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Science and faith: do you trust science?

@SatyrService [quote]"faith is belief without evidence or belief in the face of contrary evidence"

"Science adjusts its views based on what's observed;
Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved"[/quote]

Ideological preoccupation is the most obvious element in the atheist vs theist debate. Your estimation is biased, which isn't very scientific. More than a few problems arise; Proponents of each side of the argument aren't good representations of their respective side and even worse of the other side. They (proponents of either) politicize the issue. It's emotional, irrational, unfair.

To assume that science adjusts its views based on what's observed reads like an advertising slogan or bumper sticker. Like saying religion is based upon an unwavering morality, or God is on our side. It's empty and meaningless. A quixotic pipe dream. Faith is never without evidence, contrary or otherwise. Evidence isn't a synonym of truth, though atheists seem to use it as such. The same thing that corrupts evidence corrupts science, faith and everything else. Some call it human nature, others call it sinfulness. It manifests itself in many forms; greed, power, ignorance, fear, xenophobia. Science depends upon tax payer funding like religion enjoys tax exemption. Science depends upon publishing, tenure. and peer review. Subject to conformity. It all sounds very scientific but the similarities between science and religion are obvious to anyone outside looking in.

Ignaz Semmelweis and Ancel Keys are good examples of science being neglected and abused for long periods of time. Semmelweis (late 1800s) at the tail end of the miasmatic school of medicine of the dark ages and Keys being the poster boy for dietary misinformation. Bad science no one corrected for decades. Both resulting in the death of millions. Denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.

But that isn't to say science is without faith or that faith is a bad thing. Faith is trust. Belief. Much like the Latin word credit. The atheist who uses science in the paradoxical criticism of religion, theism, theology, the supernatural and the Bible have no scientific credentials to reach outside of what isn't even their realm, let alone their field. It isn't an argument. It's uninformed ideological struggle, a sociopolitical frustration. On both sides faith is in use but faith isn't necessarily a good thing, either. Anyone can misplace their trust or lazily adhere to blind faith. Of and in both science and religion.
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Entwistle · 56-60, M
I do trust science yes.
@Entwistle [quote]I do trust science yes.[/quote]

Great. Then you have no trouble with recognizing faith is used in those practicing science and proponents thereof?
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
@AkioTsukino Do you understand that science is a methodology?

Nothing more or less than that.
@AkioTsukino

Faith is belief without or in spite of evidence.
Trust in science is based upon a methodology that has demonstrated itself to yield consistent, unbiased resutls.
Entwistle · 56-60, M
@AkioTsukino We all have faith everyday,faith the car will work,faith i will wake up tomorrow..etc.
Faith in a higher being?..nope..that's just a crutch to lean on.
I do have faith,faith in science.
@Entwistle [quote]We all have faith everyday,faith the car will work,faith i will wake up tomorrow..etc.

I do have faith,faith in science.[/quote]

Perfect. The perfect answer. It isn't the product of arrogance, ignorance, or bias. It isn't the answer of an ideologue. Thanks.

[quote]Faith in a higher being?..nope..that's just a crutch to lean on.[/quote]

How is faith in a higher being a crutch and not faith in science? I believe it's possible that they both can be and probably are but it's a fairly ambiguous term. Vague and difficult to define and observe with a great deal of certainty.

Also, what's wrong with a crutch?
Entwistle · 56-60, M
@AkioTsukino Nothing is wrong with a crutch,where did I say anything was wrong with it? As for material crutches..they came about because of science.
@Entwistle Something is always wrong with everything. For example, maybe the crutch is used unnecessarily, maybe abused as a weapon, maybe used improperly. You said: "Faith in a higher being?..nope..that's just a crutch to lean on." That certainly implies you think it's wrong in some way.
Entwistle · 56-60, M
@AkioTsukino Nope. Right and wrong are concepts. Like all things.
@Entwistle [quote]Nope. Right and wrong are concepts. Like all things.[/quote]

I'm not making the connection. Not following you.
Entwistle · 56-60, M
@AkioTsukino What connection did I make?
@Entwistle [quote]What connection did I make?[/quote]

I'm not making the connection. Nope. You said. To what? That you think something wrong with the crutch of faith in a higher being?

What does right or wrong being concepts mean? They are abstract ideas; general notions? They are concepts. So?
@Pikachu [quote]Faith is belief without or in spite of evidence.
Trust in science is based upon a methodology that has demonstrated itself to yield consistent, unbiased resutls.[/quote]

So you say. That means you have faith in science to do that. You trust science to do that because you can't know that it will do that for certain. It may be the objective but all sorts of things can get in the way.

No, faith is, by definition, trust or confidence in someone or something. Faith in science or anything else is the same in that is is simply trust. There isn't anything supernatural about it and it isn't exclusive to religiosity. The evidence is up to the faithful in whatever you are putting your trust in. You say you have faith in God or science, then that's up to you. If you get the faith wrong it isn't the fault in the person or thing you have faith in.

You can say you have faith that science for its moral and aesthetic judgments, decisions about applications of science, and conclusions about the supernatural but that's misplaced faith in science.

You can say that you have faith that God will get you through an illness, make sure you win the lottery, ace a math exam, convert a heathen or reveal to you how the universe works but that's misplaced faith in God.
@newjaninev2 Science isn't methodology, science is science. The practice of science allegedly incorporates a methodology that is a formalized commonality.

[b][center]An Example of the Scientific Method[/center][/b]
Observation. The observation you make from this problem is that your toaster won't toast.
Asking a question. The question, in this case, is, “Why isn't my toaster working?”
Forming a hypothesis. The hypothesis should be a potential explanation or answer to the question.

You have faith your observation and question are correct, your hypothesis is almost pure faith. You can get any or all of these wrong and that screws up your explanation. Possibly without you knowing it, you have faith in your peer review, in your peers themselves and in their not being biased or corrupt. There is no magic law preventing any or all of that going wrong.

You know that don't you? No different than religion or anything else. No different than a child bashing his battery operated robot with a mallet to figure out how it works.

If you think science will do for you what you expect it to that is having faith because you have no certainty that it will.
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
@AkioTsukino Science starts with observation. We look at the world, and we notice things. Many of these things seem to be related, and so we try to come up with an explanation as to how they’re related. This explanation is called a Theory… we can think of these as ‘Big T’ Theories, because they are based on demonstrable evidence and they have wide explanatory power. Scientists then test the Theory in order to prove that it is wrong. This is an important point, and it seems to constantly confuse non-scientists. Science doesn’t try to prove that a Theory is correct. [b]Science tries to prove that the Theory is wrong[/b], and the Theory is accepted only so long as we are unable to show that it is wrong.


Contrast this with our everyday ‘theories’ (my neighbour is probably cheating on her taxes… my friend is having an affair), which are simply vague hunches or convenient fictions - we can think of those as small-t theories. Usually we go looking for evidence to support these ‘theories’, and it is common for us to ignore evidence that contradicts them. It seems to me that it's these vague hunches or convenient fictions that people have in mind when they say that evolution is ‘just a theory’.


Some people claim that the Theory of Evolution is not a real theory because ‘it cannot be falsified’. This is a nonsense. So, what would falsify the Theory of Evolution? Well, if we opened up a stratum of the Earth’s crust that was laid down, say, 100 million years ago and found there the fossilised remains of a modern-day giraffe, then the Theory of Evolution would have a fatal problem. The same would apply if we found fossils out of place in the Earth’s strata. Every single fossil puts the Theory of Evolution at risk, and yet, despite the hundreds of millions of fossils on the record, the Theory still stands. We never see a ‘modern’ rabbit (as an example) suddenly appearing in fossils formed, say, 60 million years ago. The Theory of Evolution is drawn from the evidence… and the evidence we continue to gather consistently fails to falsify it... but we continue to look.


Testing the evidence from which a Theory is developed is complemented by testing the consistency and coherence of the Theory itself (if our Theory is valid, then we should see the following…). This is where science uses the (much-misunderstood) hypothesis.


At its heart, a hypothesis says things like: “because of the evidence we have, the Theory says that chimps and humans have a common ancestor. It therefore follows that there will be strong genetic matches between chimps and humans”. Then we examine the genes of both.


It’s worth noting that even at this level we aren’t trying to prove that the hypothesis is correct… we try to show that it’s incorrect. To achieve this, we form a Null Hypothesis, which in this case might be “there are no more similarities between chimps and humans than between any other two species”… and we then try to show that to be the case. This is an important point. We don't try to show that the hypothesis is valid... we try to show that the [b]null[/b] hypothesis is valid.


If we cannot show that the Null Hypothesis is correct (i.e. we find that there are, in fact, enormous similarities), then we still don’t say that the hypothesis is correct… we say that we have ‘failed to accept the null hypothesis’. After all, we may have made an error, or missed something, and the next person to test the hypothesis might find reason to accept the null hypothesis.


So science doesn’t try to ‘prove’ its theories are correct, nor does it try to ‘prove’ that the hypotheses that come from those theories are correct. [i]Science collects evidence in an attempt to disprove the theories it has formed from earlier evidence, and tests the validity of those theories by forming and testing hypotheses that would invalidate them.[/i]
@newjaninev2 [quote]Science starts with observation. [/quote]

So does my reading this post.

[quote]We look at the world, and we notice things. Many of these things seem to be related, and so we try to come up with an explanation as to how they’re related.[/quote]

Which is what I'm doing with faith/science in this thread.

[quote]This explanation is called a Theory… we can think of these as ‘Big T’ Theories, because they are based on demonstrable evidence and they have wide explanatory power. [/quote]

Yes, I know this. Big T and little t.

[quote]Scientists then test the Theory in order to prove that it is wrong. This is an important point, and it seems to constantly confuse non-scientists. [/quote]

Does it? I don't think it does. I could be wrong, but . . .

[quote]Science doesn’t try to prove that a Theory is correct. Science tries to prove that the Theory is wrong, and the Theory is accepted only so long as we are unable to show that it is wrong.[/quote]

Same exact think I do when studying the Bible, by it's own insistence. I'm with you so far.

[quote]Contrast this with our everyday ‘theories’ (my neighbour is probably cheating on her taxes… my friend is having an affair), which are simply vague hunches or convenient fictions - we can think of those as small-t theories. Usually we go looking for evidence to support these ‘theories’, and it is common for us to ignore evidence that contradicts them. It seems to me that it's these vague hunches or convenient fictions that people have in mind when they say that evolution is ‘just a theory’.[/quote]

Perhaps you think "just a theory" a derogatory term? Because it seems to me you are describing evolution as we see a little t as you've described them.

[quote]Some people claim that the Theory of Evolution is not a real theory because ‘it cannot be falsified’. [/quote]

Okay.

What does this post have to do with faith in science?
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
@AkioTsukino [quote]describing evolution as we see a little t[/quote]

Except for all that pesky evidence.

Evidence that requires a complete, consistent, and coherent, explanation.

Which we now have
@AkioTsukino

[quote]Perhaps you think "just a theory" a derogatory term? [/quote]

Well it's meant to be, isn't it?
When deployed, it's saying " Actually we're not really sure this is true, it's just a guess"....and that's not an accurate way to describe the body of evidence for biological evolution.
@Pikachu [quote]Well it's meant to be, isn't it?[/quote]

I suppose it could be. It might depend on the person saying it.

[quote]When deployed, it's saying " Actually we're not really sure this is true, it's just a guess"....and that's not an accurate way to describe the body of evidence for biological evolution.[/quote]

Science doesn't have to be theoretical in order to be fallible, wrong, corrected. So, the term is probably the same sentiment a skeptic would express regarding the Bible.

I think of a theory in the casual way I would use it. I look at something and I think 'How am I going to make this work?' Well, I think, to myself, let's try this. That's a theory. If it works, great, if it doesn't, try another one. Pretty simple. I don't think of theory in a scientific sense because I'm not a scientist or ideologically dependent upon "science" for my worldview.
@newjaninev2 Evidence. That is impressive.

Let me explain something. When I deal with the natural it's different than the supernatural. And one way that it differs is that you have no evidence of it. So, you have . . . nothing?

Science will never be complete. It will never be done unless it is no more. It isn't anything special really, not that that is a bad thing. It shouldn't be, right?
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
@AkioTsukino I cannot see the thrust of your last comment to me.

You spoke about evolution being a 'little t'

i pointed out that the evidence precluded such a claim, and now you are saying there is no evidence (of what?)
@newjaninev2 [quote]I cannot see the thrust of your last comment to me.[/quote]

The evidence remark was sarcasm. A buzz word for skeptics. It means very little. They say it often because they think it offends believers. It's silly.

I didn't say anything about evidence in the post you're responding to, other than the sarcasm. Little t was mentioned earlier. People say you believe what you want. They're talking about evidence.
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
@AkioTsukino That's merely incoherent.
Entwistle · 56-60, M
@newjaninev2 His arguments just disappear up his own arse.
He doesn't care about any coherent/sensible replies.
He argues for the sake of arguing.