by faith that you do so.
If you believe there is no God, it is also by faith.
As for me I believe in God!
February 19th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Science does operate from a variety of preconceived notions and embracing those notions can be seen as equivalent to a form of “faith”.
The main point that I believe is an indication of “faith” in science is that it universally accepts that all that exists can be measured or sensed by either human senses or devices. It does not allow for the possibility that not everything that happens can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, felt, or measured by technology. Given the limits of human sensory apparatuses and technology, it seems the height of arrogance to believe that everything either can be measured or recreated scientifically or that it simply does not exist.
That doesn’t mean that the baby needs to go out with the bathwater. Science is the best we’ve got, but it sure isn’t perfect and part of what leads to its difficulties is the close-minded nature based on various assumptions that all scientists put faith in.
Science is a tool, but all tools have limits. The main problem where with science in this current era is that there are a lot of folks hell-bent on applying it to proving or the existence of religious elements or “disproving” religion or God. This is just not the right job for this tool and it’s a big reason why Christians (I’m not a Christian, btw) get their hackles up and start interfering in the education system.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:22 am
Um, after reading what I think was 200+ posts (I started at 9, its now 1 at night) I couldn’t find time to read all of them… (i missed the last 20 or so) so I’m not even sure I’m going to be read. but here it goes.
First off, the whole discussion of science vs religion is sort of counter intuitive. There are evidence where a person has indeed started a scientific endeavor because of religion, but like wise, there are still as much, if not more evidence of religion tempering with scientific discoveries. So arguing about which is better, which caused what, or whether science stems from religion, or is under the same concept, cannot be really accepted. Because science and religion are BROAD TOPICS!!!
I myself is a Buddist. I’m religious. I don’t believe in god. My religion does not require I believe in anything, actually, it requires I disbelieve even my own reality, and question everything, and look at the “reality” as it is, not with some meaning mouth fed to me by society. I don’t need faith to be religious. You can be good buddist and not believe in any of its teachings. (because buddism is the one of the few religion in the world not to beleive in deity,because its more about being humane, and because buddism doesn’t have contradictions that church sometimes displays [I think the 10 commandments says no killing, yet people in christianity kill under the god's name, or the church sanctions killing, or goes off murdering masses *crusades, spanish inquisition*, or go to war all the time]) Buddism also asked me not to question other people’s beleifs, but im not a very good buddist… but ignoring my buddist past, im puzzled by why someone would put faith as a requirement for a religion. can’t you use emperical evidence for religion, and like wise isn’t it possible many of the scientific evidence we use are in fact faith based? also is it fair to use religion as synonym for christianity? buddism has no argument with the evolution, microbiomechenics, or astronomy. yet as a religion, buddism is generalized to being essentially the same as christianity, which i beleive many people would disagree.
so stop saying “science vs religion” and just come out and say
“protestant and catholic views of the genesis” +(?) creationism vs “evolution”…
second of all, the scientists side of arguments has some flaws, but they are humans too. the main issue is the fact that some people used some logical fallacies (wiki logical fallacies) and were called upon logical fallacies by their oppositions, so i will let that slide. and don’t do definition debate, just don’t. you just can’t win. just drop it. let the arguer have the definition they want. don’t argue against religion. you can’t prove it or disprove it by DEFINITION. goodness, irony. argue instead that science is fundamentally and essentially different in its nature from Christianity and their beleifs, and even then, not necessarily against the ENTIRE religion (if you learned sociology, you would have learned that religion has 2 functions, 1: to instill a moral many people will conform to 2: to explain the unexplainable.) religion has its function in society, and people have needs that religion provides.
the main issue i see with the creationism side, or the religious side is that they are using extremely generalizing terms with extremely specific detail. like definition for example, or the assumption that religion must be Christian one. If you are going to argue with science, go ahead. THAT IS WHAT THEY ADVOCATE, THAT IS THE BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD, WHICH IS WHAT YOU ARE PUTTING DOWN. If religious rights are going to argue definition, why bother? It would either look like your being a jerk, or they would deny the definition, which both side did repeatedly. If you are going to argue history, then that is using logical fallacy to prove(?) your logic, which is that everything must be faith (then why argue?). sorry the religion side is so long, but some things just don’t make sense. IF you do believe in faith so strongly as to argue, why do you do it? by faith alone, you have no need for making other believe as you do, and when you argue, that means your faith is weak enough that you need to reinforce it by making others conform to your own beliefs so that you have evidence that your belief looks more valid. second of all, how is it possible that any believer in bible argue against the natural religious block on scientific advancement? (starting with ancient mathmeticians, astronomers, physics geniuses, to modern day example, stem cell researchers) the truth is science and religion is NOT mutually exclusive. its just that the Christian mindset that anything out of the norm, and out of their belief system must be wrong and be righted IS in fact against the fundamental aspect of science that makes scientific advancement work. its the mind set of being afraid of new things, being afraid of change, being afraid of the future, and of death that leads the religious right to argue against science, and to say science is faith based. sorry I’m not making any arguments here. but what I want to say is, its not religion that is against the science here. its people’s MINDSET.
as proven by both sides, there are prominent scientists who are religious. there are many. but these people were those who embraced change in its most natural form … in DISCOVERY. the fight is between mostly old guard, and those who introduce new ideas. not ideology.
what I am saying is that argument on both side is kind of useless, never ending war. They usually aren’t even arguing with logic, but with specifics the opposition has provided. stop it! that good will come out? if you like god, go on liking god. no one will (or can ) stop you. but if scientists wants to make your life better, don’t make his life harder for your sake. unarguably, EVERY MODERN LUXURY (even lumber, oil, and food stuff) is made or collected using some sort of discovery and invention someone made, that has basis in SCIENCE (not faith. you don’t need to believe that god made the wrench to screw on the nut), and religion has helped millions of people feel like (or not part of) a group, and carried out its intended specifics. science is not against religion, and religion is not against science. but that does not prove science is religious, or that religion is scientific. just simply leave it at that.
third of all, the arguments/generalizations for religion are mostly in Christian/catholic view. they may constitute many of the people in US, but the majority of the world actually aren’t Christian or catholic (look at china and India). therefore any religious assumption in Christian/catholic views are inherently flawed because they do not even approach representing the majority of the beliefs. this goes for both sides. yes YOU SCIENTISTS.
now I am very into science, and to those representing the science side, on the most part, SHAME ON YOU!
1) don’t assume what science is. specify what exactly you are arguing about. science is an unbeleivably large topic area. and you can’t even assume the science you are talking about is the same science your opposition is talking about
2) in fundemental levels, its undeniable that some form of faith may be in science, but instead of arguing against that, the pro science side could have just as easily argued (and some did so) that the WAY the scientific method works is against the DEFINITION OF THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF FAITH. talk about effects, not abstracts. abstracts and definition debates cannot be won, and will never be truly won by either side, even if human lives were as long as the galaxies.
3) some arguments were very petty, and nonargumental, and even sometimes illogical. nice portrayal of the scientific community.
4) if you are going to make assumption, make sure you specify that its your opinion that those assumptions exists, because you CAN’T POSSIBLY SAY EVERYONE IN SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY IS GOING TO AGREE WITH THOSE ASSUMPTIONS (thats why I’m against the author)
any way, its now 2 am, and i have test tomarrow… good night…ZzzZZ
February 19th, 2008 at 2:32 am
I think I’d add that “the universe obeys a set of rules” can be tested for by just observing it for a while and seeing if it behaves in a consistant manner. Not even that need be an assumption.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:55 am
Most of the posts I have read overlook the true difference between religion and science: absolute faith versus doubt.
A religious person has absolute faith that at least one thing they know is correct.
A good scientist knows that he or she might be wrong about absolutely everything.
Of course, there are bad scientists (who claim that we can ever be really sure of anything), as well as bad religionists (who have doubts about their faith), but we shouldn’t judge science or religion by their practitioners.
It’s not science or religion’s fault that humans are imperfect.
Personally, I blame the flying spaghetti monster.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:15 am
You are correct to assert that science is not faith based but the reasons you give for your assertion are wrong.
SCIENCE MAKES NO ASSUMPTIONS. Science consists of only hypotheses not assumptions. Over time empirical evidence is gathered that supports or refutes these hypotheses through experimentation using the scientific method. This is all science is. All of current scientific knowledge is a vast mountain of emprically supported hypotheses. This is why it is not faith based. There is no final answer that must be taken on faith and not questioned. All of scientific knowledge is utterly PROVISIONAL. Every scientific fact is PROVISIONAL – awaiting a new experiment to be devised to confirm or refute it.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:20 am
My head is spinning.
Or… maybe I should say that I believe I possess a head, and that I am experiencing the sensation of it spinning, etc.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:31 am
go back to bed america
February 19th, 2008 at 3:34 am
This is a reply I wrote up to a copy-paste of this on my Uni forums!
——————————————————————–
Haha – they called it an “a priori belief”
Notice they try to take the discussion away from Empirical/Non-Empirical thought and steer it towards A priori/A Posteriori Knowledge?
As with everything, at the base of it there is an A priori assumption – this is true. However just like you can be an agnostic theist and an gnostic atheist there are differences in between A priori knowledge.
You can have Empirical a priori knowledge, Non-Empirical a priori knowledge, Empirical a posteriori AND Non-empirical a posteriori.
The rest of this article is really describing these differences mentioned above.
“The Universe Obeys a Set of Rules” is an Empirical a priori assumption that can be EVIDENCED (not proven, nothing can be) with EMPIRICAL a posteriori knowledge!.
“God Exists” is a NON-empirical a priori assumption (cannot be falsified, unless you’re a gnostic then you think otherwise. But I’d like to see you show how it can be proven/disproven).
And because it’s non-empirical it cannot be evidenced by ANY empirical a posteriori knowledge. It can only be evidenced by NON-empirical a posteriori knowledge (like anecdotal evidence, which by the way is terrible evidence).
That’s basically what the article describes.
Science, math, everything does have an underlying a priori assumption. The thing is Science and Math’s axiom is SIMPLE, VERY probable AND Empirical. Not only that, but they’re HEAVILY evidenced by empirical a posterior knowledge.
Answer in Gen is a seriously pathetic.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:36 am
What about the Big Bang? I can’t see no evidence of it, but it is a clear scientific argument.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:41 am
Christian X Burkman
“Yes, a few great scientists believe in God, but many more are atheists”
You can’t make claims like this without evidence (an integral part of the scientific method).
e.g. in 1916, 42% of (US) Scientists believed in “a living God who could answer prayers”
in 1996 this number had only dropped to 39.3%.
This is only in prayer-answering theism, there are many more who believe in simple theism.
Don’t make uncited claims.
I am a scientist and a Christian and i’m not sure about some of your arguments. Your initial premise “Scientists assume everything is universally constant” sounds a lot like a kind of faith.
However I think that science and faith/religion ask different questions and hence arrive at different answers, neither of which disproves/excludes the other.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Barton Paul Levenson wrote:
I will correct you, because you are wrong: she was not condescending, just maybe a bit snarky. She definitely did not use gender-stereotyped derogatory terms to address you, like you did to her. Pointing this out is not applying a double standard, nor is it hypocritical. And your defense is “she started it”? Does that work often for you?
My misogyny? You do know what misogyny is, right?
And as expected, you did not address my actual on-topic arguments. That’s OK, several other people have expressed similar criticisms, often better than I did, you can address those. I’m going to stop troll-feeding now.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:07 am
I am looking for alternate ideas to influence the debate, because we’re not making much progress against the forces of ignorance by repeating the old verbiage. One angle I am experimenting with goes like this:
It is easier to be incorrect than to be correct, because there are many more ways to be wrong than right. If we are not very careful about what we believe, then we will almost certainly believe something that is incorrect. If we choose to believe an idea just because we like it, then we will almost certainly be incorrect. If we blindly believe what we are told, then we will almost certainly be led into error. Fiction is trivially easy to create, whereas truth is terribly difficult to uncover.
The general theme of this approach is to emphasize the great asymmetry between truth and error. Truth is overwhelmingly obscured by fiction. If we are not very careful, i.e., if we slip into sloppy thinking, we will be overwhelmed by error.
The main reason why intelligent life can make any progress at all is because we have a memory for what has been discovered to actually work, i.e., what behaviours produce predictable desirable results. We are agents of selection in an evolutionary process that accumulates useful knowledge.
Religious people who pray to non-existant gods and who preach fictions to each other have not figured out that their methods are horribly inefficient at getting provable desirable results. They need to practice more thinking, which is basically all about identifying alternate ideas and then choosing the best.
Given the vast asymmetry that favours creation and propagation of erroneous fictions rather than useful truths, we need to practice idea filtering methods such as skepticism, testing, rejection of theories not supported by substantive evidence, the Scientific Method, rational arguments, etc.
We also need to make it socially acceptable and honourable for people to admit that they were wrong, or might be wrong. And socially unacceptable for people to swear that they are absolutely correct or infallible on any particular subject. Dogmatism is dangerous, doubt is not, because error can lead to bad mistakes, and unfounded faith can lead to dangerous behaviour. Doubt is healthy and safer because it encourages cautious behaviour. “I don’t know”, or “I’m probably missing some information”, are much better states of mind than, “I am absolutely certain!”
If you can mutate these thoughts into successful arguments, please do so!
February 19th, 2008 at 4:17 am
Gary: Science does not stand or fall with the Big Bang theory being right or wrong. In fact, before the Big Bang many scientists thought that the universe had always been there – until the evidence showed that this was not likely, because the universe is expanding. The Big Bang was not invented from the assumption that the universe must have a beginning, but to explain why the universe is expanding, so it is a result of observations.
Evedince so far suggests that the Big Bang is a plausible but not complete explanation of the evolution of the universe (I did not say “origin of the universe”, because science can not (yet?) say what caused the Big Bang in the first place). The theory is also not holy: it is still being changed and revised to fit the evidence better (Inflation, dark matter, dark energy, etc). And if more evidence comes along that refutes the whole theory, or evidence comes along that supports a whole different theory that is better, it will be discarded. Maybe not without a struggle, but in the end, science will happily continue without the Big Bang theory.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:20 am
[...] Das Universum kennt Regeln, sei das ganze Gesetz. Wissenschaftlichkeit bedarf der Hörigkeit nicht. (Bad Astronomy) [...]
February 19th, 2008 at 4:51 am
[...] going to quote two paragraphs from a rather excellent article in Bad Astronomy: Science is not simply a database of knowledge. It’s a method, a way of finding this knowledge. [...]
February 19th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Spuddd:
If you had read the statement I quoted you would find it’s correct.
A 5 second Google search turned up an article verifying that religious belief is very small amongst ‘greater’ scientists:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html
93% of these greater scientists do not believe in a personal god who answers prayers.
The facts are straightforward. The more intelligent and better educated you are, the less likely you are to believe in God. I’m not aware of any credible study which shows otherwise.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:01 am
We do not need to believe that the universe follows a set of rules. We just need to work under the hypothesis that pretending it does we can create models that can be used to derive worth for us. A hypothesis that has been proven over and over again(all modern technology).
So while we need the assumption that the universe is governed by a set of rules that can be derived, it does in no way require us to actually believe this is the case.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Doubting Thomas: I like your comment that we should make it more socially acceptable to admit we were wrong. Also I agree that our education system should encourage critical thinking and having an inquisiting mind more, rather than having kids accept everything on authority.
Unfortunately, I have to disagree with you on something else: religion is not bad at arriving at “desirable outcomes”, except that the religious have a very different view of what is desirable than most sceptics. You have to admit, religion has been quite successful at being passed down the ages. It is really effective at protecting and preserving itself. In this sense, religion does “work”. I therefore don’t think the argument that religion doesn’t work is very compelling.
One of religion’s often used defense mechanisms has always been keeping people from learning of the “wrong” ideas. I consider this a harmful practice. What I would like to see is for society to move towards more openness of information and for society to more strongly oppose any suppression or misrepresentation of information. I’m mildly optimistic that we might head that way eventually.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:15 am
I’ve heard the argument that we have to take the existence of the universe on “faith,” and while it’s facetious at best there is a good response to it.
We have the language to describe what we see, feel and experience; in other words, everything that we can tangibly define and share. I know my hand because I can see it, feel it, taste it, smell it (even if I’m not cognizant of its scent) and hear it as it interacts with other objects. I can relate these experiences with other people who come into contact with me and confirm with them that they have similar experience with their own hands and with mine. Thus we have the basis of common understanding.
It’s possible to question our experiences even further, but such metaphysical discussions are pointless for this conversation to the degree that the question of God becomes meaningless.
Now we turn to the world around us. We can describe water and trees in such a way that everyone understands what we mean. Even if we don’t share the same language, we can still make ourselves understood for simple concepts like that. We are sufficiently rooted in a common reality that communication becomes possible at high levels until abstract concepts become possible. This, then, gives us the foundation for establishing what satisfies the criteria for empirical data for our physical bodies.
Furthermore, every culture on earth has the foundation for mathematics to some degree, which is largely abstract, and all mathematical concepts thus discovered have been compatible. This means that our common reality is not restricted only to the physical world, but also the abstract.
Then we turn to the concept of God. Every culture on earth has some sort of supernatural creation myth, although not one of them shares common elements when developed in isolation. Thus, the common reality model fails. None of us share a common reality with regard to the supernatural, creating an impossible situation with regard to empirical data. In the millennia, probably eons of human experience with thousands of disparate cultures, we’ve discovered evidence of a multitude of common discoveries, but not one god or creation myth in common.
This is not proof of anything, nor does it disprove anything. It only suggests that we are a species that instinctively seeks patterns in the world around us, and we try to fill in the gaps when we have incomplete data. This is where the role of the supernatural enters our lives.
This lack of a common frame of reference for God or the supernatural creates severe problems when trying to justify our beliefs. Commonality only arises when we start indoctrinating cultures into our own beliefs; thus people become predisposed and any empirical evidence becomes tainted. Since we know that we have no problems with independently developed abstract concepts, there should be no reason for the human race to have developed such disparate concepts of God and creation.
In conclusion, the argument that science is something based on faith is simply a projection of intent by people who wish to justify what they can’t verify. We have the tools to establish that we live in a common reality; suggestions that this commonality is an even deeper illusion renders the entire debate moot, since even God is irrelevant once you get sufficiently metaphysical.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:23 am
“So while we need the assumption that the universe is governed by a set of rules that can be derived, it does in no way require us to actually believe this is the case.”
And if it is disproved, it would be abandoned as an assumption. Which is how science works. Burning people who refuse to accept disproved assumptions is how religion works.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:11 am
You wrote it – “The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only” Is “assume” not faith?
February 19th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Lots of good stuff being posted now which supports my position and blows the doors off the initial post. But let me briefly respond to BlackCat:
“It is not an assumption. If our senses were giving us bad data then information based on this data would be wrong and so any predictions based off of it would be false.”
No, the validation of the prediction is also based on sensory data. So if you have some systematic error in your sensory apparatus (either human senses or human senses combined with scientific apparatus) then the data used to build the model will be flawed in a given direction, the predictions made by the model will be flawed in the same direction, and the validation of the prediction will also be flawed in the same direction. Everything will appear to be working but in reality it will be in error.
“What would have to be the case is that our wrong perception fluctuates in such a way that when a group of people are looking at an object their perceived directions all intersect at a single point.”
Dang, you took your sweet time bringing up the social consensus aspect of science. The sensory perceptions are validated by comparing them among people in a group (i.e., different scientists doing the same experiment). Of course, how many scientists do you need? How close do their observations have to be? The answers to these questions are all assumptions which the evidence doesn’t tell you. A growing body of faith for science.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Who in the world is saying science is faith-based. It’s atheism that’s faith-based, not science.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:26 am
You can apply math to find objects in the universe, yes. You can’t apply math to prove how the universe came into being or that there are parallel universes. Torture numbers, and they will tell you anything.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Faith is believing something you know isn’t true. Science is proving, through testing, that something is true.
Join the Revolution: http://www.atheistrevolution.com
February 19th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Way , way, way further up the page using scroll up
- & yegods are there ever too many posts here !
)
(So what’s one more!
- the Bad Astronomer wrote :
“The irony of Answers in Genesis denigrating science on a website is not lost on me. ”
I wonder if its lost on _them_?
Not so incidentally, on religion vs science – I like Galileo’s quote which went something like this :
“The Bible tells us how to go to Heaven – NOT how the Heavens go!”
Each has different intent and purpose, each is useful in different ways, each field has its flaws.
I, for one find the polarised extremes on both sides tedious.
I don’t claim to *know* either way – and certainty seems dangerous esp. when dissing other peoples deeply held views.
Some very good people I know claim to have found Jesus and that He has made a difference in their lives. Who are we to call them liars?
Personally, I’m an agnostic verging on athiest and see many issues with relig. effecting politics, etc .. but .. I leave myself open to the possibility I’m wrong.
I don’t think the likes of Dawkins or Hitchens or some others here do
that -and I think that shows a narrow-minded, dare I say fundamenalist mindset on their part ..
Shrill tactics and gross disrespect and rudeness for others are not effective means of persuading those like me who are in the middle ground.
(Am I an angel myself here? Heck no – but then I’m not writing huge books slagging off the cherished faiths of 9/10ths* of the world either …)
Hitchen’s for one I find absolutely off-putting – I regard him with disgust & disdain as an ex-intellectual who sold out to the Bush II Neo-conservative form of neo-fascism. I gather the BA knows Hitchen’s personally. Well, BA, please aks him about this personal credibility issue of his – & whether he really thinks insulting people will change their views – from me & others – politely but don’t pull your punches!
—————-
* 9/10ths or perhaps more ..? My guesstimate of the religious versus atheist breakdown among the global populace.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:15 am
I agree. Like you stated, science is just a tool the explain how universe works, like your example gravity. But that’s it. Religion tries to do totally different thing. It embeds meaning and context into our universe.
The fact that my grandmother died can be explained using this wonderful tool called science, presumably biology. But when it comes to dealing with my sorrow and grief, science is a horrible horrible tool. (Yes, even science, this time neurological psychology, can be used to explain why I’m grieving, but it’s still a horrible tool to use when in dealing with death.)
Religion is not the opposite end of science. It tries to do two different thing. Stop trying to compare apples and oranges.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:17 am
The inquistion(s) had rules protecting subjects from harm that were rarely exceeded, and then only by violators. The deaths that occurred were due to treason, a crime still punishable by death. People frequently petitioned to be tried under the rules of the ;religious inquistions rather than be tried under the prevailing secular rules, which were more vicious. Atheists who invoke the inquistions are ignorant of reality.
All propositions of logic and rational thought require verifiable and valid sub-propositions, which require verifiable and valid sub-sub-propositions, ad infinitum. This infinite reqression can be dealt with in two ways.
First, it can be ignored, as suggested above, and this results in a probabilistic outcome still based on an infinite regression of unverifiable propositions.
Second, the regress can be halted by determining which of the First Principles apply, and at what level of the regression. This places more certainty on the outcome, yet is based on intuition of the validity of the principles. If intuition is denied, then no experimental design can be thought to be valid. Also if intuition is denied ala’ Hume, then cause and effect cannot be accepted as a valid principle.
Science has two components: empiricism and forensic historicism. Empiricism is entrenched in that which Hume denied: cause and effect. Forensic historicism is based on individual finds of single instance facts such as a grouping of fossil evidence. Forensic historicism is entrenched in the extrapolation (without evidence) of stories connecting single instance fossils to other single instance fossils, thereby fraudulently forcing a theory to be considered fact.
Science is a human construct. It is a pursuit, an endeavor which has human rules. It cannot extend beyond materialism due to its own voluntary restrictions.
Atheism, on the other hand, is not scence. Atheism is a cooption of the voluntary restrictions of science, and placing them into a metaphysical statement of Truth, which extends far beyond the auspices of science. This metaphysical statement of Truth, as Huxley said, cannot be proven (a negative never can). So Atheism is an empirically unverifiable item of faith.
In fact, per Popper, if Atheism is a material concept, it must be falsifiable. What would falsify Atheism? While there are some types of evidence available for this, Atheists deny them all. This, according to the empirical falsification concepts of empiricist Popper, places Atheism cleanly and clearly outside the realm of empiricism, and into the metaphysical. In other words, it is clearly demonstrable using the understanding of empiricism that Atheism is an unfounded faith; a religion.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Torture numbers, and they will tell you anything.
I have some friends who are astrophysicists and they love that term. They constantly have to battle for funding against scientists with half finished fomulas and get so frustrated in scientists who do put too much faith into their hypothesis and leave good, testable science in the streets.
Faith comes in all forms.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:19 am
[...] ???????Bad Astronomy ? Dr. Plait ??????????????????????????????????(faith)???????????????? [...]
February 19th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Great article, as usual. However, I would make one small clarification as to the nature of faith, because there is more than one definition of the word and religion follows one, while science another.
One type is “blind.” It requires no evidence, but merely belief. This is the foundation upon which religion is built. Take Christianity, for example: No one alive today witnessed the events outlined in the Bible. The only account is the written word and that account can’t be verified by any known method. Belief in that account must therefore suspend any requirement for proof (and is therefore also conveniently freed from needing to account for anything in the “real” world that varies from that original theory).
A second definition of faith is evidence-based; it’s the faith of confidence, the faith of proof. I can have faith in the knowledge that if I drop my coffee cup filled with coffee, I’m going to have a mess to clean up. I don’t need to “re-prove” gravity to know this to be true. Although a very simplistic analogy, what follows is that I can use my faith — my confidence, if you will — in the equations that illustrate the force of gravity to build upon that knowledge without having to go through the process of recalculating the how and why of those original equations.
The fundamental difference between these two kinds of faith (and it’s this difference that gives science its power), is that science has the capacity to change its “faith” when new evidence comes in to challenge it. What is a hypothesis if not having faith in an outcome? But unlike religion, the faith is tested and if the outcome differs from the hypothesis, the scientist doesn’t say “oh well, God works in mysterious ways.” Rather, the scientist examines why the outcome was different and therefore gains better understanding.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:19 am
[...] ???????Bad Astronomy ? Dr. Plait ??????????????????????????????????(faith)???????????????? [...]
February 19th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Some scientists as well as some religious people can be stubbornly irrational in their views. There many examples of times where the prevailing theory is stubbornly adhered to, despite grow observational evidence against it. Conversely, many a successful theory is seeded from very little or no evidence. Eventually, the scientific consensus will fall in line with observation. Science evolves: but so does religion.
I think it’s slightly unfair to paint all religious people with one brush, based on a tiny group of nut jobs. It’s a bigoted attitude: don’t be a nutjob yourself, have a more considered opinion! But then again, it’s nice to have a rant!
February 19th, 2008 at 8:30 am
no , its totally wrong !
February 19th, 2008 at 8:35 am
In two days the number of posts is incredibly large. Science is not faith based. If it was, we’d still be waiting for God to let us know if 2+2=4. Atheism is a response to religion, in the same sense that education is a response to ignorance.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:57 am
“the Universe obeys a set of rules”
Does it?
February 19th, 2008 at 9:00 am
“Science is faith-based” is an extremely broad statement. There are many different scientific fields. Physics, for example, deals with very verifiable things, gravity, inertia, and so on; things that can be demonstrated by repeatable experiments.
Some things, like large scale evolution, that which occurs over millions of years, cannot be demonstrated by repeatable experiments. Fossil records are not complete. There is, by necessity, more educated guesswork involved with paleontology and related fields than with physics. By that token, you have to have some faith in the abilities of the scientist. There is some room for interpretation, human error, etc.
That is not to say the theory is wrong, but the evidence is less straight forward to demonstrate than something like gravity.
In some fields, like theoretical physics, there is more idea and less concrete fact (it is theoretical). It is, by definition, a very different animal than more pedestrian scientific fields.
I have heard statements from some scientists that there “has to be” a grand unified equation for everything. That statement sounds more like faith than science. It sounds a little like the Greeks insisting that pi must be 3, because 3.1415926… would not fit their world view.
Also, unfortunately, science appears to be more and more swayed by political concerns than by science. There are many issues (medicine, the environment, energy, and on and on) where money and political power influence, and thus taint, in my opinion, scientific results.
Science is carried out by humans, so anything that affects humans, including faith (religious and otherwise) and politics, can affect science.
There is value in science and in faith (and even in politics) but co-mingling them indiscriminately can lead to bad results.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:12 am
THE LARGER ISSUE: Just as enlightenment philosophy reinterpreted religion as ultimately subjective, post-modern philosophy reinterpreted other disciplines (including science) as equally subjective. Those who over value the scientific method should read any of the following:
“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn, or
“The Logic of Scientific Discovery” by Karl Popper, or
“Against Method” by Paul Feyerabend.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:18 am
@Arkham:
You said..
“What about the Big Bang? I can’t see no evidence of it, but it is a clear scientific argument.”
Just because YOU can see no evidence of it doesn’t mean that the evidence isn’t there. That’s called an “Argument from personal incredulity”.
The fact is, there is a HUGE amount of evidence for the big bang. Just look up COBE. The guys who worked with COBE won the nobel prize for essentially evidencing beyond reasonable doubt that The Big Bang happened.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:18 am
The scientific method is dispassionate; the method is the same no matter the subject of investigation. The results of its use on a set of data or observations vary as does the skill of its employers in maintaining a modicum of objectivity towards the subject matter. The insights revealed by use of this method are of practical use if they are repeatable by independent practioners.
The body of knowledge gained over centuries through this approach has provided us with solid starting ground for further investigations. It is not necessary to repeat all the work of the past in order to safely assume certain ideas to be generally true. New work that improves on some of those assumptions is always welcome, but generally requires heavy peer review to gain general acceptance.
But there is nothing irrational about starting from assumptions solidly based on past scientific work. It is completely rational to count on those assumptions–gravitational force, heliocentricity, planetary rotation, axial tilt, natural selection, whatever.
It is also unnecessary (and impossible, for that matter) for practitioners of scientific investigation to be of a single mind on every subject. Disagreement and controversy help drive the search for a deeper understanding of nature.
But not all assumptions are of equal value in trying to understand nature’s workings. Insights gained from use of the scientific method against observation and measurement of natural phenomena are generally useful. Hypotheses that are developed to explain a set of observations are welcome and testable. Theories that coalesce from the testing of hypotheses can be safely counted upon as generally true, and solid starting points for further investigation.
Assertions made up from whole cloth by wild speculation, recitation of ancient stories, or reference to newer works of fiction, do not–cannot–carry the same weight in a scientific endeavor.
Curing HIV requires a different set of tools than does the attempt to save souls.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Just to start you reading, a dear family friend who used to baby-sit my sister and I as kids has seen a thumb that had been amputated grow from a stump to full length, complete, except for an empty space for a nail to grow, in 1/2 an hour. Reminder: This is not possible according to physics. She and a group of other Christians were praying to Jesus for this lady’s healing and the lady was screaming because the thumb began getting really hot and over that time God just created new bone, blood vessel, nervous system, muscle and skin cells in perfect place, with a little baby nail just beginning to grow. More stories from people I actually know follow. I would love to answer any questions you need answered so that you may believe these things; I will leave my email address at the end.
So let’s talk about Science. I am a scientist by the way (Molecular Dynamics) but the above evidence makes it hard for me to believe in evolution, which requires only physics and not God, since the above points to only God and not physics! I have to admit, some things I don’t know (yet!) and some pieces of evidence I can’t reconcile — but here it stands.
Science is a system which derives its information from materially reproducible events. These can observed by anyone who chooses to look or can be accepted by anyone who chooses to trust the accounts of those who do.
Christianity derives its information from events which originate outside the natural, and so are not materially reproducible. These can be observed by anyone who chooses to look or can be accepted by anyone who chooses to trust the accounts of those who do. Because part of us is actually supernatural (our spirit; “breath”; from God), we can interact with this realm. There is only One true God since there is one consistent design to this universe, and He made it to give each of us the best chance (in God’s perspective) to begin to uniquely interact with Him. God is a person, not a vending machine, but He does love to relate to us and give us good gifts!
So you have a method of interaction and God to interact with, but because it is a relationship formed on the terms of One with the Highest perspective, not physics, no callous attempts to induce natural events will work. This is why science, and more specifically, rationalism, although it is very good at discovering the natural world, cannot discover God. How much hand-waving will you endure to accept a naturalistic explanation for miracles? Miracles may not happen in the way we would like them to but they do happen when we use the name of Jesus – a subtle difference which is not understood by rationalism.
Ad break! My mum, who is actually a medical doctor, in 2006 organised a “Healing Happening” at her surgery (after work hours of course!) and a number of miracles were done by Jesus there (who was not visible but certainly present). One of her patients, Justine, who had recently broken her ankle (a proper break), was there and agreed to be prayed for. This lady was/is a journalist, cogent as expected, she came to the event with her friend, and both were non-Christian until that night. The pastor (who I also know) simply asked Jesus to heal her, and gently laid his hands on her broken ankle (she had hobbled in on crutches). Over the next few seconds, the ankle bones began being rearranged by no action on her or his part nor with any pain (they both could feel the bones being rearranged as if by invisible hands underneath the skin). After these seconds, her ankle was totally healed: she was jumping for joy on it! I later met her in person and she confirmed this miracle. Broken ankles normally take several weeks to heal. Praise God!
So how can we relate to God? We need to understand that God is infinitely above us in every way. Not to make you feel bad, but He really is. It’s called being “Holy”; it’s a given for God. So how can a tiny person (us) with a teeny weeny supernatural part of us (our spirit) begin to interact with a Holy God? To make it even more difficult that teeny weeny spirit of ours is actually dead, cut off from connecting with God because we chose to a long time ago. The answer lives in Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, equal to God, who in a special way performed a transaction in God’s eyes between Himself and us, so all our choosing to ignore God (which we do) was swapped for Jesus’ righteousness (he never ignored God, nor did ever He want to). When we agree to this transaction and begin to live under Jesus’ authority (and rule), God puts his own Spirit within ours, giving us complete spiritual life, fullness, power; everything! Uplink established! And also that thing about living forever with the Most Amazing Person in and beyond every universe. We know that this substitution was done out of love for the whole world and that it was the only way to make salvation available to everyone. It is all summed up nicely by Smith Wigglesworth: “Only believe”. We believe in the existence of God and that His character is what He says it is (Jesus means “God saves”).
God colours outside the square, alluring even scientists such as myself. If you want to know more about Him just ask Him with a childlike expectation: “Lord Jesus, Please come into my life and show me who you are”.
My email is backwards (with a forwards ‘at’): moc. liamg at ezeerbm
I have plenty more supernatural testimonies to relate.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:24 am
I am a bit peeved that nearly everyone seem to equate ‘faith’ with ‘Abrahamic Religions’, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Hinduism doesn’t have any problems with Science, because one takes care of the Spiritual, the other of the Material. Neither does Buddhism. Religion is a tool of social control.
So, really, it’s back to ‘Religions of the Book’ vs Science. How usual. And boring.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:26 am
All Science Is Connected
Because nuclear power plants and computers work, I KNOW evolution happened.
This is because information and insight produced by one area of science is used and cross-checked by other areas. The information that allows engineering nuclear reactors also is used to date rocks in paleontology.
You don’t get to pick and choose what areas of science to believe, it is all or nothing.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:42 am
From philosophy, not religion, we know that there are other assumptions that science makes:
-The information we get from our senses is reliable. It might not be.
-The logical fallacy of “affirming the consequent” (If a, b, therefore c; then c therefore a and b) can be overcome with repetition.
-The scientific method is a reliable method of determining the rules that the universe runs under. It could be that it’s mostly reliable, totally unreliable.
Is that not the case?
Paul
February 19th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Science clearly is as good or as bad a faith as any other. There ain’t scope for the slightest doubt. The very fact that you adamantly claim it to be not so does not help either. It only illustrates how typically followers blindly follow their faiths refuting any evidence to the contrary.
You say:
“The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only…”
I Say making one assumption or three assumptions, how does that matter. There is no God-given rulebook which says, any assumptions more than one count as faith and less as not!
You also say:
“There is one corollary, and that is that if the Universe follows these rules, then those rules can be deduced by observing the way Universe behaves. This follows naturally; if it obeys the rules, then the rules must be revealed by that behavior.”
I Say: Ha! nothing can be farther from truth then to consider that “this follows naturally”. Also to assume (again shows faith) “then the rules must be revealed by that behavior” is ridiculous. It also shows that Science relies on not one but multiple axioms (like any other faith).
As a matter of fact, science is worse than most religions in some ways one being that while most religions clearly cherish the faith on which they are founded, science prefers to push them under the carpet or state them as “self-implied truths”.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Exactly right.
Science is not Faith-Based,
But I have Faith in Science.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:00 am
I unfortunately did not have time to read all of the posts. If I’m repeating I apologize.
While I have never been to the Genesis website and am not familiar with their beliefs, I think the author of the article missed the point of what they were saying. At some point life and the universe came to exist. What caused them has not been proven by modern science. Something caused the Big Bang, was it God or was it chance? Either way, here we are, so something made it happen. It’s one or the other, and because there is no proof for either, it takes as much faith to believe that we came from chance as it takes to believe in God.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:06 am
*sigh* Once again you take a single sentence out of context and completely ignore the entire substance of my argument. I give up. It isn’t worth it.
Atheism, or not believing in God, is faith-based the same way not believing in gremlins is faith-based. A lack of belief in something for which there is no evidence is not faith. Nor is it faith to lack belief in something that is directly contradicted by the evidence (which some definitions of God are).
This is flat-out wrong, as I have already explained. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, for instance, tells us that there are fundamental limits to what science can tell us about the behavior of particles no matter how good or technology is. There is no way to directly observe events that are beyond a certain point in the past (that point defined by the speed of light and the distance to the location at which the events occurred). There is no way to observe events that have not occurred yet. Science has shown us that there are limits to what we can know. But those limits are based on evidence. There are many people throughout history who put artificial limits on what we can and cannot know. They have been almost universally shown to be incorrect. This is still the case today, making predictions about what science will never discover are common. In the long term, and often in the short term, these predictions have been shown to be wrong.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Many of you misunderstand what an axiom is. You’re not alone. Most people don’t understand what axioms are. I’m a working mathematician, and I have to revisit the concept once a year or so to make sure I still understand it. Let me try to explain:
In Euclid’s Elements, axioms are split into “common notions” and “postulates”. Common notions are ideas that are impossible to prove, but necessary for any logical framework. An example from Euclid is the notion that if A equals B, and that B equals C, that we may presume that A equals C. Impossible to prove in the general, but no logical system will get far without such an assumption. An example of a postulate is that, given two distinct geometrical points, one may construct a line segment that joins them. Without such an assumption, there’s no geometry. Common notions are assumptions about the way that logic works. Postulates are assumptions about the way the branch of science or mathematics we are dealing with works. Today, we call both axioms, and make no distinction between common notions and postulates. In my opinion, the two notions are somewhat distinct, and they are handled somewhat differently cognitively. Common notions are the closest thing to faith that exists in logic. The great geometer, H. M. Coxeter, invited his students to play the following game: pick a single mathematical term, like “point”, or “number” or “plane”, and look up its definition in a common dictionary. Pick the subject noun of the definition and look up its definition in the same dictionary. Continue this process until the subject noun of the current definition is a word you have already looked up. It usually takes three turns to repeat (Please try this for yourself).
Once you have played this game, you will see that nothing can be defined absolutely, but only relatively, compared to a small group of undefined terms. In math, we try to make this group as tiny as possible, and define everything else in terms of these few, and we have been pretty successful at this (look at Edmund Landau’s _Foundations of Analysis_ for a beautiful example of this).
But calling the cognitive principle in play that allows me to assume that all right angles have the same measure “faith” is totally disingenuous.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Mr Livingston said
“Science is based on evidence, and science is based on assumptions, which are based on faith. Sorry, you can’t confine faith to religion or to “antiscience.” All worldviews are based on faith at some point. Including yours. Arguments have to have premises.
Anansi weaver: Actually worldviews are based on an idea(s) not faith. When an idea on how something works or should work is formed from there springs faith, science and everything in between.
Faith, having faith, religious faith does not have to have a basis in fact or have to be proven. For example you either believe that 1+1= fish, or you don’t. If you have any questions about 1+1=fish they are either outrightly dismissed or bogged down by circular logic. Any evidence to the contrary of said fatih is ignored and the bearers of this evidence is shunned as a non believer or worse.
Science, while based on an idea, has to follow the evidence and facts to get it’s answers. For example a scientist has an idea that 1+1=fish. said scientist has to prove his hypothosis so he begins a series of tests to see if his idea has merit. At the end of the testing the scientist discovers that 1+1-2. Scientist then admits 1+1does not =fish but 1+1=2. Scientist then published a paper on how 1+1=2 and gains recognition in the scietific field and the nobel prize for his ground breaking work.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:37 am
[...] Logic Faith? I read a very interesting post today. It tries to prove that science – as opposed to religion – is not faith-based. The story also [...]
February 19th, 2008 at 11:42 am
You must have faith that our senses are indeed telling us the truth and that we can believe our interpretations of them.
Not correct. Science doesn’t care if our senses are telling us the truth. All that matters is whether observations are repeatable, testable, and predictable. Observations that meet those criteria can be used to form hypotheses and theories. No faith is involved.
The whole “science is just a kind of faith” thing is pretty much arguing, “You’re as bad as we are”, isn’t it?
Yes, it is the “I know you are but what am I” defence.
If you believe there is no God, it is also by faith.
It’s atheism that’s faith-based, not science.
Not correct. It is possible to conclude by reason that there is no god based on a complete lack of evidence for the claim that there is a god, and the preponderance of evidence that nature works without supernatural assistance.
I don’t have faith that there is no god, I am 99.99999999999999% certain of it based on the available evidence. All a god needs to do to change my mind is produce irrefutable evidence to the contrary and I’ll revise my theory.
When a god shows up and starts tossing his uberness around, the atheists will be the first to convert… I guarantee it. An example, a god could show up, announce His presence, and on a well announced night, under observation by anyone who wishes to watch, instantaneously swap Jupiter and Saturn in their orbits (correcting orbital velocities so they don’t fall into the Sun or mess up the solar system), and leave them there (so there’s no “well I did it and put them right back, nyah”). Maybe there’s a natural way to do that, but that would rock my understanding of the way the universe works enough that I’d be prepared to cast my worshipping lot behind a critter that was so powerful He could do that. I ask only 1 thing of candidate gods: that they earn my worship through evidence. It’s not much to ask really, and it helps eliminate those charlatans who would pretend to be gods and messengers of gods. If a candidate god did that, atheists would line up to worship, mark my words! And Christians and Muslims would decry the guy as an evildoer…
Of course, I also think that if such a being existed, he’d be pretty annoyed by people supplicating themselves. Because you can’t really respect anyone that kisses your gluteal regions.
The main point that I believe is an indication of “faith” in science is that it universally accepts that all that exists can be measured or sensed by either human senses or devices.
Not correct. Science recognizes that our ability to measure and sense changes over time and that old explanations must be discarded in favour of new evidence. That’s how we progressed from Newton’s gravity theory to Einstein’s gravity theory, for example, or from the ether explanation for light propagation to wave and quantum theories for light.
What about the Big Bang? I can’t see no evidence of it, but it is a clear scientific argument.
There is a great deal of evidence for the big bang, not the least of which is the cosmic microwave background.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:44 am
“SCIENCE MAKES NO ASSUMPTIONS. Science consists of only hypotheses not assumptions. Over time empirical evidence is gathered that supports or refutes these hypotheses through experimentation using the scientific method. This is all science is”
I retract my previous statement about the recent posts being so great. Most of it on both sides of the debate has turned to junk. Well, I knew it was coming. BA’s ONE assumption in science (plus ONE corallary) has now been decremented to zero. Now, please tell me how this evidence matching comes about. Given a piece of evidence and a hypothesis that makes a prediction, how is it determined that the evidence matches the prediction or fails to? Is it the evidence itself that is doing the matching? Or is it a human being who is doing it? If it’s the human being doing the matching then what procedure does he use to do it? Where did that procedure come from? Is it evidence or an a priori assumption?
February 19th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Perhaps Dr. Tegmark expressed it best. To paraphrase: “We begin with the External Reality Hypothesis.” ( As opposed to impotent Solipsism).
If Hypothesis = Faith, then I guess, as scientists, we have faith.
Science is simply a method of exploring that external reality.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Of course i believe in science.
of course i believe in God.
why is that a problem?
please look for a new study by elaine howard ecklund.
“After interviewing 1,646 faculty members at elite research universities, asking 36 questions about belief and spiritual practices, Ecklund found some surprising results. In general, two thirds of scientists (studied) believed in God. ”
the article i read continued with…
“A separate study, to be released in June, conducted at the University of Chicago, shows that 76% of doctors said that they believed in God, and 50% believed in
an afterlife. ”
i believe einstein said it was God who gave him his ideas. he just had to listen. paraphrased.
i’m tired of reading that scientists do not believe. they do.
.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Of course i believe in science.
of course i believe in God.
why is that a problem?
please look for a new study by elaine howard ecklund.
“After interviewing 1,646 faculty members at elite research universities, asking 36 questions about belief and spiritual practices, Ecklund found some surprising results. In general, two thirds of scientists (studied) believed in God. ”
the article i read continued with…
“A separate study, to be released in June, conducted at the University of Chicago, shows that 76% of doctors said that they believed in God, and 50% believed in an afterlife. ”
i believe einstein said it was God who gave him his ideas. he just had to listen. paraphrased.
i’m tired of reading that scientists do not believe. they do.
please see the definition of faith to understand more.
perhaps it’s not supposed to be something that can be proven.
perhaps it’s a faith thing.
believe or not.
but… don’t belittle.
i mean… alot of scientic laws were belittled.
you can debate… but… don’t belittle another’s faith.
.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
“”you can debate… but… don’t belittle another’s faith.”"
I always love when people say you shouldn’t question other peoples faith, or belittle it.
Perhaps I don’t understand the definition of faith.
Faith to me = Blind unquestioning belief in something that has either no evidence at all or evidence against it. Is this not the meaning of faith in the context of this topic?
How can anyone with this kind of faith not expect to be questioned? or belittled?
There is not 100% proof of anything. Does that mean believing anything at all to be true is “faith”? Thats absurd, and except for the philosophy majors here, everyone knows it.
Science requires no faith at all, assumptions are not faith since they are based on evidence.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
sigh… its midday at school, and test is coming up… so tired.
So, about the science being faith based…
No one yet disputed the fact that the fundemental difference “faith” in science and “faith” in religion is different in nature, as well as meaning.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Given a piece of evidence and a hypothesis that makes a prediction, how is it determined that the evidence matches the prediction or fails to? Is it the evidence itself that is doing the matching? Or is it a human being who is doing it? If it’s the human being doing the matching then what procedure does he use to do it? Where did that procedure come from? Is it evidence or an a priori assumption?
Hypothesis: That two objects with mass will, in the absence of other forces, fall toward a common centre of mass through an interaction which I will call “gravity”.
Evidence: I drop a rock from a window and it goes “thud” into the ground below.
Matching: I know the mass of the rock. I have inferred the mass of the Earth. I can calculate where the common centre of mass is through simple arithmetic. I can observe the path my rock takes. The observed path matches the direction predicted by the hypothesis based on the math, ergo, I conclude that the hypothesis may be true. I can repeat this experiment with different sized rocks. In fact, I can send someone to the moon and drop rocks there too. Always the observed path matches the arithmetic. When I’ve repeated this the results enough times, I conclude that my hypothesis is a strong explanation for two objects and the gravity interaction between them, and promote it to a theory.
And the assumption is?
Of course, along comes someone who says “but if I fire the rock at really high speeds, it doesn’t work that way.” Ok, so that guy goes and fires rocks at high speed and modifies the theory based on new evidence.
And the assumption is?
February 19th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
@Jeffersonian
You are assuming my belief in God does not permit the acceptance of Science? Even Einstein seemed to think the two were not exclusive. It’s interesting that humans can’t fully comprehend -relatively- simple concepts such as infinity or zero, yet we think we can understand an entity such as God -funnier yet, is to presuppose God’s motives-, and then rationalize whether he exists or not based on what his motives should be.
@ Adam
Herein lies the divergence of science and “science” (please visualize using the quotation marks like Dr.Evil). You are speaking as/like a scientist with a model that although well founded has the possibility of an inaccuracy. Not a “scientist” -or worse, someone who has read the work of scientists and think they are now a scientist- with “proof” of exactly how everything happened. -If you need an example, take the response of an average person who watches “An Inconvenient Truth”-
I wasn’t trying to question the Big Bang but was using the question of the root cause as an example. I suppose if I drop a reference like that I should clarify it with a follow-up sentence, lest I appear uninformed and arguing over my head.
@People who Flame
Based on your animosity towards each other, It sounds like you may need to have some Thetans removed. Contact Tom Cruise for clarification.
-Aaron
February 19th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
“In fact, per Popper, if Atheism is a material concept, it must be falsifiable. What would falsify Atheism?”
Yahweh/Allah/etc. could show up in the atheist’s living room and kick his/her ass. That would pretty much falsify it from the viewpoint of the atheist.
“Can someone who supports the idea of evolution (again, only in the sense of historical evolution) as science state an evidence for falsification of it?”
I’m not sure about evolution in general, but the theory of natural selection could be falsified if you could demonstrate the evolution of a trait in a species that benefited another species only and not its own species. For example, there might be a species of antelope growing fatter and slower for the sole benefit of lions who feast on them. That’s not supposed to happen according to the theory of natural selection. I’m sure there are other cases that would falsify it too.
There was some brouhaha a few years ago where some folks were claiming to have found such a thing in some species of ant, but I think it was later disproven. I’m not sure if anyone else remembers that article or not.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
@ coleen:
I already read the Ecklund study. Did you? I tend to doubt it, because your statement on the results of the study is flat-out wrong. A direct quote from the paper:
Which is the exact opposite of what your quote said.
Some other direct quotes:
Ultimately the paper found the same thing every other study on the subject from the last 100 years has found: a much smaller percentage of scientists are religious than the general population, those that are religious are less religious overall than religious people in the general populations, and although this study didn’t check this other studies have found that the best scientists (either by election to elite organizations like the National Academies of Science or by the decision of their peers) are less religious even than scientists in general.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
you can debate… but… don’t belittle another’s faith
I disagree wholeheartedly.
As a culture, we belittle discreditable ideas all the time. We think nothing of belittling the Raelians, the Scientologists, the guy on the corner who wears the sandwich board that says “the end is near”, new-age mysticism and a whole host of other ideas that are considered crazy because they are not mainstream and are not backed up by any kind of reason.
Why is mainstream religion offered a special place that is beyond belittling? In fact, it is this special place afforded to mainstream religion that is its life’s blood. If it was possible to openly debate religion so it could be put in its place, it is very unlikely that religion would survive in any civilized place… but we can’t openly debate mainstream religion because when the debate gets even slightly warm, let alone hot, religion gets Mr. Sulu to raise the shields of “respect my beliefs.”
Respect is earned, not owed. Isn’t that a lesson in most mainstream religions?
February 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Science purposefully limits itself to describing the natural world – whatever can be measured via senses. It makes no attempt to explore or describe the metaphysical, or even to comment on the existence of the metaphysical. It is rather unscientific of anyone to use science for or against religion. As others have mentioned, science could care less if we are in a “real” universe or a matrix type reality (or dream). If we can sense things and so conduct experiments, then science can do its thing, no matter what the fabric of reality may actually be. Maybe God created everything, maybe He didn’t… what does science have to do with that? It is religious people who try to create this face off between religion and science, and it is simply a stupid fight. But, sometimes I see scientists reacting and trying to use their science to disprove God. Look, if God is a purely metaphysical being who created the physical world but exists outside the physical world, then science doesn’t even claim or want to prove or disprove or otherwise have anything to do with God… Such a God either exists or doesn’t exist, regardless of what people think, and regardless of what science measures.
As for me, I put confidence in scientific progress being made in frontiers where experiments can be performed and hypothesis can be verified or rejected. When I think about the computer sitting in front of me, I realize thousands of theories were both proven right and proven wrong (and thus adjusted) to get us to this point of technology. I do not accept “science” where it is impossible to prove or disprove a theory. While I am open to the possibility of a future approach being developed to test certain theories, my present stance is great skepticism.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
“Matching: I know the mass of the rock. I have inferred the mass of the Earth. I can calculate where the common centre of mass is through simple arithmetic. I can observe the path my rock takes. The observed path matches the direction predicted by the hypothesis based on the math, ergo, I conclude that the hypothesis may be true. I can repeat this experiment with different sized rocks. In fact, I can send someone to the moon and drop rocks there too. Always the observed path matches the arithmetic. When I’ve repeated this the results enough times, I conclude that my hypothesis is a strong explanation for two objects and the gravity interaction between them, and promote it to a theory.
And the assumption is?”
Assumptions are as follows:
1.) Mass of rock is Mr
2.) Mass of earth is Me
3.) Formula for common center of mass (presumably (Xr*Mr + Xe*Me) / (Mr + Me)) (or is this part of your hypothesis?)
4.) Your observations of the path of the rock (and also the earth) are correct because your senses are giving you good data and your scientific instruments used to measure them are flawless.
5.) “Enough times” means N times where N is 100, 1000, (take your pick)
February 19th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Einstein’s “God” was simply the fact that the universe follows invariable rules. Not only was his God not actively involved in the affairs of the world, as best as I can tell it wasn’t even intelligent.
Standard cop-out. You are simply defining God to undetectable by any means whatsoever. You are simply defining away the whole issue.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Holy-smokes. Not that I expect this to get read this far down, but I just had to comment after the first 190 or so posts I read.
Phil, I tend think of the differences here by attempting to reduce science a bit: Science is nothing more than a [bold]tool[/bold]. The tool either works for the purpose it is created for or it does not. From the mountains of evidence in our medicine and technology and successful predictions about any number of the workings of our universe, I would argue that it does.
But no matter what it’s still just a tool. The same as any common hammer. I don’t have to believe in any object in my toolbox for it to work. My hammer… well it hammers. I don’t have to take as a matter of faith that it will put nails into wood for it to do so. Either it does or it doesn’t. Further, it hammers for me, for my neighbor, my father-in-law, a buddy from the office regardless of what else any individual believes or whether one thinks the wood, the nail, or the hammer itself are “real”. It works the same way no matter who picks it up and pounds away on nails all day. If you flip it around it pulls nails out and it does it the same way everytime, but I’m not entirely certain how that fits into my anology. It may work more effeciently if wielded by an expert, but an amateur once familiar with the process can quickly become quite good and make important contribution to the process of building.
By the same token science simply does what it is meant to do as a tool; separate that which is more true from that which is less true. Does light have the properties of a particle or a wave? Hopefully, anyone who has taken a high school science class has been through how this was tested and re-tested in all manner of ways, perhaps even repeated some of the basic experiments themselves. What a wonderful suprise that light can demonstrate the properties of both… even in the same experimental framework. The tools worked, even if the result was different from what would have been expected. This may even be a hallmark of good science; findings which defy expectations.
I think too many confuse the process, the tool science with results or data that they do not like or wish to be not true. Or perhaps they get confused and see that concepts have been overturned and don’t understand how better data can replace older less precise data, a process which sometimes completely changes our perception of the workings of the universe. It isn’t difficult to understand how more precise tools can lead to more precise measurements, but it may be very hard to understand how more precise tools can lead to whole new ways of measuring! And new ways of measuring can open up whole new avenues information to parse with our better tools.
Can the same be said of religions? Can I use them to learn something new or unexpected about how the world works? Does they stop working if I stop believing? Does they work the same way for everyone, everytime? Can they even be tested? Or do the principles vary from person to person and time to time, depending on the culture and the context of the dogma? Finally, after thousands of years have they made predictions with limited data (do they even produce data for that matter… testability I suppose) that later turned out to be correct or told us anything new about the universe that we didn’t know before?
After any lengthy argument the answers to the above questions are all “No.” Yet, the tool of science does exactly all those things. The tool work regardless of cultural context, regardless of any “belief” in the process, it makes successful predictions, it unexpectedly reveals new information and whole new areas to explore. Over time the tool or science, wielded by experts and amateurs alike, builds a framework of information which, even if never complete, provides our best picture of how our universe works. And if I don’t understand it? Well, I can pick up a hammer and get to work myself to see which pieces can be recreated. I can poke and pry to find lose bits, things that don’t quite fit right and then attempt to use my tool to make a more precise construction of data and information.
No religion works this way. You are not encouraged to examine and pry into the articles of faith, the foundations of dogma. In public or in private point out a contradiction or flaw, pieces of information that don’t quite fit correctly or that plainly disagree with observable facts and platitudes and a knowing smile that someone else has it all figured out will greet you. Thinking about these things isn’t to be encouraged. Do so often enough and be prepared for ridicule, excommunication, or worse.
Of course, this is a point that may confuse the religiously inclined or devotees of strange new theories. They see scientific institutions and individuals parse over data and experiments looking for obvious flaws or mistakes, errors of mathematics both simple and complex, or unfounded assumptions. How can others set to work with their own toolbox to pry apart that which is shoddily constructed or to attempt to recreate that which seems sound in order to better understand it? Such investigation is anathema to dogma, but it makes sense how those not familiar with the process might confuse it with the ridicule and exile imposed by dogmatic faith. After all, humanity has thousands of years of experience with the former process. Not understanding how it came to be found unsound can lead to resentment and an inclination to see the individuals who made such a determination to be no different from inquisitors of both old and modern times, summarily rejecting that which they find personally, politically, or contextually distasteful. Of course, they are totally incorrect in their analysis of the situation because they don’t understand the process. But, I can really see how easy it is to retreat into these assumptions when something cherished is rejected or challenged.
Anyway, this whole mess above got me going and I unleashed my typing skills. Going a little overboard, perhaps, but when I get moved to share… I just gotta share.
Keep up the good work Phil. I look forward to the new book and hope to have some pictures of both the old and new book in new and (appropriately) interesting places later this summer!
February 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Assumptions are as follows:
1.) Mass of rock is Mr
2.) Mass of earth is Me
3.) Formula for common center of mass (presumably (Xr*Mr + Xe*Me) / (Mr + Me)) (or is this part of your hypothesis?)
4.) Your observations of the path of the rock (and also the earth) are correct because your senses are giving you good data and your scientific instruments used to measure them are flawless.
5.) “Enough times” means N times where N is 100, 1000, (take your pick)
The mass of the rock is not an assumption. It is a number that describes a physical property that is observable. Unless you are saying that the assumption is that the rock is real – in which case I say that you are being obtuse. It doesn’t matter that the rock is real or not, only that I can observe it. Ditto for the mass of the earth.
The formula for the centre of mass is part of the hypothesis being tested. My apologies, that wasn’t clear in my post.
It is not an assumption that my observations and data are correct. The raw data merely goes in. If my data are incorrect, that will eventually show in repeated trials. If ALL the observed results are incorrect in the same way so it makes all the numbers work, then are they really incorrect? At that point we’re arguing the definition of “correct”. In fact, there is no specific assumption that the observation and instruments are flawless because a scientist also tries to calculate the errors in sensing and instrumentation. By calling it an assumption that ones sensing is not lying is actually making an assumption that there is some greater, absolute truth to which we may not be party – a truth that could make, say, 2+2 really equal 22, but we see 4 in error. It doesn’t matter if 2+2=22 in some higher plane… what matters is that every time we look, 2+2=4. There is no assumption. However, when it should occur that we are able to perceive and measure that higher zone of truth, our hypothesis that 2+2=4 will fail because we’ll see that 2+2=22… Just like Newtonian mechanics gave way to Relativity.
Enough times isn’t an assumption because someone can always come along and verify one more time, no matter how many times it has been done before. This property overcomes the idea that perhaps my instruments always give an error the same way because someone else with different instruments should get a different result unless his instruments happen to be in error exactly the same way. Statistically, it is highly unlikely that an arbitrary number of observers testing an hypothesis will get exactly the same error.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
If this was actually what most religious people believe then there would not be a conflict between science and religion. But very few people actually believe this (at least in the U.S.). They believe in a God who is actively involved in the world, who is at the beck and call of his followers, who punishes and rewards both in this world as well as the next. This sort of religion is in opposition to science because it says things about the natural world, things that are not true. If religion really limited itself to only dealing with things outside of the universe we inhabit and that do not have any physical manifestations in our universe then the conflict would not exist. The conflict exists because religion does not limit itself in this way. So it comes down to a conflict between faith and evidence. Some people think faith is more important than evidence. Others don’t. These are incompatible ways of dealing with the world, and conflict is going to arise between them.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
“The mass of the rock is not an assumption.”
All right, your original post said “I know the mass of the rock. I have inferred the mass of the Earth.” I think you meant to say that you have measured these values in some previous experiment. Perfectly acceptable. Assumptions 1 and 2 drop out. Assumption 3 drops out because it’s part of your hypothesis – you predict the rock and earth to meet at this point defined by the formula.
“There is no assumption. However, when it should occur that we are able to perceive and measure that higher zone of truth, our hypothesis that 2+2=4 will fail because we’ll see that 2+2=22…”
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim that our sensory experience must be uncritically accepted as given, and then at the same time claim that some day we might reach a higher “zone of truth” that reveals that our previous sensory experience was bogus. It’s either one or the other.
In point of fact, science does worry a great deal about sensing data and that is why enormous effort goes into the design of scientific instruments to prevent erroneous data from being generated. If all sensory data must be uncritically accepted then why expend any effort at all in this area?
February 19th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
“In point of fact, science does worry a great deal about sensing data and that is why enormous effort goes into the design of scientific instruments to prevent erroneous data from being generated. If all sensory data must be uncritically accepted then why expend any effort at all in this area?”
Tom, do you always just ignore the rest a post and take only what you wish to argue out of it? even if it answers what you are arguing?
February 19th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
February 19th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
If Jesus returns to save us all, I’m not going to get defensive.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
“The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That’s it. There is one corollary, and that is that if the Universe follows these rules, then those rules can be deduced by observing the way Universe behaves. This follows naturally; if it obeys the rules, then the rules must be revealed by that behavior.”
Sorry, man, but that assumption *is* technically faith, as you can’t prove the universe follows a set of rules. Furthermore, the assumption that the Universe follows a set of rules implies a “Rule Maker”… you’ve actually accomplished the total opposite of what you set out to do – not only have you proven that science is faith based, but you’ve demonstrated there is “room” for God in the worldview.
You can argue that the rules are somehow “self-existent” but then you’d still be implying they are non-manifest and non-physical, which implies a realm “beyond” where science can reach.
The idea that science is somehow meaningless or worthless if there is a God (or Gods, or Goddess or Goddesses) is the saddest part of this whole pointless debate. That’s like saying its not worth getting to know people that you’ve already met.
It is possible to revere Existence simply for the miracle it is that it exists (forgoing “gratitute towards a personalized deity,”) and seek knowledge about our Universe simultaneously.
The debate isn’t science versus the concept of a Creator of the Universe, its science versus the concept of a bunch of cranky old white men burning scientists alive for daring to seek knowledge (and the modern incarnations of such outrage in all of their glarious bloggarythmic forms)
February 19th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
“Tom, do you always just ignore the rest a post and take only what you wish to argue out of it? even if it answers what you are arguing?
Yes, he does. I’M GLAD I’m not the only one who has noticed this.”
So why are you glad?
February 19th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I’ve been thinking for some time that the scientific method really boils down to constantly asking two fundamental questions:
1) What does the world look like?
2) How do I know this isn’t garbage?
The first question is basicaly, if Smith says that Minnesota hummingbirds migrate south for the winter, and Jones says they don’t, how can we figure out who is right? By looking at the birds, of course. If your textbook says that carbon has an atomic weight of 12.0193, how can we find out whether this is correct? Not by asking the book’s author or another authority, but by looking at carbon.
The second question is basic skepticism, of course. It’s the humble acknowledgment that it’s very easy to make mistakes. The reason for a lot of experimental procedure (like double-blind tests and control groups) is that, over the years, scientists have discovered an awful lot of ways to make mistakes. I understand that the intense grilling a grad student gets in defending a thesis basically boils down to “how do we know your results aren’t garbage?”
February 19th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
BPL: “And the rest of it is hopelessly poisoned by atheism.”
I may be poisoned by atheism, but I wouldn’t say I am HOPELESSLY so. If I witnessed any phenomenon that was a physical(1), independently observable (2), and falsifiable (3) manifestation of God, I’d rethink my position on the matter in a heartbeat.
(1- not in my mind)
(2- visible to some device like a camera so I can make sure I and someone else in the room are not hallucinating)
(3- not a matter of faith that can’t be disproved)
Meanwhile, theist hopelessly continue NOT observing such a phenomenon, most of them not changing their minds anytime soon.
And sure one could argue that if God showed itself, it would ruin all the fun and beauty of faith and belief in religion. Good luck with all that. It’s not for me.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
This was posted as a link to another link that was posted here. It is an article written by noted science author Paul Davies which bears on the topic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
“…The problem with this neat separation into “non-overlapping magisteria,” as Stephen Jay Gould described science and religion, is that science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified. …”
February 19th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
@ Jameson 18 Feb 2008 at 9:02 pm – fully agree with everything u said
@Jakob Perssonon 18 Feb 2008 at 9:26 pm
“Science says that the sun doesn’t rise because it has always done so, or God made it so, no it does so because our planet orbits it, which is a result of physical forces.”
false: Science can never answer the question “why?” !!!!
Science only provides models of what we call “reality” that explain past observations and have predicted – now also past, but then future – observations with a certain accuracy.
to say: “the sun rises BECAUSE of certain FORCES” – in a purely scientific way – is not correct.
Correctly you could only state sth. like this: “Our model, certain structural elements of which we call “physical forces” like “gravity”, predicts, that the sun will rise, BECAUSE all past predictions of this model have been fairly accurate.”
There IS no such thing as “physical forces” per se, or “the sun”, or even “the universe”. These are all human constructs we lay upon certain regularities or structures we observe in nature in order to communicate with one another or to predict future events in our surroundings in order to get along with them.
@ John B. Sandlinon 18 Feb 2008 at 7:34 pm
)
“Godel’s Incompleteness theorem only applies to systems that can be proven solely using the logic and rules of that system. The universe, unlike logic and mathematics, is not an abstract invention of man designed to model aspects of the universe. It IS the universe. The universe does not attempt to describe itself using man made rules of logic and mathematics! It is not subject to Godel’s law. Science isn’t a system of logic”
Funny, that. I laughed out loud.
“Science is no sytem of logic”… rotfl
are you kidding
of course it isnt…its even worse…it only attempts to be… but the beauty of gödels theorem is, that EVEN IF it was as perfect as a purely logical system, it would still have to incorporate either some inconsistencies or some unprovable axioms, i.e. “faith”
therefor the quote that is the basis for the BAs article is perfectly RIGHT!!! and the BA is WRONG!!
he even proves it by himself only a couple of lines later:
“The scientific method makes one assumption”
q.e.d
It doesnt really matter what this unprovable assumption actually is, but anyway… he states:
“and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules.”
I am no religious person, i am agnostic, but i have to say, that anybody was perfectly in the same right as the BA and his fellow “believers”, to make a slightly different assumption, e.g.:
“The universe follows the will of GOD (or the FSM or whatever) and it is his will that humans and especially the stupid scientists – at least for now – observe a mainly regular universe”
February 19th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
[...] ran across a blog today that vehemently denies that science is faith-based. While this is a tempting position to stake out, particularly in light of the cultural wars raging [...]
February 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
@ John B. Sandlinon 18 Feb 2008 at 7:34 pm
“The universe does not attempt to describe itself using man made rules of logic and mathematics!”
see…there it is…one of these inconsistencies in scientific thinking – at least in yours…
From a “scientific, perfectly mechanistic “the universe follows rules”- kind of thinking you would have to say:
“Of course it does!!”
Or do we not happen to be part of the universe?!?
(…and therefore following its “rules”? Which is btw one of the most ironic parts of the whole debate
)
i´m dead serious on that…just in case you wonder…
February 19th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
this is much too much to take in. but… i, for one, am glad that the discussion has finally taken a non-offensive turn.
i don’t consider myself “religious”. but.. i do believe in “God”. i don’t care to discuss what that means to me. it means different things to different people.
to “Evolving Squid”: i try more than you know not to belittle others religious beliefs. as for scientologists… whatever. i am not a scientologist. but… as long as 1) every other “religion” gets the same federal (i.e. tax and other) benefits, no problem with me. and 2) they don’t hurt anybody (i.e. the disconnect thing), o.k. with me. i just think a person should be allowed to believe what he/she will without ridicule. isn’t that a freedom i should be allowed?
i watch mahr, et. al. make fun, no… really destroy…. anyone who believes in a higher power. no kidding. mahr? who the helll is he to decide?
yeah… he’s a comedian. the problem is that i know several young (i mean 10 to 16 year olds) who say that believing in God is unscientific therefore it isn’t.
i DO believe that MOST scientists (over the age of 45) believe in “God”, in whatever word they choose to use. Maybe it takes that long?
Maybe you go through a period of searching? If you think about what you know now, compared to what you thought you knew when you were a teen. i mean… Wouldn’t you come to the conclusion that you know now that you don’t know near as much as you thought you knew way back when?
to Halfdeaddavid: if science required no faith at all, once an experiment or hypothothesis failed, would not the scientist give up? he/she would have to have “faith” to continue”.
as for science in general … yeah… a hypothosis MUST be proven. good.
as for faith… it’s what it is. it probably CAN’T be proven. believe or not. it’s ok. either way. just don’t hurt anybody else. we’ve had enough of that.
i’ve asked the folks i know in science fields about this question. it seems to be more of an age thing to me. i hope someone would check that out. you seem to get to a point where you think there is more than you originally thought. good. maybe that’s how it should be. that’s how you start…. that’s what happens later.
.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim that our sensory experience must be uncritically accepted as given, and then at the same time claim that some day we might reach a higher “zone of truth” that reveals that our previous sensory experience was bogus. It’s either one or the other.
No, it isn’t one or the other. It never has been in science, and it never will be. We once thought the earth was flat because observations lent themselves to that conclusion. Over small distances, that is effectively true – certainly it was true within the limits of the observational capabilities of, say, cavemen. But some Greeks figured out that “the earth is flat” doesn’t work sometimes and couldn’t explain some of the observations they made. They threw out that old theory and moved to a new one: that the earth is spherical… we reached a higher “zone of truth”. That worked for a lot of things, but as we got better at sensing, we learned that it didn’t allow for predictions as accurately as we learned to measure. So that theory was thrown out – someone put forward the notion that the earth is an oblate spheroid… we reached a higher “zone of truth”.
Knowing, as we do that the earth is a very slightly lumpy, oblate spheroid does not change the possibility that in the future, we might figure out that a better shape for the earth can be described, nor does it change the fact that over small distances, the earth can STILL be considered flat and calculations that you might perform will pass the “good enough” test, even though we know that it is technically wrong.
No assumption.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
isn’t that a freedom i should be allowed?
No. Nobody should have a right to freedom from ridicule. To say otherwise is to restrict freedom of speech, and indeed, freedom of thinking. It would drive underground rightful dissent.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
just some other thoughts:
science only acknowledges phenomena that are repeatable or at least repeatedly observable.
So if, for example, there were godly interventions…science would – by definition – be blind to them, as they would each be unique, with no underlying hypothesizable regularity.
also: science only acknowledges fasifiable theories. So – again by definition of the scientific method – phenomena that have no PREDICTABLE observable consequences cannot be part of the scientific world view. Nevertheless, they COULD exist… no (good) scientist could deny that.
What one can clearly see by these two arguments is that it is the scientific method itself that causes/reinforces the mechanistic worldview of “the universe follows rules” it is based upon. It is caught in the boundaries defined by its own underlying assumption(s)…. which is true for science as it is for religion.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
“Science is not simply a database of knowledge. It’s a method, a way of finding this knowledge. Observe, hypothesize, predict, observe, revise.”
1. Observe: To experience reality through perception.
2. Predict: To calculate a result based on current knowledge.
3. Observe: To experience reality through perception.
4. Revise: To calculate a result based on current knowledge and to test its validity against previous knowledge.
Repeat 3-4 infinitely.
truth = time(experience)
“Truth is what stands the test of experience.” -Einstein
Not 1 or 0. Somethings are more true than other things. Shades of gray. Beyond true or untrue. “Mu” as the Japanese say.
Derivatives:
Observations come from perception.
Predictions come from knowledge.
Questions:
Where do hypotheses come from?
How do you decide what to observe?
If reality is limited by perception, how can you know what your perceiving is real?
Science believes something it can not know. It has faith that what is perceived is indeed reality.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Why are people still debating about “Is science faith-based?” ???????
Saying that Science is faith-based is like saying that Bush is smart.
Faith = ignorance, science comes when faith stops.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
As much as I agree with pretty much everything based on science, I think the point here is that there is no way to fully understand the origins universe through faith or science. The fact is that we will never know how the world began. If it began with god, how did god get here? If it began with the big bang or universes colliding how did they come to be? Are we to assume that everything that is, always was? We will never be able to answer these questions. To this degree everything is based on “faith”.
But is that any reason to discount science? Like everyone has said time and time again the answer is no.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Hm…. Who made the rules?
February 19th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
You are an idiot,
You just claimed that science was not faith based, because there is no base case assumption, and then go and provide science’s only base case assumption..
February 19th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I haven’t read this whole debate (since it’s pretty long) so if I’m repeating someone, I apologize.
Science is faith-based.
You take it on faith that every written record of a scientific experiment before you has resulted in a certain way and that it will happen again if tried again. This is like the sun rising argument. You take it on faith of written record that every day before today, the sun rose, and every day after today, the sun will rise as well. It’s all well and good that someone else did this experiment, but how do you KNOW that their results (or any repeated results), or observations (or any repeated observations) are accurate? You don’t. You can’t. You therefore must take it on faith. Also, just because something can’t be repeated, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, or couldn’t possibly be true.
Why trust that Halley’s comet was actually observed in the 16th century, and not the bible? Since NONE of us observed the comet back then, we have to TAKE IT ON FAITH that it actually came. Much like the stories of the bible, we have to at least consider that MAYBE this actually happened. Why believe one written record and not another? What makes one credible and not the other? You’re thinking in your head: “because we can see it now, and it comes back every time it should”. Usually the answer is repeating an experiment. But you can’t EVER go back to the first one and say it did what you said it did (why should anyone believe you?). Can you tell me with ABSOLUTE certainty that the comet came in the 16th century? If yes, HOW? The only possible answer is that you take it on faith that it did. That’s all you could possibly have. Moreover, you can’t ever guarantee ABSOLUTELY that something will happen again in the future. You CAN’T. We know this from quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. You can be very very very sure that you can’t walk through a wall, but it could still happen.
I’m a scientist myself, but have to admit that what I know, and what I’ve learned, I usually have to take on faith that it’s true. I can do math and everything from first principles, but I have to trust those first principles. I have to have faith that observables are actually observed, and that written record is at least mostly true. But who’s to say it is, and will always be?
Good debate though.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Evolving Squid,
Who gets to decide which theory is better? Who gets to decide what is a higher “zone of truth”? Do you think all members of the species Homo sapiens agree on these things? Group A will say that their theory matches the evidence better. Group B will say that their theory matches the evidence better. We already see this with ID versus evolution and in numerous other areas. You seem to believe in my axiom 7, which to refresh your memory was:
7.) All reasonable people will interpret the same evidence in the same way.
BTW, you, BA, et al need to get together and get your story straight. Is it ONE assumption with ONE corallary, ONE assumption which isn’t really taken for granted since it can be supported from the evidence, or ZERO assumptions? Those are three different arguments.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
You guys…don’t get. Science is faith based not be because it isn’t “scientific”. Its faith based because most of the people who put their trust in science do it essentially on “faith”. Who really has the time, inclination, and smarts to understand the logic, math, and proofs of science? Not many, even not many scientists understand all the fields, and can say they have absolute certianity of all the findings of “science”.
Therefore, they must place their faith that others have done the work and believe that their deductions are correct.
Finnally, why can’t God create a universe with rules?
February 19th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Jeremy, thank you so much for the clear and unique post. It was informative, unlike so many of the combative things surrounding it, and useful. I think it will be generally ignored. People are so eager to speak…
I’m one of them. I would rather not be wrong.
You above have talked all about what you think, but you haven’t scratched at why you think that way.
Essentially…
Although beliefs come in different “sizes” as perceived to individuals and groups – there are “big” ones like one’s faith, and “small” ones like the worth of a motorcycle helmet – they are all collections of ideas arranged with respect to each other and to one’s ego according to an individual’s judgment of their worth.
Ideas are acquired by observation. The individual can seek out data, or it can be thrust upon them. It is in the acquisition of this data that individuals fail, and frequently.
All of us tend to accept ideas readily from what we have determined is a trustworthy source. This is especially true when we are young; so much of what we are told is correct-enough to get by, and it carries authority. Of course, it is only with great effort, and later in life, that we can realize that the value of any statement does not stem from the identity of the source.
When you research an idea, you are limited by time and ability as to the amount of consideration you can devote to the task. Family and other distractions take time; sometimes, investigation requires special tools unavailable to you; the mental acuity and agility you can bring to bear may be insufficient to the task. At some point, the perceived return on investment – effort expended vs. gain achieved – reaches a zero, and investigation stops. At this point, the belief is “filed” as a mental “base” upon which future decisions can be made.
I think our perceptions have two major factors acting to distort them: PREJUDICE, which includes everything a person thinks he or she knows, and ACUMEN, the capacity with which we can investigate something brought to our attention.
So: because of physical limitations and the innate process of judgment, your investigation cannot be complete. This means that whatever the belief, it cannot be the “whole story”.
Fortunately for us, it doesn’t have to be. Community provides a buffer against fatal mistake, in that 1) not all members of a community may be victims of a mistake, or 2) the belief held by the individual is diluted by incongruence with the beliefs of others, and social interaction acts as a buffer if an urge to act grows from belief.
Community can also be a buffer against error – if the community knows how to do that and is so inclined.
In a representative democracy, activism appears as interested groups seek the backing of government. Activists can use their knowledge of how beliefs are formed in order to manipulate voting and thus legislation. When activists buy ink by the barrel, as for newspapers, they can accent things they know will appear positive and ignore or minimize negatives, knowing the above limitations of individuals in determining fact from fiction.
Magicians know what we expect as well as our limitations, and delight in showing us harmless, new ways to display our gullibility and their ingenuity; in the process, they show us how clever we could be if we worked at it as long and hard as they.
But some stop looking for how things work. It never occurs to them that they could be the “magician”.
That brings me to two excellent questions for those who have endorsed a charlatan:
“How do you determine the difference between fact and fiction?”
“How you you decide when to stop questioning an issue you have engaged?”
When you ask such questions, you should be generally aware of the state of the investigative arts. I don’t mean you should memorize The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. You should be aware of some of the fundamental things represented in it and other publications, though. Some examples and short statements to begin:
1) “Statistics” and “probability” is not what people commonly think they are. For any event, there is an “event universe”. For a coin toss, the “universe” is “heads, tails, edge”. For the universe itself, at least four fundamental forces compel matter and energy to act in certain ways: magnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. This means that events in the universe are NOT truly random – they just occur in an unimaginably large number of combinations/permutations. Your inability to predict an outcome is not an indication that a process is random!
2) “Certainty”, like “safety”, does not exist in nature, despite anguished longing for them. This is confused constantly by our own perceptions. We do not realize that what we are looking at today, this hour, this moment, is the current status of an on-going process. We don’t connect being shown wrong by a magician that our perceptions are fooled about the nature of life itself. Our eyes tell us lies all the time, but we let them tell us that something is “certain”, even as we do not know where we came from, what is going on or where we are going!
3) Mankind, as an investigative team, has the ability to produce things which you yourself will never learn to build. This is the key insult technology utters to those who wish for a simpler time: they cannot understand it. Therefore, a product of technology must be false for people so insulted, and every measure will be used to devalue or disregard it.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
“Science believes something it can not know. It has faith that what is perceived is indeed reality.”
Near as I can tell the opposition is arguing that whatever ultimate reality there may be is irrelevant. You make your scientific model using what you perceive at the time. If later on you perceive something else entirely then guess what?, your model was wrong, too bad, throw it out and get the new-improved model.
And this is the system of thought controlling thousands of nuclear weapons right now as you are reading this. Kind of makes you stop and think, now doesn’t it.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Somewhat interesting article here, and I will say I agree with what Jacob and Richard say, nice…
However my overall impression from this is that you(the author) are trying to defend something you know very little of its depth. Looks like you are caught in the middle of a endless and pointless debate.
And as far as this Genesis site is concerned, I havent looked it up, but it seems they may be speaking toward the “anti faith based religions people”, whoever that may be(atheists??). So to insert yourself into that cat fight is utterly silly. No pun intended.
Now to answer the question, “Is science faith based?”-Of course it is!
The notion that i must believe that what a particular scientist is telling me is true based on his knowledge of rules that another scientist has deduced and so forth would be for me to act on pure faith. Especially since the majority of those rules are based on underlying principles that exist only in the minds of people per se. And take Darwinism and the like, Newton’s theory, quantum mechanics, the general theory of relativity, string theory and all the other theories and hypothesis and new theories etc, etc; sure some may work out for what they intend, but many of them clash on so many different levels. Just know you have to dig deep usually to uncover the errors or simply there is never proof.
So enough with the declarations about this “science is based on evidence only!” Just because people being scientific made a computer and you are able to use it, does nothing to say anything about what is known in the darkest, furthest reaches of our scientific knowledge. So what if we can push our studies to do more than what we expected it to do, that is the result of the “mother of invention” principle coupled with “look what i just found!” Not to discredit the hardworking people who do great things following the rules we have accepted for our physical world. But we do tend to force things until they work for us, using far too many resources in the process(a whole other subject).
Don’t you know that what man has believed and scripted into text books in that the sun is a giant ball of burning hydrogen(nuclear fusion) is only an opinion? I’m sure most of you would agree with our text books right? It makes sense as we look up toward the sun, cuz thats what has been hypothesized from men, studied with a rather simplistic approach for years. Thats what we put our faith in as was right. You wanna put all your chips there? Thats never been “proven as evidence”. BUt its in the books as “science”
I’m leaning to the newer studies saying the sun behaves more like a electrical conducting mechanism powered through own galaxy.(To put it bluntly).
Whatever, That makes it really easy for people to attack and say its “faith” that we are forming beliefs and truths on this stuff. Not that it is right to say so, but in your terms it is.
Sure you know science isnt really this fool proof, know all method of getting everything right, because like has been said just previously before me, science and its methods believe in what we observe as reality in our own little dimension that we can observe and measure that can support the rules we come up with for it and what they mathematically seem to follow. Which btw works great for stuff that we need daily to operate survive, cuz thats where we are physically right? enuf said!!!!(srry if i narrowed it down too much there, but oh well)
The point is its lame to argue that since science produces “this” and “that” then that proves that it isnt faith based. lol
As for religion and the all of its mysteries, its in a totally different category thats up to the individual to decipher and “study”(take nothing for granted), and to take upon ones own self. Anyone who argues otherwise is plain foolish.
Its probably ridiculous to say here in this forum, but I only know that if left alone with the choice of the either of the two indefinitely, I would without a doubt, choose my faith in my religion simply because science or any product from science has not the capability of love and forgiveness (which is completely immeasurable anyway). The rules of man and the universe would just gobble you up with all that you were worth when it got a chance(and usually does).
So I’ll leave with the notion saying that science is a highly useful motivating subject that has its function & purpose in this life for me and that i will continue to hold my faith in science, tho loosely, as it changes. And also religion or “My faith in my religion” or likewise for any other person, dually has its function & purpose.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Grrr stop debating. Science is logic based, that is,not , faith based!!!!
February 19th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
!!!desab htiaf , ton,si taht ,desab cigol si ecneicS .gnitabed pots rrrG
February 19th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Who gets to decide what is a higher “zone of truth”?
The person who makes predictions based on existing theory, but whose predictions don’t match observations made when they are tested.
7.) All reasonable people will interpret the same evidence in the same way.
One need not assume that. Using your example, the ID people are free to interpret, say, the fossil record as they see fit. From that they can draw inferences and make testable predictions.
That they haven’t been able to do so speaks volumes, and strongly suggests that their interpretation is incorrect. It is possible that there is some grand theory that remains unrevealed that makes testable predictions based on the ID interpretation of the evidence. No scientist would deny that. However, the evidence leads to the conclusion that it such a theory ever being developed is highly unlikely.
It is arguable whether or not you might consider someone who holds such an interpretation “unreasonable”. I would, because to cling to faith in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is, to me, pretty much exactly described by the word “unreasonable.”
But is a person who uses string theory to describe the universe unreasonable compared to a person using brane theory to describe the universe? That’s a much harder call. Perhaps, in time, as more evidence accumulates, one theory will be shown to be very likely incorrect. Holding on to that theory will be considered unreasonable. It’s even possible that BOTH theories will be found to be incorrect and a new theory will take hold. Time will tell.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
“Science is not simply a database of knowledge. It’s a method……”
That quote is so important I thought I’d put it in print again.
It seems to me that both Science and Religion are a method of finding knowledge, it’s just that religion is such a terribly bad method, one that the vastly superior ’science’, should have displaced long ago. Sadly it just seems to hang on through sheer weight of cultural significance.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
help find the source of this quote anyone?
“science doesn’t tell us about the universe, science tells us what the mind can know about the universe.”
i love the quote, cannot find the source.
thanks, gregory
February 20th, 2008 at 12:48 am
I once taught a beginners Internet class to adults. Remember it was basic, like how to use email and how to use a search engine. Well, part of the course material had people use a search engine to find the altitude of the Dead Sea. After I gave the project, one of the ladies in the class started thinking out loud. “Dead Sea, Dead Sea, why does that sound familiar?” I said, “Well, the Dead Sea is in the Middle East, it’s mentioned in various religions sacred texts. From Christianity to Judaism. Not that any one is more legitimate than any other that is.” The lady then responded “Oh, I believe everything in the Bible. Completely.” It was at that point I thoroughly realized exactly how dangerous faith is. Here was a woman who didn’t even know where the Dead Sea was even though it’s mentioned in her religions sacred text. A text that she ‘completely’ believes in without even looking on a map to see where the geographical features mentioned are located, and did not even have the passing interest to conduct any interest in her own religion. That there was a textbook case of ‘blind faith’.
Faith can be an inspirational tool. It can give people comfort in times of difficulty. But, faith is a double edged weapon. Nefarious people can guide peoples faith in a less than altruistic path, leading to only misery.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:17 am
Ahem. A bunch of you guys need to look up the term, “fallacy”.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:01 am
Good shooting Phil.
There is some faith in the scientific method, which is testable and that is why theologians such as Thomas Aquinas, Augustine of Hippo and many others have used this method to test their theology.
I suspect a lot of ‘faith based theology’ is against science because it is testable, just as lots of ‘faith based’ churches can’t handle the Catholic church which has the book, the faith and the analysis, using the same methods as the ancient (ungodly heathen) Greeks and built on them.
I understand Francis Bacon and Nicholas Copernicus used the analytical methods from their theology training to examine matters more concrete than spiritual or ethical such as ‘why does the earth go around the sun?’
I know people who treat ’science’ as a religion. I ask are they as afraid of ‘God’ as much as ‘faith based church’ members seem to be?
Footnote; Catholics admit they are sinners ( make testable assumptions and often screwup badly, read church history and lives of the saintly to checkout some monumental messes done in God’s name). I meet too many people from faith based churches who assume that they are saints (sinless after divine forgiveness at conversion ). Science and some forms of Christianity require faith, testing of hypotheses, and modification of assumptions, followed in many cases with modification of an attitude, ideas or behaviour.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:05 am
SLC writes:
[[Mr. Levenson also neglects to mention many of the French scientists of the 18th century who were not particularly religious. For instance , Laplace, who famously responded to Napoleons’ query about the contribution of god to the stability of the solar system by saying that he had no need of such a hypothesis.]]
I neglected to mention them because they were irrelevant to my point, which is that many devoutly religious people have been first-rate scientists. I didn’t say ONLY devoutly religious people have been first-rate scientists.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:08 am
I agree totally, but I think you stated the problem yourself.
If the base assumption of science is ‘the Universe makes sense’, then one has to accept that the religious assumption is ‘the universe doesn’t make sense’.
To believe in an omnipotent being, is to have a base assumption that there are no Laws, because the omnipotent being wouldn’t be bound by them.
Christian believers seem proud to state ‘God moves in a mysterious way …’. That is , they are proud they can’t understand reality.
If something bad happens, they claim it is either a test, or that they aren’t privy to the reasons.
It all boils down to ‘The universe makes no sense’ from a religious viewpoint.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Squid writes:
[[***Sorry, you can’t confine faith to religion or to “antiscience.” All worldviews are based on faith at some point. Including yours. Arguments have to have premises.***
Your statements are factually incorrect. You have no argument.]]
Oh, really, Squid? Tell me, which argument doesn’t have any premises? Can you give me an example?
February 20th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Squid writes:
[[I can look all over and see the damage wrought by religion.
Where is the atheist damage?]]
Well, let’s see. The USSR and PRC were officially atheist, and between them they murdered some 140 million people. You might try reading what V.I. Lenin said about how atheism is fundamental to Communism. Or just bits like the Red soldiers in the civil war driving chopsticks into the little boys’ ears in the catechism class. Or the Jehovahs’ Witnesses being shot in the back of the neck by KGB guards. Or the Falun Gong members being beaten and tortured in the Chinese labor camps. All positive atheism in action, you might say. Of course, in the west, atheism is more humane — Richard Dawkins just wants to treat religious faith as a mental illness. “Slow schizophrenia,” maybe.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Oops, I forgot my own last line.
If the base assumption of religion is that the universe makes no sense, of course they can’t accept science as a means to understand reality.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Todd writes:
[[Mediveal [sic] Christians destroyed a hell of a lot of knowledge that did not fit with their worldview or threatened their control.
]]
Which knowledge did they destroy? Can you cite an example?
February 20th, 2008 at 6:21 am
TheBlackCat writes:
[[It is not an axiom in the conventional sense because it is backed up by evidence.]]
Then it’s not an axiom at all.
[[ It is not just “presupposed”, it is not only accepted by faith, it is accepted because it works.]]
How do you know it works?
This should be good.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:23 am
CXB writes:
[[Studying the Bible just doesn’t get us anywhere when solving scientific problems.]]
Neither does playing a musical instrument. Should people stop creating or listening to music?
Studying the Bible isn’t supposed to solve scientific problems. That’s not what it’s there for.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Glo writes:
[[ Thumpers are delusional psychotics and should be institutionalized.]]
Or euthanized? Or maybe it will be enough to just have them re-educated. They might resist, so it might be necessary to use medication, maybe even neurosurgery. Or conditioning, classical or operant. Might seem a bit cruel, but you’re not torturing them, you’re helping them. For their own good.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Melusine writes:
[[It was the Church, who usurped property and money in their pursuit of witches, as well as downsizing women’s role in society. That is the time the Catholic Church and its Popes became over-bloated with jewels. Nice, huh?]]
Wonder why they didn’t do that in 500 AD, 900 AD, or 1200 AD, but did it a lot around 1500-1600 AD? Did it just take that long for the Church’s intrinsic evil to germinate?
If witch-hunting somehow flows organically from Christianity, you’ve got to explain why it didn’t exist for most of Church history.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:38 am
TheBlackCat writes:
[[The whole point is that there is evidence that the universe follows rules. ]]
What kind of evidence, TBC?
February 20th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Soichi Hayashi writes:
[[Religion, however, is as dead as astrology or alchemy.]]
“Dead” in what sense? No practitioners? That doesn’t seem to be the case. Same for astrology; it’s thriving. Alchemy seems to be dead, so 1/3 of your statement is correct.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:19 am
That Highschool kid writes:
[[buddism is the one of the few religion in the world not to beleive in deity,because its more about being humane, and because buddism doesn’t have contradictions that church sometimes displays [I think the 10 commandments says no killing, yet people in christianity kill under the god’s name, or the church sanctions killing, or goes off murdering masses *crusades, spanish inquisition*, or go to war all the time]) ]]
And yet Japanese Buddhists managed to kill a million Chinese in the ’30s, and the Dalai Lama’s assistant was assassinated because Tibetan Buddhists are waging war against one another. Then there’s Chinese history…
In practice, I don’t find that Buddhists are any less violent than the followers of any other faith or non-faith.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:26 am
CXB posts:
[[The more intelligent and better educated you are, the less likely you are to believe in God.]]
Don’t conflate “more intelligent” with “better educated.”
And I wonder if the poll would have had the same results in 1200 AD.
“Greater scientists” being mostly atheists nowadays may just reflect that the fact that it’s currently fashionable for scientists to be atheists. If you check what some of these “greater scientists” say about religion or philosophy, it doesn’t make you very confident in their grasp of the subjects; nor in their vaunted intelligence.
And when did polls determine truth, anyway? If some theist floated the fact that 90% of Americans believe in God, would you take that as evidence that God exists? I’m guessing your answer would be a loud and profane “NO!”
February 20th, 2008 at 7:30 am
dirigible writes:
[[Burning people who refuse to accept disproved assumptions is how religion works.]]
Sterilizing people so they don’t pass on “idiocy” diagnosed by IQ tests is how science works. Proving the relative worth of different races by measuring skull size is how science works. Wiping out cities with nuclear explosives is how science works.
Some equally valid statements.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Atheist writes:
[[Faith is believing something you know isn’t true. Science is proving, through testing, that something is true.]]
Your understanding of science isn’t any better than your understanding of faith. Science isn’t in the business of proving things. It can only disprove them.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Squid writes:
[[It is possible to conclude by reason that there is no god based on a complete lack of evidence for the claim that there is a god]]
Science deals with nature, the empirically observable universe. The religious question is whether something exists OTHER THAN, IN ADDITION TO, nature and the empirical universe. The atheist asserts, out of faith, that that is a null set.
Saying that God doesn’t exist because there’s no empirical evidence of Him is like saying that physics doesn’t exist because you can’t play it on a piano. You don’t use music to validate physics. You’re using the wrong tool.
February 20th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Is it just me or are the individuals arguing that science is faith based constantly misrepresenting what science is and how it works?
Richard (not me), said that you must take on faith that previous experimenters did their work right and reported the results accurately. “It’s all well and good that someone else did this experiment, but how do you KNOW that their results (or any repeated results), or observations (or any repeated observations) are accurate? You don’t. You can’t. You therefore must take it on faith.” This is simply not so. It is a clear misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of the scientific process. I can ALWAYS go back and repeat the experiment and see if I get the same results, the same data. In science the previous examiner of reality makes their methods and their data available, I can check it and repeat it as necessary. No need at all to take on faith the information. If I don’t there is something wrong with my process or the previous experimenters. The is a typical canard that is so wrong and so easily disputed that it frustrates me whenever I see or hear it.
” Also, just because something can’t be repeated, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, or couldn’t possibly be true.”
Ah! But that what does that event tell us about reality? Nothing. If it really happened then there would be some evidence of it. Something that could be tested. If it can be observed, it can be examined. But, to turn your contentions back on you, if it can’t be re-examined then you MUST take on faith that it really happened. You have no way to know if the event you want to believe in was a fairy tale, parable, hoax, or real event conflated and aggrandized beyond all recognition to reality over years and centuries. You simply can not know. And how useful is that really? On the other hand any scientific data can always, always, always be rechecked and retested to see if the results are still valid. Not so sure about gravity? Check it. Don’t believe past experimenters got the properties of light correct? Check it. Find me a religion that works this way and the next box of cookies is on me.
“Why trust that Halley’s comet was actually observed in the 16th century, and not the bible? Since NONE of us observed the comet back then, we have to TAKE IT ON FAITH that it actually came.” Patently absurd. I can make modern day observations of its movements and with other knowledge of gravity and motion can determine exactly where Halley’s was in the 16th century. I can determine with a great degree of accuracy in exactly what years and what places on earth an individual could have seen the comet, thereby supporting or refuting individual reports of having seen the comet.
“Usually the answer is repeating an experiment. But you can’t EVER go back to the first one and say it did what you said it did (why should anyone believe you?). Can you tell me with ABSOLUTE certainty that the comet came in the 16th century? If yes, HOW?” I’ve already answered these but I wanted to quote you here for the next part:
“I’m a scientist myself…”
I wonder what kind of scientist or researcher you are with such a basic lack of understanding of what science is and how it works. I have no problem stating that I am not a scientist, yet I seem to have a better grasp of the scientific method. Disheartening.
“…but have to admit that what I know, and what I’ve learned, I usually have to take on faith that it’s true. I can do math and everything from first principles, but I have to trust those first principles. I have to have faith that observables are actually observed, and that written record is at least mostly true. But who’s to say it is, and will always be?”
Again and again, the same mistake. You HAVE to take nothing for granted, nothing on faith. You can go back and repeat those tests, check the math from the 1+1=2 on up! Everything is checkable, verifiable. Nothing is sacred! This is the great difference. Goodness, if the religious subjected their own faiths to 1/1000th of the skepticism they cast upon the scientific method and its findings the world would be nothing but agnostics and athiests!
You can repeat this canard over and over again, but it does not get any more true. But, I’ll bite on at least a small portion of this, though other have covered it: If in your experiments or attempts to validate prior work you discover that things do somehow operate differently now than they did then, you will have made one of the great discoveries of all time! Quickly following your results would be attempts to determine for how long principles have varied, and by how much. Are the changes small, on the quantum level only, or do they affect the large scale universe? Are the variances following any particular order or scale; are they local or everywhere; do they seem to be getting bigger, smaller, stablizing?
I ask again; tell me of one religion, faith, or dogma that operates in such a manner, that encourages active and ongoing examination of even its most basic principles? It’s ok, you’re not making me wait, I already know the answer to that one.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Those people were murdered because of specific political/economic ideology. It did not stem from atheism, it was never justified in terms of atheism, there was nothing within atheism that would indicate that sort of behavior is recommended or even acceptable. In the USSR, China, North Korea it is justified by nationalism and class warfare. They didn’t say “we are doing this to promote atheism”, they said “we are doing this to support the proletariat”. The Khmer Rouge justified in terms of a mythical history. They may have considered atheism important to their particular sociopolitical ideology but it was never the key component or even a main component. If you look at a great many religious atrocities, religion is explicitly used as the reason, or at least a central component. Reclaim the holy land, for the benefit of God’s chosen people, “never suffer a witch to live”, kill the heretics. Atheism has no counterpart to any of these. It is merely a lack of belief.
Because I saw it work. I just threw a pencil up and it fell to the ground. Gravity works. My computer screen is working. The internet worked when I refreshed this page a couple of minutes ago. The sun is still shining outside. I can still breath. My keyboard didn’t grow a mouth and bite off my fingers.
You do the same thing over and over with properly controlled conditions and it behaves in the same manner each time. That is evidence of rules.
No, Japanese who worshiped the emperor as the descendant of the sun goddess killed a million Chinese in the ’30’s. That is a religion that far predates Buddhism.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:42 am
There were just too many words in that. I edited it down for you:
If you read any antiscience screeds, at some point or another most will claim that it can only be accepted by faith; This is completely how science works.
The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: we see objects going around the Sun.
From these observations we can apply mathematical equations Guess what? It works. It works so well This in turn strongly implies that the Universe is following pray.
All the knowledge we have accumulated over the millennia guessing here
Are there holes in this knowledge? Of course. Science doesn’t have all the answers.
Science is not simply a database of knowledge. Science is even subject to itself. (OK, bad example)
science and religion part ways. Science is based on faith. Science is based on a tapestry. faith is even reinforced when evidence is found
science can only be uttered by someone who is wholly ignorant of how reality works.
The next time someone tries to tell you that science is just as faith-based as religion, or that evolution is a religion wonder if its workings are a miracle
(I kid.. Very good article.)
February 20th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Those people were murdered because of specific political/economic ideology. It did not stem from atheism, it was never justified in terms of atheism, there was nothing within atheism that would indicate that sort of behavior is recommended or even acceptable. In the USSR, China, North Korea it is justified by nationalism and class warfare. They didn’t say “we are doing this to promote atheism”, they said “we are doing this to support the proletariat”. The Khmer Rouge justified in terms of a mythical history. They may have considered atheism important to their particular sociopolitical ideology but it was never the key component or even a main component. If you look at a great many religious atrocities, religion is explicitly used as the reason, or at least a central component. Reclaim the holy land, for the benefit of God’s chosen people, “never suffer a witch to live”, kill the heretics. Atheism has no counterpart to any of these. It is merely a lack of belief.
Because I saw it work. I just threw a pencil up and it fell to the ground. Gravity works. My computer screen is working. The internet worked when I refreshed this page a couple of minutes ago. The sun is still shining outside. I can still breath. My keyboard didn’t grow a mouth and bite off my fingers.
You do the same thing over and over with properly controlled conditions and it behaves in the same manner each time. That is evidence that it is following some sort of rule that determines the relationship between cause and effect. It is not proof that there are rules, but it is certainly evidence. As you say, science doesn’t work in proofs.
No, Japanese who worshiped the emperor as the descendant of the sun goddess killed a million Chinese in the ’30’s. That is a religion that far predates Buddhism.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:23 am
“It is simply not true that religious faith has no counterpart in science. Scientists routinely use their personal experience, subjective appraisal, hunches, and intuition as guides for selecting research directions. Indeed, when the outcome is unknown, as it must be in choosing a fundamentally new direction for research, subjective thinking must dominate, sometimes even a faith-like insistence that there must be a pattern to phenomena. So the subjective decision to interpret the Universe as containing a God is not fundamentally different from the subjective decision that it’s worth investing a career in, say, searching for extraterrestrial life.”
(http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/BigMiscon.HTM)
February 20th, 2008 at 10:40 am
TheBlackCat writes:
[[How do you know it works?
Because I saw it work. I just threw a pencil up and it fell to the ground. Gravity works.]]
So your evidence that empirical evidence is accurate is itself empirical evidence? You use empirical evidence to prove that empirical evidence is valid?
Isn’t that arguing in a circle?
February 20th, 2008 at 11:03 am
TheBlackCat posts:
[[***Sterilizing people so they don’t pass on “idiocy” diagnosed by IQ tests is how science works. Proving the relative worth of different races by measuring skull size is how science works.***
These were social movements, supported as much (if not more) by religious institutions as by scientists.]]
Nope. You are 100% wrong. Eugenics was supported by atheist scientists like Francis Galton, Herbert Spencer and R.T. Fisher. It was opposed by religious believers like William Jennings Bryan and Aimee Semple MacPherson.
But you missed the point in the first place. I wasn’t saying there was anything wrong with science, I was parodying the “religion means burning unbelievers” comment of a previous poster. Read for context.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:22 am
I’ve been working on this essay, which directly addresses this problem. Criticism will be appreciated:
Science in the Spectrum of Belief:
It’s All About Models and Weighted Skepticism
Mankind entertains a wide range of beliefs. Public and private educational systems, and science itself, generally fail to teach just where, and how, science falls within this spectrum of belief.
Science focuses on beliefs about ‘reality’. It tries to generate order from – and to reduce the uncertainties generated by – the welter of mental ‘images’ we develop about both the natural and man-made worlds that we explore with our senses. Science is steered by a generally skeptical attitude. But skepticism doesn’t equal pessimism. Depending upon the degree of uncertainty, and on the problem at hand, a skeptic can be pessimistic, agnostic – or even optimistic. The way science and its skepticism fit into the wider landscape of beliefs will be reviewed briefly. Much of this story should be persuasive.
Belief and Deductive Reasoning
The application of conventional languages (and such special ‘languages’ as logic and mathematics) to the description of our mental images is the source of most shared knowledge, including that of science. (Instrumental music and non-representational art, are two ‘unconventional languages’ encompassing rather different kinds of shared experience.)
Conventional and logical languages can help their users to cooperate to achieve some common objective only if the users commit themselves to the discipline of ‘trust’ in, or ‘belief’ in a set of ‘fundamentals’. The commitment, by convention, is to consistently adhere to a fundamental set of rules and definitions, in order to reach shared goals by the communication of shared meanings. When the axiomatic rules are followed fairly consistently, languages make it possible to model and exchange some, but not all, information about our mental ‘images’. Typically, information about only very few details of personal visual images are exchanged or are stored in memory for later use. Our sense experiences are very much richer than those we verbalize. And we use many sense experiences automatically and subconsciously. Thus, models end up being heuristic sketches; they seem never to be identical to, nor as detailed as our ‘transient’ mental images.
The fundamentals are used to build the models by carefully following the rules. The discipline of explicit (spelled-out) or implicit (not stated, but implied) commitment to rules and definitions (that are themselves, either spelled-out, or implied) is essential, otherwise, the Tower-of-Babel-effect would prevail; no one would understand anyone else; communication of shared meanings would fail.
Models about the world and humans, derived from our sensations of ‘reality’, are the ‘descriptions’ of conventional language; they’re typically individual sentences – or collections of logically connected sentences – word ‘pictures’ of varying complexity and precision. They’re constructed with the axiomatic fundamentals (defined words or symbols, and grammatical and syntactic rules). Such models are conceptual tools that are designed to try to communicate consistent meaning for analysis and discussion.
By following the rules of deductive reasoning, a model (in mathematics, a conjecture) can be proven either to be true – to be a logically consistent tautology that follows from adhering to the rules (a theorem) ; or false – to conflict with the rules; or undecidable – if the model, or its set of axiomatics, is incomplete or poorly-specified (note: undecidable is more inclusive and general than K. Popper’s “falsifiable”).
The commitment to the axiomatic fundamentals, themselves, is equivalent to taking them as ‘true’, although unprovable – usually in principle, as part of a convention, or because no more primordial base from which they might be derived has been found (otherwise they would be merely ‘theorems’, derived from those more primordial axioms).
Even with good intentions, in the arguments of ordinary conversation, UNDECIDABLE conjectures may constitute a considerable portion of verbal exchange. This is due to marginal attention to details of consistency (leading to incompleteness of argument), to the ambiguity of simile and metaphor and to the regular use of always-incomplete, factual definitions derived by inductive reasoning (to be discussed below).
But in the deductive reasoning of math and formal logic, great pains are taken to evade incomplete definitions and poorly-posed arguments and therefore to avoid undecidable conjectures. Until 1931, it was widely believed that, with great care, incompleteness in deductive reasoning always could be avoided. Then Kurt Gödel showed it’s not possible to guarantee completeness for other than the most simplistic axiomatic systems. Although he shook the foundations of mathematics and formal logic, his Incompleteness Theorems have impact on the truth of only very few of a vast number of proven theorems.
When the commitment to fundamental axiomatics is implicit, the commitment either is to rules and definitions which we’ve learned so well that their application has become automatic and subconscious (as in most conversation). Or it’s derived from other inherited, built-in, neural, language-enabling, ‘intuitive’ and subconscious mechanisms that have evolved ‘because’ they’ve enhanced human survival. Since implicit commitment depends upon an automatic, physiological base, it may be somewhat less reliable than conscious, ‘willful’, explicit commitment.
But all such commitment, explicit or implicit, has the important feature, shared with a religious act of faith; we accept the axiomatic rules without logical proof of their truth. In this quite general sense, all deductive reasoning and the “proving of absolute logical truths”, is ultimately faith-based.
Belief and Inductive Reasoning
Over two hundred years ago, David Hume taught that some uncertainty about the truth of ‘facts’ always must persist because of the unavoidable incompleteness of observation:
Since we can never have observed all of the past, all of the present – let alone the future, there’s no way (to use axiomatically-based deductive reasoning) to justify absolute belief in any facts. With inductive reasoning, we try to establish a complete definition of an object, class or process, by extrapolation or interpolation from observation of only a sample of its parts. But it’s not logically possible to guarantee that the definition will also be true for any unobserved parts. This necessary logical incompleteness of all empirical inductive reasoning therefore must be an inescapable source of residual uncertainty.
Despite this, we all ‘believe in’ the ‘truth’ of many facts. This belief necessarily depends upon a commitment to a kind of ‘faith’ in the ‘truth’ of some conjectures that, in the strictest, logical sense, are deductively undecidable because of the obvious and necessary incompleteness of the supporting evidence.
Science and Faith
Science depends completely on both deductive and inductive reasoning. Therefore the argument that science dispenses with the need for any elements of faith or belief – supposedly in contrast to religion – is overly simplistic. Since faith and belief are defined as metaphysical, this argument also is equivalent to the questionable claim of the extensive literature of the Positivists; that science is, and must remain, free of metaphysics.
But such arguments are really just straw men; they have nothing to do with THE important differences.
Degrees of Belief Across the Spectrum
Disciplines can differ considerably with respect to the degree of required commitment. Most theists are enjoined to commit to unchallengeable, absolute faith in at least the ‘fundamentals’ of their religion – as are the slaves to some political and economic ideologies. At another extreme, Cultural Relativists and most Post Modernist claim to be committed to undiluted skepticism about all that others believe is fundamental. They argue all ‘truths’ are suspect because of the necessary biases of local, cultural points of view and they seem to reject the possibility of any useful global points of view.
Weighted Skepticism: The Core of the Scientific Method
Science is strikingly different. Whereas Gödelian incompleteness directly effects the logical truth of only a few of the deductive models of math, logic and theoretical science, Humean incompleteness effects the ‘truth’ of every inductive fact, including all those of experimental science. This might mistakenly seem to give some special priority to deductive logic. But science needs them both.
Science requires the commitment to fundamental rules, in order to design robust models of reality (by carefully following the rules) so that when communicated, those models may be universally understood. But science always adds the injunction: a degree of belief in each model can be established only with the weight of supporting, factual evidence; the more and the better the evidence, the greater the belief. This attitude is not unique. It shares its origin with general,‘common sense’ attitudes about how varying strengths of such evidence support or refute ideas. However, it’s THE important distinction between science and religion – and even between science and mathematics. And it helps to assure that all proposed or established models (heuristics) remain distinguishable from the ‘reality’ they attempt to simulate.
External or internal (biological) worlds, are accessed through our senses – either directly, or ‘through’ intervening ‘instruments’. All the models (ideas, hypotheses, theories, laws), constructed by theoretical scientists to generate order out of such observations – preferably, but not necessarily, carefully reasoned – start with a conjecture about some ‘stand-in’ for some observable(s), as an operational (algorithmic) recipe, and often end with a proven theorem.
Nonetheless, all remain agnostically tentative guesses about the nature of reality. To inspire any degree of belief that a model ‘explains’ such reality, science requires separate evidence that the model, to some significant degree, matches some previously unobserved (but observable – empirical) aspect of those worlds. That’s to say, to receive anything more than the most tentative consideration, most apparent deductive truths about the ‘world’ must be supported by (usually ‘new’) matching, empirical, inductive ‘truths’. Prior similar evidence is largely discounted as support, if it has contributed to the abduction and construction of the model. Note that such inductive support is never required for establishing belief in the purely deductive proof of a typical theorem in mathematics or formal logic.
The number of provable mathematical conjectures (consistent models; theorems) is enormous. But the fraction of those that can be matched to worldly observations is infinitesmal. Theoretical scientists sometimes discover, and in any case, typically use this tiny fraction of mathematics as extremely valuable tools to construct models. Experimental scientists often use some fraction for designing experimental tests of models and regularly to measure impact of experimental observations on consequent levels of uncertainty.
But it’s a mistake to consider most of mathematics as a kind of science. Most of the time, mathematics avoids logically-undecidable models, and therefore needs no empirical matching and testing. It ‘gets away with’ “pure reason” to prove absolutely true theorems. Science, as almost universally practiced, can’t! It ‘must’ tie all of its models to messy, logically-undecidable facts – and always ends up with at least some residual uncertainty.
To replace such qualitative terms as “a few”, “some” and “most”, measures of degree of match – for example, “confidence intervals” or “margins of error” – probability-like weights – by convention, now often are used to provide a numerical scale for quantifying degrees of belief in facts, to make them more ‘objective’ and communicable. Such weights vary, for example, between 0 to 100%, (or 0 to 1). Belief, as ‘used’ in science, is effectively analog – shades of grey. Belief, in the non-scientific disciplines, is more typically binary – black and white.
Extremely well-established models of empirical processes (like those built on the Central Limits Theorem), are used to compute the weight of evidence from measured variations among – the number of – and measures of how ‘representative’ are – repeated sample observations. Careful accumulation of evidence, slowly but inevitably, reduces residual uncertainty – with one reservation:
An earth-shaking, quantitative caveat with respect to our understanding of inductive uncertainty was provided by Werner Heisenberg in 1926. He noted that the axiomatic ‘conceptual entanglement’ of the definitions of certain pairs of what are now called non-commuting, canonically conjugate observables, (that are the Fourier transforms of one another; like, in mechanics, the position and momentum of a particle; or in spectroscopy, energy and time interval), guarantees that the more confidently we establish the measured magnitude of one of the pair, the more uncertain we must become about the other. This Uncertainty Principle has had an enormous impact on our understanding of microscopic and high-energy observations, and lies at the foundation of quantum theories of physics. It got us around some of the singularities, the intractable ‘infinities’, of the attractions and repulsions of the classical field theories, as particle separations approach zero. Paradoxically, it’s permitted some of the most precise (most certain) measurements so far made by physical science!
Because of the already-discussed, unavoidable, sampling incompleteness in attempts to establish facts, it follows that calculated degrees of belief may only approach, but never equal, 0 or 1 (or 100%). Belief that flows from experimental science (and from observation, generally) can sometimes be very strongly supported by evidence. But no amount of evidence can ever provide absolute certainty about any model’s match to reality. This residual uncertainty distinguishes the ‘factual truths’ of scientific disciplines from the ‘absolute’ truths of mathematics, formal logic, religions and the claims of many other non-scientific intellectual disciplines.
Challenging the pervasive, black-and-white mind-set of typical reasoning, inherent uncertainties of conversational deductive reasoning, and of all inductive reasoning, set limits to certainty in all intellectual disciplines (e.g., religion, law, history and science). Among these disciplines, and despite the uncertainties, only the weighted, skeptical, agnosticism of the scientific approach, using these two reasoning tools, continues to discover, and ever more firmly establish, increasing numbers of empirical ‘truths’. These ‘truths’ include models of the world, its parts and its processes that have been demonstrated to deserve the very highest levels of confidence. Some even have been promoted as probable “Laws of Nature”. Such well-established models are our most valuable tools for reducing worldly uncertainty.
Yet-to-be-established- and Pseudo-Science
Even the most carefully constructed models remain indistinguishable from good science fiction (tantalizing and artfully constructed “just so stories”) – until they’re matched and confirmed by experiment or other pertinent empirical observations that support some significant degree of confidence. With this mindset, scientists generally have a low degree of belief in unconfirmed speculative models about ‘reality’. Searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), stimulated by very weakly-supported hunches and ‘hopes’, and for the Higgs boson, ‘predicted’ by the Standard Model of particle physics – both ‘awaiting’ confirmation – currently fall in this science-fiction-like category. Individual scientists may differ considerably with respect to how much they might be willing to ‘bet’ that such models will be confirmed. This usually depends upon the level of pertinent experience and training, and how well each believes such a model fits in with already well-confirmed, scientific models. Most physicists support the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at least in the hope of demonstrating the Higgs; many fewer scientists show interest in SETI.
In instances of pseudo-science, or of myths about demonstrably false models (like those of homeopathy and astrology), it’s the responsibility of scientists to ‘teach’ the public how they can be distinguished from ‘established’ science. We should expect the tolerance of scientists to be especially low for models that, as a consequence of the way they conflict with those models already most confidently established, appear to concern not only unobservable, but unconfirmable entities – like perpetual motion machines, creationism, and most likely, multiverses and anthropic landscapes.
Confidence usually builds with the accumulation of increasing amounts of supporting evidence. Therefore, it’s not unreasonable for confidence in an unconfirmed model to diminish (for scientists and non-scientists), the longer it takes to present plausible, confirmatory evidence for a theory; and especially the longer it takes to supply even descriptions of how evidence, for, or against it, might be obtained. Some scientists are concerned that public support for science and it promise for further contributions to civilization – and especially for high-cost, high-profile science – could be placed at some jeopardy by repeated hype coupled with undelivered, promises. This can provide motivation to inform the public, with some vigor – but preferably without hype – with the small, but finite risk of nonetheless turning out to be wrong – about the uncertainties of such unconfirmed, and perhaps unconfirmable models (for example, string theories of particle physics).
What Does Science Have to Offer?
As time passes, in a stumbling manner, science increasingly explores many accessible details, from among the enormous numbers of sensed experiences previously ‘ignored’. At the same time, it develops new instruments to sense new detail beyond our own acuity. And it develops other instruments to explore whole new ‘territories’ that we’ve never experienced.
Much of the useful technology of applied sciences (like engineering and medicine) carefully exploits the scientific knowledge base by using it to design and ‘construct’ civilization’s most reliable and tangible fruits and tools (themselves ‘models’), as well as for predicting new risks – and unfortunately, for creating a few unplanned risks.
In the face of worldly uncertainties, science helps humans to cope with survival with a generally optimistic self-confidence as a result of:
the widely-va