Science is NOT faith-based!

[Skeptic Ginger]

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.

I'd agree with this description.

 

[This is The End]

One note about the hurricane analogy. Though the information to run an exact simulation necessarily exists, it still may be impossible to ever actually acquire said information if the system is complex (chaotic) enough. The more chaotic the system (running time, complexity, etc.) the less likely the information can be recovered.


Sorry to derail into time/light cones, chaos theory, and information availability... at least we try to understand a hurricane and not blame them on invisible friends (or enemies).

 

[ponderingturtle]

Love the idea of someone trying to raise their tv from the dead. Good essay indeed.

Just say no to Zombie TV's.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Folks--

I put up a blog entry today called "Is Science faith-based?" because I am good and sick of hearing the definition of science abused by the willfully (and woefully) ignorant.

I'm curious about peoples' thoughts on this. I hope this is useful.

I am not sure I quite agree with the idea that there is one point alone that science takes on faith. The value in understanding the observeable universe and its meaningfulness are also taken on faith. The beleif that the observeable universe is not what reality truely is, is contrary to science so its oposite must be taken on faith.

As this is not the issue most attack science it does not undermine the arguement.

 

[ponderingturtle]

In a sense, yes. But the difference is verifiability and success.

All ways of understanding the world rely on some axioms, and there are an infinite number of possible choices for those axioms. So how can we possibly choose between them?

Easy - we pick the ones that work. Science works. Religion doesn't. Don't believe me? Let's try it - you put a curse on me, and I shoot you in the head. You can even go first.

Game over.

Um but first you need to trust your senses and memory. There does not seem to be a way to prove that evidence is useful with evidence.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

One note about the hurricane analogy. Though the information to run an exact simulation necessarily exists, it still may be impossible to ever actually acquire said information if the system is complex (chaotic) enough. The more chaotic the system (running time, complexity, etc.) the less likely the information can be recovered.


Sorry to derail into time/light cones, chaos theory, and information availability... at least we try to understand a hurricane and not blame them on invisible friends (or enemies).

No, that's OK. I don't think anyone minds a quick info derail. I recently saw something about the nature of a truly random system vs one like weather that did have virtually so many variables it appeared random. It might have been in Wiki in a 'random' or 'probability' related entry. It was something I saw looking at stuff for a long drawn out discussion on the randomness or nonrandomness of evolution.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I am not sure I quite agree with the idea that there is one point alone that science takes on faith. The value in understanding the observeable universe and its meaningfulness are also taken on faith. The beleif that the observeable universe is not what reality truely is, is contrary to science so its oposite must be taken on faith.....

I'm not clear what you are saying here. And why doesn't outcome eliminate the need to take anything on faith? Unless you wanted to ponder something like the matrix and we are all really not here, then testable outcomes confirm observations, no faith needed.

 

[Cuddles]

There does not seem to be a way to prove that evidence is useful with evidence.

Results. The fact that we have science and technology is proof that evidence is useful.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Results. The fact that we have science and technology is proof that evidence is useful.

And if all your exterior perceptions are an illusion how does that prove anything?

 

[ponderingturtle]

I'm not clear what you are saying here. And why doesn't outcome eliminate the need to take anything on faith? Unless you wanted to ponder something like the matrix and we are all really not here, then testable outcomes confirm observations, no faith needed.

I was thinking more of a gnostic view of reality with the physical being entirely corrupt, but the matrix works too, even if it has less demonstration as being believed by people.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I was thinking more of a gnostic view of reality with the physical being entirely corrupt, but the matrix works too, even if it has less demonstration as being believed by people.

Well, those both go back to the, "so what?" category of pondering. You can make up invisible pink unicorns and matrix scenarios all you want. In reality, they are so 'not in the Universe' they are irrelevant anyway. You still come back to evidence can be tested, evidence based beliefs are successful.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Well, those both go back to the, "so what?" category of pondering. You can make up invisible pink unicorns and matrix scenarios all you want. In reality, they are so 'not in the Universe' they are irrelevant anyway. You still come back to evidence can be tested, evidence based beliefs are successful.

Um you need to believe that tests offer meaningful answers. If reality is sinful based on satans lies and the only truth comes form religious sources that is not something that can be disproven by evidence It is something that you either accept or do not.

Now if you think that science is meaningful even if you do not trust observable reality, why not just state that?

They are not physicaly observeable, but your own belief in the truth of the physicaly observeable colors your perception.

 

[Earthborn]

But that is something else entirely.

No, it isn't. It is exactly what we are talking about.

People may have differing goals (a fast car, and efficient car, etc.), but once those goals articulated, no value judgments are necessary.

You can't pretend the articulation of those goals is irrelevant, as they will steer the way in which the car repair will happen. That means that the value judgements based on philosophical beliefs are a necessary part of car repair.

Similarly you can't pretend that scientists' philosophical beliefs concerning the axioms of science are irrelevant, because it will steer the way in which they will do research, and what questions they think they ought to answer.

Scientists do start their research from a "faith" in axioms that are themselves unproveable, and that's a good thing; they couldn't do any science if they didn't have some idea of what it means to do science.

This "philosophy" originated from something else entirely

The origin of that philosophy is entirely irrelevant to my argument. What is relevant is that it exists and that it influences the way the car repair is done, and that it is not something for which objective scientific evidence can be found. It is at its heart a subjective value judgement, an opinion.

A "mechanic" who believes that rusting cars are better is not actually a mechanic

That's your value judgement. While it can be very useful to categorise and to think that some things belong in a category and others don't really belong there, it will inevitably lead to some "No True Scotsman" fallacies.

They are welcome to this view, but just the same, there is such a thing as "normal" hearing.

Only if you accept the unproveable axiom that such a thing needs to exist, and you do not accept the alternative that people have a wide variety of (dis)abilities all of which may be useful in other circumstances.

If we wish, we can define this as the state of hearing that gives the greatest survival advantage.

What a strange definition. I think you would have a much greater survival advantage if I heard much better than I do; and there is nothing wrong with my ears. Your definition also makes the definition of "normal hearing" dependent on the state of the environment. That means that in some circumstances many people who have average hearing ability may have a severe disability because their hearing does not give them the greatest survival advantage in the environment they are in.

And the goal of any audiologist should be to restore hearing to this state.

The word "should" shows that you are making a value judgement based on a personal philosophy.

But that is not medicine; certainly not what I think of medicine.

If you do not consider it medicine to consider how the patient will feel about the result, then you may have a very narrow view of medicine.

 

[Earthborn]

Yet I do agree that ultimately physics is the strongest science, as it is the study of the fundamental laws from which all else arise.

Your belief stands in a long and proud tradition of philophies of science. But it is also an idea that has a few problems; not all sciences can be effectively modelled after physics.

Take history for example. You can't directly experiment on the past, you can't make predictions in the form of "what would happen if I did this", and our views of long lost times are inevitably coloured by the views and beliefs we have today. The information is scarce and consists largely of the written accounts of people who were subjective themselves. On top of all that, historical events aren't effects that have clearly identifiable causes that made them inevitable.

In studying psychology, anthropology etc., it's not whimsy we're studying, but rather the predictability within the system. If I'm investigating the choices made by a group of minds, I'm doing so with view of being able to predict it with some degree of success beyond chance.

Which just disproves the claim that "No useful model can come of trying to anticipate a whimsical system". Useful models can be made of whimsical systems. Even physics found its fair share of whimsy in the subatomic realm, and has only increased in usefulness as a result.

The fact they couldn't make use of it is not a result of their belief system.

Yes, it is. Alexander Graham Bell was a proponent of Oralism and his telephone would be useful to a Deaf person who as learned to speak vocally; at least as a way to say something to a hearing person. But Deaf people who speak sign language do so because they have a different philosophy on what is important about the uses of language, and they cannot use it.

One of us has missed something.

I think that when you said "communications networks which are evident to all people independantly of their belief system" you missed the obvious truth that all technology is developed with a social cultural context. There is no such thing as technology that entirely independent of people's belief systems.

If I state 'compound X will have Y effect on the body', the intended truth of my comment is not dependent on philosophical grounding.

That's true, but it is a rather narrow statement to make. When you need to ask whether "Science" (that is to say all of science) is or is not dependent on "faith" in unproveable axioms, you are talking about something much wider.

 

[Earthborn]

doublepost

 

[Dr. Trintignant]

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

To steal a topic from another discussion: where is the rule that determines exactly when a radioactive atom will decay? I'm not talking about a statistical rate of decay, but a predictor for the exact moment.

The rule doesn't exist. It seems likely that it can't exist unless quantum mechanics is wrong. But science is fine with that (well, Einstein never really liked it, but you can't please everybody ).

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

That is one of many ways of increasing reliability.

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

I agree in a sense; that it is so hidden that it rarely enters the mind of scientists. And it's irrelevant in the sense that the converse to the assumption is untenable--we couldn't know anything if we assumed a malicious god. But it's an assumption just the same.

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.

I'm not sure why you're mentioning this to me. Yes, we can test all that, and the tests have come back negative so far. But the one thing that we cannot account for, even in principle, is a malicious, omnipotent god.

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

All gods are irrelevant as long as there is no evidence for them. That's the fundamental asymmetry--you can never prove the nonexistence of a god, but a god could certainly prove its existence if it wished. We're all still waiting, of course. And in the meantime, we'll make some cool things with science.

- Dr. Trintignant

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Um you need to believe that tests offer meaningful answers. If reality is sinful based on satans lies and the only truth comes form religious sources that is not something that can be disproven by evidence It is something that you either accept or do not.

Now if you think that science is meaningful even if you do not trust observable reality, why not just state that?

They are not physicaly observeable, but your own belief in the truth of the physicaly observeable colors your perception.

You are missing the point. Or else you conceptualize this differently than I and we'll never reach an understanding.

Let me sort out some basics as I conceptualize this and maybe it will help.

The evidence based world does start with the assumption evidence is real. To steal from a couple other posts then:

Cuddles: "Results. The fact that we have science and technology is proof that evidence is useful."

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

SezMe: "...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."

In short, you start with the assumption evidence is real and then your observations confirm that using an evidence based belief system is successful further confirming your initial assumption that it is real.

You are trying to add a possible layer on to that, making the claim one would have no way of disproving something like a god layer or an alternate version of reality such as the Matrix. God beliefs, matrix possibilities and so on, none of those things are supported by the evidence.

What I am saying to you is, since none of those things are supported by the evidence, they also have no impact on the evidence. If they had an impact, we could test it. If they are untestable, they have no impact. If they have no impact, they are irrelevant.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....Scientists do start their research from a "faith" in axioms that are themselves unproveable,

Name one.

The origin of that philosophy is entirely irrelevant to my argument. What is relevant is that it exists and that it influences the way the car repair is done, and that it is not something for which objective scientific evidence can be found. It is at its heart a subjective value judgement, an opinion.

I hear this argument about values and morals frequently. Fortunately for you, I have thought it through and can explain to you what you are getting wrong. Unfortunately, the evidence is, once a belief such as this is established, it is unlikely knowledge alone will alter the patterns which have already imprinted on one's brain. But I'll try anyway. You never know.

You can discuss values and morals in terms of philosophy. But you are mistaken to think that somehow removes these things from an evidence based world. Philosophically is just one way of describing moral and value judgments. There is another. We are biological beings. Those values evolved. They are a function of discreet structural and electrical/chemical actions in our brains. Some of the values are innate.

Take my dogs, for example, no one taught them that the dogs they meet their first year of life are in their pack and the dogs they encounter after they were about a year old are not in their pack, but that's exactly what their behavior shows occurred. Regardless of how much time passes in between encounters, regardless how well I know and give cues about dogs and their owners we encounter on our walks and regardless of where in the woods we encounter other dogs, my dogs are friendly with any dog they met in their first year or so of life. Every dog they encounter now, that they did not encounter in that first year, they react viciously. (They are not fixed BTW, I understand getting fixed often changes the aggression pattern.)

There are genetic behavior functions which are hardwired into our brains. There are nurture factors and physical changes that affect our behavior. This is where your values originate. They do not originate by magic. They don't come from a soul. They are not mysterious.

You can philosophize how those values pan out, how decisions are made, how beauty is determined. But we can also delve into those same things using biological and related sciences to understand exactly how such values originate in people. Animals serve as a source of observation that demonstrates to us we are right. Unless you think my dogs recognize the pack by some magical means the only reasonable explanation is the components of values are in the brain. Mystery solved.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

To steal a topic from another discussion: where is the rule that determines exactly when a radioactive atom will decay? I'm not talking about a statistical rate of decay, but a predictor for the exact moment.

The rule doesn't exist. It seems likely that it can't exist unless quantum mechanics is wrong. But science is fine with that (well, Einstein never really liked it, but you can't please everybody ).

The rule does indeed exist. You just don't like the limits of the predictions because of the quantum rules.

But the one thing that we cannot account for, even in principle, is a malicious, omnipotent god.

All gods are irrelevant as long as there is no evidence for them. That's the fundamental asymmetry--you can never prove the nonexistence of a god, but a god could certainly prove its existence if it wished. We're all still waiting, of course. And in the meantime, we'll make some cool things with science.

- Dr. Trintignant

All this last discussion I have addressed in other posts. You can imagine all sorts of scenarios which are outside the realm of the natural world. Being outside the natural world, they are irrelevant.

Why not fantasize about invisible pink unicorns? Why not fantasize about the Matrix? We can trace the origin of god beliefs back and we find the evidence supports they are the product of human imagination. That puts god beliefs on par with invisible pink unicorn beliefs, no evidence for being real, some evidence for being imagination. And as such, not relevant to the evidence based world other than how god beliefs themselves are an issue.

 

[arthwollipot]

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

I completely agree.

I was, at this point, going to leap on a post by ponderingturtle and engage in a long diatribe on the pointlessness of introducing solipsism into an argument, but then I realised that I had far better things to do.