Feb 18 2008
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Is science faith-based?
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.
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/
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.
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.”
That should have been “gnashing of teeth,” of course. Oh, and “appreciative.”
*sigh*
It’s true what they say — Comedy is hard.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
[…] No. […]
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
QD writes: [[A major portion of the world is hopelessly poisoned by religion. ]]
And the rest of it is hopelessly poisoned by atheism.
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.
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.”
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.”
“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.
[…] 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 […]
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.
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.
You know, it’s impossible to exactly define what science is, but the BA did a pretty good job.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
“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.
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?
[[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?
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.
Ender: You mean quantum mechanics. There are many wildly different interpretations of QM, which all give the same predictions and all fit the data.
[[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.
@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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
[[“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.
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.
Wow, Phil - this is one of the best things you’ve ever written. Thanks!
[”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.
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
Re Barton Paul Levenson
I would add Steven Weinberg to the above list.
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.
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
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.
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.
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..
Tom: Faith is unprovable. Assumptions are testable. The fine difference is what makes up thumping on tomes.
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.
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.
“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.
.
.
.
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.”)
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?
“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”.
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.
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.
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.
Test 2: DO NOT rip out hearts of 5,000 victims…
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.
“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.
midieval
I think you mean medieval. Of course, I’m making an unfounded assumption…
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=?
“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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. :-P]
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.
everyone here sounds pretty faithful to me
“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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.”
“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.
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…
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.
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.
[[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…