Science is NOT faith-based!

[Brown]

That's some pretty good preachin', says the choir!

I have no quarrel with anything in Phil's column. It goes without saying (as it must,for Phil did not say it!) that not all folks who see faith as a virtue are hostile to science. Indeed, they actually see science as a part of their faith! Their reasoning may go something like this:

"The Almighty is true and faithful, and is not capricious. Thus we can expect that the Almighty will behave in consistent ways, and these consistencies can be determined by experimentation."

--or--

"When interpreting our ancient texts, we can be fairly certain that any interpretation that is in conflict with science or experimentally developed natural laws is a wrong interpretation."

--or--

"God gave us brains! By God, let's use them!!"

I personally do not agree that faith is a virtue at all. Faith is a close buddy of gullability. But I recognize that for many people, faith is not a determining factor in their efforts to understand the world, and if the evidence indicates that their faith is wrong, their faith can change. Such people, however, tend to be quiet and (for lack of a better word) normal; the kind of people that are easy to overlook. The loudmouthed hypocritical ignoramuses who boldly assert that faith is a beginning and an end of knowledge, who demand that others accept simple answers that are clearly incorrect, who trumpet the preposterous proposition that any man-made writing must be without error, who advocate pig-ignorance and stupidity instead of learning and self-improvement... these are the ones that seem to get most of the attention. They may be a very noisy group, but I suspect they are a very noisy minority.

 

[sol invictus]

Mankind has unraveled some of this consistency in a form that we call "rules" or mathematical statements. The universe does NOT obey these rules, it demonstrates their applicability.

a) what's the difference, and

b) if there is one, how do you know it's one and not the other?

 

[This is The End]

a) what's the difference, and

b) if there is one, how do you know it's one and not the other?

This line of questioning is well suited to other discussions as well.

 

[SezMe]

a) what's the difference, and

b) if there is one, how do you know it's one and not the other?

Make sure you read the first line of my post.

I think the way I stated it is a better way to define the assumption that the BA begins with. Its my opinion, that's all.

 

[The Bad Astronomer]

I think these comments here are a lot more thoughtful, on the whole, than many I am seeing elsewhere. I haven't seen anything to make me change my mind just yet... but it's changeable.

 

[MG1962]

That's some pretty good preachin', says the choir!

I have no quarrel with anything in Phil's column. It goes without saying (as it must,for Phil did not say it!) that not all folks who see faith as a virtue are hostile to science. Indeed, they actually see science as a part of their faith! Their reasoning may go something like this:

"The Almighty is true and faithful, and is not capricious. Thus we can expect that the Almighty will behave in consistent ways, and these consistencies can be determined by experimentation."

--or--

"When interpreting our ancient texts, we can be fairly certain that any interpretation that is in conflict with science or experimentally developed natural laws is a wrong interpretation."

--or--

"God gave us brains! By God, let's use them!!"

I personally do not agree that faith is a virtue at all. Faith is a close buddy of gullability. But I recognize that for many people, faith is not a determining factor in their efforts to understand the world, and if the evidence indicates that their faith is wrong, their faith can change. Such people, however, tend to be quiet and (for lack of a better word) normal; the kind of people that are easy to overlook. The loudmouthed hypocritical ignoramuses who boldly assert that faith is a beginning and an end of knowledge, who demand that others accept simple answers that are clearly incorrect, who trumpet the preposterous proposition that any man-made writing must be without error, who advocate pig-ignorance and stupidity instead of learning and self-improvement... these are the ones that seem to get most of the attention. They may be a very noisy group, but I suspect they are a very noisy minority.

Great post, and sadly very true - I have no clash with my faith and the world of science. God gave us this amazing playground, then gave us a brain and the desire to appreciate it. To think God snapped his/her/its fingers and the whole lot came along ready to go in 6 days, is a very boring answer, and points to a God I am not sure I would like

 

[arthwollipot]

I liked the article. I've written much the same thing myself on various forums (albeit without as much flair), and I've determined the amount of difference that it makes to True Believers is precisely zero.

I'll keep on trying though, because it's something that really needs to be said, over and over again until they get it into their thick little heads that science isn't what they think it is.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think your blog entry is well said. Sometimes we are preaching to more than the choir (pun idiom intended ). The people you address in the blog, those who use the rationale that science is just a different religion, use that rationale to reinforce their own decision to ignore evidence. Explaining the difference between faith which is dogmatic and evidence which accumulates with conclusions which change does little to change some god believers' understanding because the misunderstanding is there willfully. It is there to block the contradiction between the observable evidence and their non-evidence based beliefs.

In order for that faith belief to exist and evidence based beliefs to be discounted as simply another religion, one has to maintain at an unconscious level the fact science and evidence based beliefs are successful and god beliefs are not. When we bring that fact to the conscious level we point out that the core difference isn't underlying belief systems, the core difference isn't underlying premises or basic assumptions. Those are differences, but they are not the core difference. The core difference is evidence based beliefs are successful.

I have been using a similar talking point (remember me and my Karl Rove talking points, Phil? ) when I am discussing evidence based medicine with people who aren't quite convinced their superstitious belief based medicine is wrong and the evidence right. I point out the same thing you have in your discussion of the success of the physical sciences. I point out that the reason we know evidence based medicine is right is it works. It is successful.



I have also been arguing for a while now that allowing the rationale that something called faith based beliefs actually exist and are separate but [fill in your preferred adjective] to evidence based beliefs is a fallacy. Instead there are evidence based beliefs and non-evidence based beliefs. For skeptics (we need a better brand, BTW) to accept faith based beliefs as valid on some other plane than evidence based beliefs is ignoring the fact that we reject all other non-evidence based conclusions but somehow give a pass to certain (but not all) god beliefs.

I understand the reason for the pass. It's not worth dismissing all the skeptics and scientists that haven't let go of their god beliefs, and I don't want to change the direction of your thread. But I do want to point out that I think giving certain faith based beliefs a special place as separate from evidence based beliefs actually supports the idea you are arguing against. It elevates that rationale that faith based and evidence based are just two different belief systems. It lets that inconvenient fact that evidence based beliefs are successful where faith based beliefs are not fade from view. Faith becomes successful in one place and science is successful in another.

But that isn't true. I know many people, skeptics among them, don't agree with my view here. I don't buy exactly that faith in god provides [again fill in your choice]. I think such a conclusion is not evidence based and there is an evidence based way we can look at the same thing. The belief one has faith in a god may provide [whatever]. Belonging to the group may provide [whatever]. That is what the evidence supports. The evidence does not support that a god is actually providing [whatever].

I think we should stop reinforcing the concept there are faith based beliefs and evidence based beliefs as two separate but [your adjective] belief systems. God beliefs may indeed (or do) comfort people. That is the evidence based statement. It's a little harder to maintain god beliefs a skeptic or scientist has not let go of when we don't allow the pass for certain god beliefs by identifying something called faith based beliefs. I realize that and I'm not trying to make a big deal here promoting atheism. I'm just saying it's time to discard the two belief systems. Faith based beliefs are not any different from other non-evidence based beliefs. Just as evidence based beliefs are not just another religion.

 

[This is The End]

So wrapping oneself up in fantasy may shield you from reality, but if you ever decide to uncloak, you will probably find that you aren't so well off.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So wrapping oneself up in fantasy may shield you from reality, but if you ever decide to uncloak, you will probably find that you aren't so well off.

Actually, I think they do fine living in the real world and pretending it is something else. So uncloaking finds the facade on the building crumbles, but the building you've been using is there just the same.

 

[Darat]

...snip...They think that by going back to 1950s lifestyles, we'll go back to 1950s values too. I think they mostly mean sex. So your argument may not reach some of the people who need to hear it most.

Sorry for being a tad picky about this but I do think it is always worthwhile to emphasis that what they want to go back to is a fictional version of the 1950s that never actually existed.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Oh ho! Good stuff.

One of the problems with using 'look at all the awesome technology we have!' examples is that many creationists (particularly those following the Gish philosophy) believe that technology is to blame for the moral corruption of today's society. They want less science because they want less technology. They think that by going back to 1950s lifestyles, we'll go back to 1950s values too. I think they mostly mean sex. So your argument may not reach some of the people who need to hear it most.

Again this comes down to twisting one's reality to hide some parts from the conscious mind while still enjoying them. Not too many of these guys are living naked in caves. Even the Amish enjoy technology. It might happen to be a couple hundred years old but it is by no means not technology.

So they might demonize science, but it's a fake front. They pretend whatever results of the science they use aren't science and simply cherry pick some to rationalize those faith based beliefs with.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sorry for being a tad picky about this but I do think it is always worthwhile to emphasis that what they want to go back to is a fictional version of the 1950s that never actually existed.

And that is simply a function of our human brains. The good is much more prominent in our memories than the bad. If you know that, you realize the good old days weren't. If you don't understand brain function as well, you think they were.

I liked Jon Stewart's response to some of those claims about the good old days. He always reminds people of the racism and other such niceties of the day. It is so easy for our brains to select the evidence rather than simply examine the evidence.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I liked the article. I've written much the same thing myself on various forums (albeit without as much flair), and I've determined the amount of difference that it makes to True Believers is precisely zero.

I'll keep on trying though, because it's something that really needs to be said, over and over again until they get it into their thick little heads that science isn't what they think it is.

I call it the 5 and 10 year plans. You chip away. Don't expect progress to go in leaps and bounds.

 

[This is The End]

So more pointedly, science and fantasy both require making things up (having ideas).

Science weeds out incorrect ideas that contradict reality (usually via various means of observation, though sometimes merely with deduction).

Fantasy, however, weeds out ideas that are contrary to opinion, taste, and style; with no real need for the idea to agree with reality.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Since everyone else is putting in their pet "one assumption that science makes", I think I'll add my own.

Science doesn't require that the universe follows rules, or that the rules are simple, or that the universe is symmetric, or anything like that. Science can admit that some things don't have rules behind them, and that some things are complicated for no reason than that's how things are, and so on.

Not the way I see it ...we can admit to not knowing the rules, but not that the rules don't exist.

No, the one assumption science makes is that there is some reliability to our measurements and observation. It doesn't require perfect reliability--we know that our human senses and memory are faulty, for instance, and we have systems (like writing) for improving that. In large part, science is the art of improving the reliability of our findings (double-blind testing, peer review, and so on).

The reliability of the measurements comes from repeating them and making predictions from them that are correct.

The one thing that no system can deal with, though, is an intelligence so powerful that it can plant faulty evidence, rewrite our records, and fool our senses. And do it so thoroughly that no one is the wiser. The fact that scientific artifacts "work" is no help: perhaps our planes do not actually fly; our knowledge of aerodynamics is wrong, because all our measurements were subtly tampered with, and planes are instead just carried by the hand of God. We would never know; could never know, even in principle.

So above all, science assumes that there is no God, or at least that there is no God that would interfere with our world in this way.

- Dr. Trintignant

The god assumption you speak of here is so hidden as to be irrelevant.

People have had god beliefs going back as far as we have any records, written or otherwise. The definition of a god which either doesn't interact with the Universe or hides its tracks is a definition fabricated more recently simply to describe a god science cannot test for. And defined as such, you find no god fitting that description in the past history of god beliefs. It becomes an exercise in pondering irrelevant things like invisible pink unicorns in my backyard. It does not give you a way of claiming the god beliefs people have cannot be tested. Their specific beliefs can be tested. Prayers are not answered. Hurricanes don't strike the houses of gay people more often than would be expected. Religious texts do not have evidence of ancient wisdom imparted by any thing other than the people living at the time and in the place the texts originated from.

You've simply described an irrelevant god. Science remains successful.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It appears that you are a follower of one of those philosophies of science which considers physics to be the example of how all sciences should be. There are of course also sciences that do try to anticipate whimsical systems (or minds for that matter) such as psychology, anthropology, economics...

Where did you get the idea these sciences have no rules, no order, or whatever it is you are trying to say? These are multivariable systems, but they are still predictable. And systems which appear random such as the weather are really just systems which have so many variables as to make them appear random, but they are not. And there are some unpredictable things on the quantum level but my understanding is the unpredictability is a predictable quality.

Communication networks are never evident to all people, and never independent of their cultural beliefs. Alexander Graham Bell gave us a communication system that had no evident use for some people with a specific culture; Deaf users of sign language. He was no friend of Sign. It also depends on the belief that everything should be catelogued and numbered including the everyone you may one day wish to speak to, and should be done so using a cultural invention called the decimal number system, which some cultures have not even heard about or believe in its usefulness. All so that people can spread their cultures -- their knowledge and beliefs -- over the communications network.

Other communication systems may work in different ways, but all reflect what the people who made it believed should be communicated, can be communicated and how it should be communicated.

This example makes no point.

Bad example, as medicine is not at all free of philosophical, cultural and even religious considerations, and neither should it be. Medicine is not just mechanical repair of some machinery, but also the care for 'whimsical systems'. What counts as "illness" and what counts as a "cure" therefore is a value judgement based on philosophical grounds. I think it is rather nice that doctors tend to believe in a philosophy that places a human being's life above that of a tumor, but I don't think they can support that on a purely reductionist physical model.

On the contrary, morals are perfectly reducible as are the other things you describe here. We have a lot of research to go before we understand all the variables, but we know enough to say they aren't a function of magic.

As for the morals, they evolved in our gregarious species and exist in non-human primates just as they exist in human primates. You are just way off base here.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

We may have insufficient knowledge of the machinery, but that's not the reason. The level of knowledge is largely irrelevant to what I am saying. A higher level of knowledge will allow doctors to manipulate human biology to something even closer to their philosophical idea of what constitutes health, though it may also influence their philosophies.

There are philosophical considerations in car repair, as can be seen on any of the gazillion car/motorcycle repair/customisation shows on discovery. The people in many of those shows seem to believe in a philosophy of "faster is better", and "looking meaner is better". Sometimes they try to make something with a different philosophy, such as "higher fuel economy is better" or "what the customer wants is best".

At the very least, most car mechanics seem to believe that a car is better if it runs than if it is rusting away. That is a value judgement made from their own personal philosophy, and it is not something that is necessarily shared by everyone.

Your posts reflect a lot of conclusions without a realization the scientific data base we have is well beyond that you are using to draw your conclusions. So they may make sense to you, but they don't reflect what we know about the nature of our species or the Universe.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think I'm starting to see what you're saying now. However our disagreement might stem simply from a consideration of values rather than fundamental philosophies.

For example, 'health' might consist of different values for different people. Some might feel that their perception of an ailment is of greater value to them personally than the ailment itself. Hence having a pain in the foot is ok, so long as they have a state of mind that puts up with it. Others see health as a purely physicochemical state of wellbeing. Pain or no pain, if something is found to be abnormal, they feel it should be fixed.

In your view, these are philosophical stances. I can't disagree with that, however I guess I was using the term in a more fundamental way, such as the epistemology one uses to build belief systems. The way you're using the term I would see more as a hierarchy of values. Ultimately, a broken leg is still a broken leg regardless of the value the individual places in whether it should be fixed or not.

Athon

In this context, I see it simply as some of the things one takes into consideration in making a health care decision be it for yourself or for another. There is no great mystery here. There is no magical soul. There is no god determined morality that humans without gods lack. So one person has a higher pain threshold and another uses the sick role for secondary gain? Big deal. Nothing here describes some element on a magical plane the scientific method cannot be used to describe the underlying mechanisms of or make predictions about.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Maybe it's a nit pick but this sentence



gives me some trouble. As state above, the assumption is that the universe behaves in a consistent, codifiable manner. Mankind has unraveled some of this consistency in a form that we call "rules" or mathematical statements. The universe does NOT obey these rules, it demonstrates their applicability.

Semantics, but I like your version.