Someone who believes something without evidence or someone who doesn’t believe something with mountains of evidence? Which is worse?

@hippyjoe1955 You can say “I don’t know” and reserve belief; it’s the default. You don’t have to believe before there is evidence. No one should. That puts someone in a position where there’s no reason to look for evidence. And if they do, then, they are more subject to looking for things that only conform with what they already believe.

@Cease Yes you do. It may not seem like it but in fact you do. You have to believe science will show you the facts before you can accept scientific 'facts'. Knowledge starts with faith.

@hippyjoe1955 what's a scientific fact, and how does it differ from a fact?

Not all facts are based on science and when science claims something fact you only have to wait a bit and it will soon be shown as not a fact at all.

@hippyjoe1955 which merely dances around my question.

Let's see if we can first define what a fact is, and perhaps then we can make progress

@newjaninev2 you don't have the intellectual honesty so let's not and say we didn't.

@hippyjoe1955 Wow, straight to the evasions, and the deflections, and the insults!

Run along.... you are dismissed.

@hippyjoe1955 No you don’t. People don’t have to believe anything on faith. And you can’t reliably believe or know anything with faith since there’s nothing you can’t believe on faith. People believe in using science and the results of it’s use because it’s repeatedly demonstrated to be consistent and reliable when applied properly. Which is what warrants belief.

@Cease Yes, Cease, faith is merely pretending to know something that one does not actually know.

As you say, there's no limit to that.

@newjaninev2 You mean like you do with that clap trap of organic chemicals in the rings of Saturn?

@hippyjoe1955
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20080326.html

https://theconversation.com/amp/the-chemistry-that-could-feed-life-within-saturns-moon-enceladus-study-gives-clue-ahead-of-flyby-49683


It's like giving a reality check to someone from the Dark Ages

@newjaninev2 And you don't have the intellectual honest to realize you have been sold a bill of goods. Sad truly truly sad. NASA is a rent seeking organization. You don't take them at their word.

@hippyjoe1955 You're making Cease's point for her.

Keep your eyes shut,and your hands firmly over your ears, and whatever you do don't allow reality to intrude into whatever pretence comforts you.

@newjaninev2 Nope you are making mine. You believe (have faith) therefore.....

@hippyjoe1955 About now you'll be reaching for Hippyjoe's Big Book of Evasions, Deflections, and Insults.

Don't bother... we all find it rather tedious.

@newjaninev2 Not evading anything. As I said before, you don't have the intellectual honesty to debate.

@hippyjoe1955
[quote]Not all facts are based on science and when science claims something fact you only have to wait a bit and it will soon be shown as not a fact at all.[/quote]

No not all facts are based on science. But they almost always canbe expanded upon with science. Which in turn can give us more facts that are beyond our common senses or that our common senses are off or just absolutely wrong about.

And science is not some always inconsistent unreliable tool of measurement.

There are many aspects, peer review, repeatability, removing or accounting for variables and biases, adjusting scope, improving technology, etc, all of it moves to narrow the margins of errors and provide the most accurate assessment of the world around us. Not some dead set in stone, absolute proclamation that it has never been claimed to be by anyone with any competence in science, but that people with no understanding project onto it because they can’t understand or fathom anything but the comfortable and primitive illusion of having 100% certainty, and absolutes.

@Cease The point is that science is a human endeavor and therefore faulty.

@hippyjoe1955 you left out... and designed to be self-correcting

@newjaninev2 Nope didn't need to include it. You made my point exactly.

@hippyjoe1955 so your point was that science is a self-correcting system?

Excellent... we can therefore have a high level of confidence in it

@newjaninev2 No my point is that your faith in NASA has you spouting unverifiable 'facts' like they are true facts.

@newjaninev2 If you have the faith to believe than anything is believable. Isn't that my point?

@hippyjoe1955 if only it weren't for that pesky evidence, huh?

@newjaninev2 You haven't provided any. You have simply shown inordinate faith in human understanding.