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Science Vs Theology

I begin this thread with a response to a post made off topic and in a forum where the topic isn't particularly appropriate.

@BlueSkyKing

Science is a method that is applied to nature.

How is it applied to nature, is it infallible, and does the method work with the supernatural?

Which has an annoying habit of working.

Conjectural. It also has an "annoying habit" of not working.

To call something a legitimate theory, it mean models can be designed and tested. Can’t design any? Then you don’t have a theory, just wishful thinking and speculation.

Then a model designed is wishful thinking and speculation and the test is fallible, possibly biased to appeal to dogmatic peer review, corrupted due to conflict of interest, especially resulting from funding, possibly misrepresented through publishing? What you have to understand about my approach is that I see great potential in science just as I do theology but I'm also very skeptical of both due to their obvious weaknesses.

So, when you talk to me I can give you stunning examples of those weakness in theology. Can you give the same for science? Because I can see them in science. I don't hear those sort of discussions from science enthusiasts. In fact less than I hear them in enthusiasts of theology. Keeping in mind the important distinction between "science" and "theology" and their respective enthusiasts.

Evolution has evidence that’s equal to gravity being factual.

Factual? Can the factual correct itself? Is science self correcting? Evidence? The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

This evidence is detectable, measurable, observable, testable, and falsifiable. Yeah, that’s a lot of -ables.

And the detection, measuring, observation, testing and falsifiability are infallible?

Models have been made and the results show evolution is true.

What, then, is evolution? Change? Like climate change?

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ElwoodBlues · M

“When someone says 'science teaches such and such', he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn't teach it; experience teaches it” — Richard P. Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, p. 187.

“If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.”
— Richard P. Feynman

Unfortunately, theology, in general, has no such test. The domain of science is the domain of statements, theories, assertions - call them what you will - that can be tested; either by observation or by experiment. Very little in the domain of theology is testable.

Hence there is very little crossover between science and theology. Hence there is very little scope for them to agree or disagree.

P.S.
Just to be clear, science is not a collection of theories or equations or explanations of nature or whatever. Science is the method that tested those theories or equations or explanations or whatever, and science is always ready to deal with new data or observations or experiments and use them to improve the old theories or equations or explanations or whatever.

Over the short term, science is a fallable as the humans who practice it; over the long term, the scientific method weeds out and/or corrects and updates the old theories or equations or explanations or whatever.

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BibleData · M

@ElwoodBlues Well, what's wrong with revealing by bias? Would you rather me mask it?

ElwoodBlues · M

@BibleData Your pose was "unbiased questioner" but it was only a pose.

BibleData · M

@ElwoodBlues My pose?

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newjaninev2 · 56-60, F

@BibleData I’m not asking to discuss it... I’m asking how the phrase is in any way coherent.

BibleData · M

@newjaninev2 I picked up on that, but, you see, if I told you why you don't see it as coherent we would then have to have a pointless discussion about it.

newjaninev2 · 56-60, F

@BibleData I didn’t say that I don't see it as coherent. I asked how the phrase is in any way coherent, given that you introduced the phrase.

But I’m happy to move on...

TheOneyouwerewarnedabout · 46-50, MVIP

The scientist in me demands irrefutable evidence.

I’ve seen all things grow over the years.

Never seen anything spontaneously appear.

Celebrity status wanes if you stop making appearances

And your representatives are creepy kiddy mincers
Whom amassed great wealth whilst doing sweet F.A for the poor n needy

*wink wink* JC…

(Side note) I’m a mother naturist. Not a creationist or religious.

LeopoldBloom · M

A scientific theory is a model that explains observations. If new observations don’t fit, the theory can be modified or discarded. This is not arbitrary, most models are very good at predicting outcomes. For example, the theory of relativity has been shown to be accurate whenever it’s been tested.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

I see no reason for any supposed "versus" at all.

For a start, theology is the study of religion, it is not a religion itself.

Science and Religion do totally separate things.

Science asks How and When; not Why, nor By / For Whom.

Religion posits a Who, but does not try to ask Why, When or even, really, For Whom.

You can be both educated in the natural sciences, even be a scientist, and religious in any faith; and many are.

NOTE: "Religion". NOT A religion.

I was careful not to suggest any one of the half-dozen major spiritual / deist beliefs and their sects presently active world-wide, plus many regional, indigenous ones.

BlueSkyKing · M

How is it applied to nature, is it infallible, and does the method work with the supernatural?

Nature as in things made of matter. Science is methodology. Far from being infallible but it’s the best we have. If there is equally valid alternative method, name it. Does the "supernatural" claim have evidence that can be detected, measured, and tested? Supernatural doesn’t necessarily mean unnatural.

Conjectural. It also has an "annoying habit" of not working

Agree. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." I recall the "cold fusion" debacle decades ago.

Factual? Can the factual correct itself? Is science self correcting? Evidence? The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid

Scientists strive for a 95% threshold before stating something is a fact. When they peer publish, a target is painted on their backs. Lots of other scientists are out to shoot down the results. A big attribute is the self correcting. When better evidence is presented, the old is discarded. Carl Sagan thought the atmosphere of Venus was water vapor. But it turned out differently when the probes got there.

Other people here can explain evolution a lot better than me. You may want to checkout the longest evolution experiment still running.

[media=https://youtu.be/w4sLAQvEH-M]

ElwoodBlues · M

@BlueSkyKing

Scientists strive for a 95% threshold before stating something is a fact.

True, that's the threshold for publication in social science; equivalent to two standard deviations.

In physics, the threshold for publication is FIVE standard deviations (they call it the 5σ rule). Five sigmas means that a collection of measurements has less than a 1 in a million chance of having occurred by random variations (99.99994% confidence) - much stricter than the social science rule.

BlueSkyKing · M

It should be noted that in SW evolution doesn’t belong in the Religion & Spirituality category. It’s an established science that belongs in that category. I informed this to the administrator and he said it’s because of the conflict.

newjaninev2 · 56-60, F

What, then, is evolution?

evolution is change in the frequency and distribution of alleles.

It is a process

The mechanism of that process is Natural Selection

Natural Selection is differential reproductive rates within constantly changing environments.

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BibleData · M

@newjaninev2 How much money would I have to raise on a go fund me page to hire an evolutionist to create a model on a computer on creation? Since they obviously can't do it with evolution.

newjaninev2 · 56-60, F

@BibleData With creation, it’s free. The computer simply has to display ‘the gods did it’ as the answer for everything.

If you want a predictive model for evolution, you’ll be out of luck, because evolution isn’t teleological... that’s the whole point of evolution by Natural Selection! 😀
Evolution has no goal, no ideal end point, so there’s nothing towards which a model could ever ‘progress’.

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fakable

are you interested in the difference in the understanding of "evolution" in science and in theology, or something else?

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fakable

@BibleData

i have a hunch that logic is not your thing

BibleData · M

@fakable Interesting. I wonder which of our hunches will prove to be more accurate.

fakable

@BibleData

if you want to fight in sophistry and rhetoric, go ahead. it amuses me.

SatanBurger · 36-40, FVIP

What, then, is evolution? Change? Like climate change?

Here's how we know evolution is true:

https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-do-scientists-know-evolution-is-real-122039

And as a bonus, here's a super long list of common misconceptions:

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/teach-evolution/misconceptions-about-evolution/

BibleData · M

@ElwoodBlues

Your making a major false assumption here. You want science to be a collection of narratives or or assertions or something. That's not what it is.

You aren't seeing the not so subtle nuances intended in the thread, are you? They aren't about people doing science, they are about ideological fixation.

Science is not a collection of theories or equations or explanations of nature or whatever. Science is the method that tested those theories or equations or explanations or whatever.

Okay. Sounds great. How come science is supposed to be about debate and you aren't supposed to question religion but if you compare the proponents of the two you see pontifical fanatics incapable of handling constructive criticism in the former (those for science) and vigorous debate in the later (those for religion)?

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BibleData · M

@ElwoodBlues

The best way to get published in science is to find a flaw in an accepted explanation; i.e. falsify a theory.

Questioning the existing order is, in fact, the ideological fixation of scientists - design experiments or observations that find something new, something that doesn't fit into the accepted explanations. But it's gotta be repeatedly observable and/or testable.

Recent examples of that in practice, please?

ElwoodBlues · M

@BibleData No prob!

These guys attempted to falsify general relativity with 16 years of observations of a pair of pulsars that orbit each other. unfortunately, the attempt failed, leaving GR stronger than ever.
https://www.space.com/einstein-general-relativity-passes-pulsar-test

"An intriguing signal from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) might prove to be the crack that prises apart the standard model — physicists’ current best description of how matter and forces interact."
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18307

"Why the standard model of particle physics seems to be broken"
https://thenextweb.com/news/why-standard-model-of-particle-physics-is-broken

"The increasingly bushy human family tree and five other paradigm-altering changes in our understanding of human evolution"
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2022/11/02/the-increasingly-bushy-human-family-tree-and-five-other-paradigm-altering-changes-in-our-understanding-of-human-evolution/

BibleData · M

@ElwoodBlues How do these things affect everyday life? I gave two examples somewhere. Fat and mRNA Vaccines.

ImperialAerosolKidFromEP · 51-55, M

Here's another one I like

Science is true, even if you don't believe it.

Really? So when science said there was a luminiferous ether, that was true and when Maxwell came along, his equations were true and the ether evaporated? When science said there was a Planet X that was true? What happened to it when the gas giants' masses were corrected?

revenant · F

Evolution is dealing with your own eternal war

basilfawlty89 · 31-35, M

This should have been titled Sophistry 101.

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BibleData · M

@SW-User I think maybe you enjoy being frightened? You don't frighten me, thing.

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