Beliefs: how do they work?

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't think so. A kid with no clue playing around with a chemistry set is probably doing "really bad science". That doesn't make him "anti-science". Anti-science, to me, is tossing women in the drink to test if they're witches. When a Bishop of your "church" is the CEO of a bio-tech firm, and your organization supports a country's effort to genetically modify its food, it's kind of hard to make an anti-science label stick.

Einstein made mistakes rejecting quantum physics and joining with the steady-state crowd. That was "bad science". Did that make him anti-science?

It's either a fine line here or a bad analogy, I think it's the latter.

Are the ID promoters or the YECs who distort actual science in order to falsely claim there is scientific evidence supporting their beliefs pro or anti science?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

What about a marine biologist who believes in God? Are they anti-science?

Pro science with a blind spot.

 

[cj.23]

Just to clarify my point above - I was responding to "To echo the sentiment of Michael Shermer, what greater tool than science could God have bestowed upon us to understand and appreciate the splendor of his creation?"

I still fail to see how History is Science - but I tend to take a Popperian line. If Science = ways of knowing, then Economics, History, Theology, Philosophy, Parapsychology are all sciences, yeah?

cj x

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Fair point. I should have provided some cites. Here's one. If you google "placebo effect, dopamine, NAC" there are more, but I didn't have time to see if they're all referencing the same paper.

Basically, the article proposes that for pain relief placebos work in this manner. Thus praying to a deity with the expectation that pain would be relieved should stimulate dopamine production simply through the presence of the belief, the expectation.

Nick

You missed the point. Believing the thing you are praying to is the variable, but the thing you are praying to is not. In other words if you believe praying to the milk jug will affect your pain then whether or not you pray to a nebulous entity somewhere overhead or an inanimate milk jug the result will be no different.

 

[athon]

I still fail to see how History is Science - but I tend to take a Popperian line. If Science = ways of knowing, then Economics, History, Theology, Philosophy, Parapsychology are all sciences, yeah?

cj x

It depends on the context one uses the term 'science'. Science might well be the methodology or the resulting knowledge. In my view, history can be assessed scientifically. The resulting science might not be as concrete and reliable as the results of science being applied to other observations, but so long as the same objectives are kept in mind, history can be a 'science'.

Technically, in which case, economics, theology and even parapsychology could have scientific methodology applied to observations relevant in those fields. Whether this is applied as honestly and thoroughly in all cases is another matter.

Athon

 

[Nick227]

You missed the point. Believing the thing you are praying to is the variable, but the thing you are praying to is not. In other words if you believe praying to the milk jug will affect your pain then whether or not you pray to a nebulous entity somewhere overhead or an inanimate milk jug the result will be no different.

It might help if you read my post again, perhaps a little more slowly.

Nick

 

[westprog]

Pro science with a blind spot.

Belief has nothing to do with science. Scientist who believe in God are not doing anything unscientific.

 

[Dancing David]

Empathy. And after that History. Both trump Science as ways of knowing.

cj x

Right, history, uh huh, sure, whatever.

I wonder how much history is accurate and how much is convinient political nonsense?

 

[Dancing David]

Just to clarify my point above - I was responding to "To echo the sentiment of Michael Shermer, what greater tool than science could God have bestowed upon us to understand and appreciate the splendor of his creation?"

I still fail to see how History is Science - but I tend to take a Popperian line. If Science = ways of knowing, then Economics, History, Theology, Philosophy, Parapsychology are all sciences, yeah?

cj x

No, only if you use the method and critical evaluation.

When science is applied to things like parapsychology, then the 'effect' disappears.

Science is a method of observation, replication and elimination or measurement of confounding factors.

 

[Dancing David]

Funny, people are still avoiding talking about delusions.

 

[PixyMisa]

I still fail to see how History is Science - but I tend to take a Popperian line.

If you take a Popperian line, then you will understand that the key concept is falsification. You can't prove that a hypothesis is true (though you can support it with evidence), but you can prove that a hypothesis is false.

You can certainly apply this approach to history.

If Science = ways of knowing, then Economics, History, Theology, Philosophy, Parapsychology are all sciences, yeah?

Falsification is applicable to economics, history, and parapsychology, certainly. (And as has been pointed out, it is particularly effective in respect to parapsychology.)

It can be applied to philosophy and theology only insofar as those fields make coherent statements about the real world. In other words, not very far.

 

[cj.23]

Funny, people are still avoiding talking about delusions.

I love talking about delusions, in a DSM IV medical kind of sense. What was the question?

cj x

 

[plumjam]

If there wasn't cognition there'd be no medicine in the first place....
If there wasn't reason there'd be no medicine in the first place....
If there wasn't memory there'd be no medicine in the first place....
If there wasn't life there'd be no medicine in the first place....
If there wasn't infirmity there'd be no medicine in the first place....
If there wasn't communication there'd be no medicine in the first place....

You've heard the term, "necessary but insufficient"? How about, "trivial"?

Nice try, but none of the above could be considered one of the (probably the) main motivating factors behind medicine and its improvement. Empathy, as a way of knowing, enables us to know that something like medical research is something worth pursuing.

 

[RandFan]

I can dispute it. Culturally, God is far better established as a suitable vessel to pray towards. Thus, if we say that the belief in a positive outcome can stimulate the release of beneficial brain chemicals it is obviously necessary to have a suitably regarded entity to pray towards. Most people would likely regard praying to a milk-jug as ridiculous, and so I imagine that studies to monitor, say, dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens or whatever, would reveal that praying to God would release more dopamine than praying to the milk jug.

The only thing you are demonstrating is the placebo effect. In other words it is only effective at making you feel better. The point that you are missing is that the the active ingredient (for lack of a better term) is the belief not the act. I've no doubt that we could convince people that praying to a jug of milk is effective and therefor it would be as effective. Your point is only one of technicality.

 

[RandFan]

Well, the first part is clear, and that's enough really. You have a faith-based belief, just like all the other atheists here (getting them to admit to a belief in anything is like pulling teeth for some reason). Oh, you can make an appeal to your senses, like others here, but I don't think you're dumb enough to believe that maneuver works. If you do that, then I have to bring up my spiritual experience as proof that God exists and both of us end up sounding like idiots.

See how easy it is to believe in something without any evidence?

No evidence? I see my wife every day. How can you say that there is no evidence? You are being disingenuous. You are abusing skepticism again.

You really need to figure that one out.

And I'm not the one sounding like the idiot. Just because your internal experience is proof that you are Napoleon doesn't mean that it is a rational belief.

I've admitted that I have beliefs. What's like pulling teeth is getting you to acknowledge that fact. Also what's like pulling teeth is getting you to acknowledge that not all beliefs are equal. Some are based on evidence and some are not (abuse of skepticism notwithstanding).

 

[RandFan]

Belief has nothing to do with science. Scientist who believe in God are not doing anything unscientific.

Scientists who are superstitious are not doing anything unscientific. Well, actually, beliefs not supported by evidence are in fact unscientific. So, sorry. That said, I think most theistic scientists would be honest enough to admit that.

 

[cj.23]

Nice try, but none of the above could be considered one of the (probably the) main motivating factors behind medicine and its improvement. Empathy, as a way of knowing, enables us to know that something like medical research is something worth pursuing.

Plumjam has neatly summarised exactly why I put empathy first.

cj x

 

[Prometheus]

Nice try, but none of the above could be considered one of the (probably the) main motivating factors behind medicine and its improvement. Empathy, as a way of knowing, enables us to know that something like medical research is something worth pursuing.

Whether they are motivating and/or primary factors is completely irrelevant. They, like empathy, are both necessary and insufficient for the development of medicine to occur. All the empathy in the world produces zero medicine without at least the rudiments of science. This makes your point true, but only trivially so.

 

[Prometheus]

Plumjam has neatly summarised exactly why I put empathy first.

cj x

Plumjam has, ironically, epitomized exactly why I put reason first.

 

[plumjam]

Prometheus, your whole championing of medical research via science, is founded on your belief that helping other people via medicine is a good thing.
You only believe it's a good thing from the kind of knowledge which empathy brings to you.
So, not only is empathy the practical motivating force, but it also supplies the moral standard by which something such as medical research, as an enterprise, is to be judged.
Even if medical research could be done without empathy (which is highly doubtful), without empathy we'd have no way of knowing whether it was a worthwhile thing to do or not. You're saying it's a worthwhile thing, and this belief of yours is arrived at only via the kind of knowledge that empathy brings.
Effectively you're arguing against yourself.