Science vs. faith

RandFan said:
This^^^.

The magic of faith is that with it a person can believe just about anything.

Behold the power of faith.

Click to expand...

If your first sentence is true, the converse is also true; i.e., The magic of faithlessness is that with it a person can disbelieve just about anything.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
skyrider44 said:
If your first sentence is true, the converse is also true; i.e., The magic of faithlessness is that with it a person can disbelieve just about anything.
Click to expand...
"The magic of faith is that with it a person can believe just about anything."
This is different how?
 
skyrider44 said:
If your first sentence is true, the converse is also true; i.e., The magic of faithlessness is that with it a person can disbelieve just about anything.
Click to expand...
Thank you! Damn straight! Which is why reasonable people at JREF base our faith on critical thinking, skepticism, reason, and the scientific method coupled with objective evidence.

  • I have faith in gravity because it works again and again.
  • I have faith in modern medicine because it has been shown empirically to work again and again.
I have faith in science because it ISN'T faith based.
Preacher: I have no evidence. You need to have blind faith in what I tell you.
Scientist: Don't take my word for it. Check my methodology. Try to replicate my experiments.

​
 
skyrider44 said:
If your first sentence is true, the converse is also true; i.e., The magic of faithlessness is that with it a person can disbelieve just about anything.
Click to expand...
I would have to disagree with that. Faith is belief in things for which there is no evidence, obviously a limitless field running from carefully considered surmise to the wildest nonsense. Lack of faith is only that: not believing in things for which there is no evidence. It requires and implies nothing else regarding anything else.
 
skyrider44 said:
If your first sentence is true, the converse is also true; i.e., The magic of faithlessness is that with it a person can disbelieve just about anything.
Click to expand...

*cough* inverse *cough*, and, no, it's the contrapositive that is true when the original proposition is true. Neither the converse nor the inverse need be.
 
RandFan said:
Thank you! Damn straight! Which is why reasonable people at JREF base our faith on critical thinking, skepticism, reason, and the scientific method coupled with objective evidence.

  • I have faith in gravity because it works again and again.
  • I have faith in modern medicine because it has been shown empirically to work again and again.
Click to expand...


  • The two items are not congruent. Gravity does, indeed, work "again and again"; modern medicine does not. A diagnosis of pancreatic or ovarian cancer is a veritable death sentence. Moreover, treatment for mental illness remains in the dark ages (ask my close friend who lived with a bi-polar wife for 17 horrific years).

    : I have faith in science because it ISN'T faith based.
    Click to expand...

    Really? Why then do scientists posit hypotheses if they have no faith their theories will be validated?

    Non-believers tend to suppose that humankind--encased in a mortal shell with only five senses--is omniscient, and that science and technology make them all-knowing. Nope.
 
skyrider44 said:
The two items are not congruent. Gravity does, indeed, work "again and again"; modern medicine does not. A diagnosis of pancreatic or ovarian cancer is a veritable death sentence. Moreover, treatment for mental illness remains in the dark ages (ask my close friend who lived with a bi-polar wife for 17 horrific years).
Click to expand...
My words were poorly chosen. Modern medicine is based on the scientific method. We can measure the effectiveness of medicine. Penicilian has a high right of success to kill bacteria, do you disagree?

Really? Why then do scientists posit hypotheses if they have no faith their theories will be validated?
Click to expand...
They have an idea or hunch or it's based on some correlation that has not yet been scientifically proven. The "faith" is based on something that isn't "blind"

Non-believers tend to suppose that humankind--encased in a mortal shell with only five senses--is omniscient, and that science and technology make them all-knowing.
Click to expand...
That's a lie. Science is predicated on the fact that we DON'T know everything. If we did know everything science would be unnecessary.
 
skyrider44 said:
Why then do scientists posit hypotheses if they have no faith their theories will be validated
Click to expand...
BTW: Granting the premise for argument sake, an honest scientists won't claim that their hypothesis is truth based on that faith. That's a huge difference.
 
skyrider44 said:
The two items are not congruent. Gravity does, indeed, work "again and again"; modern medicine does not. A diagnosis of pancreatic or ovarian cancer is a veritable death sentence. Moreover, treatment for mental illness remains in the dark ages (ask my close friend who lived with a bi-polar wife for 17 horrific years).



Really? Why then do scientists posit hypotheses if they have no faith their theories will be validated?

Non-believers tend to suppose that humankind--encased in a mortal shell with only five senses--is omniscient, and that science and technology make them all-knowing. Nope.
Click to expand...
You have a serious misunderstanding of the scientific method. Scientists posit hypotheses based on prior observations, then try to test the accuracy of that hypothesis with new observations. Crucial to the process is to try to disprove the hypothesis! Almost always the initial hypothesis is proven incorrect- this is expected! Then the hypothesis is altered to fit the new observations, and the new hypothesis is tested again. Repeat until the hypothesis fits the observations accurately.

Most scientists have the expectation that their hypotheses will need to be significantly altered, or will be proven completely wrong, after experimentation, rather than "faith" that their hypothesis will be validated. A hypothesis is only a tool to allow prior observations to be brought together and to allow appropriate experiments to be designed. It is not a tenet of faith.

Rather than consider themselves "all knowing," scientists test their knowledge and identify that which is reproducible. This process has allowed people throughout the world to agree on how reality "behaves" and, as a result, to generate technology that has given them longer, healthier, and more productive lives. This is in remarkable contrast to religious beliefs, which have failed to achieve any type of consensus, which have never been proven to cure a disease or warm a house, and which make predictions indistinguishable from random guessing.
 
Last edited:
skyrider44 said:
Moreover, treatment for mental illness remains in the dark ages (ask my close friend who lived with a bi-polar wife for 17 horrific years).
Click to expand...
Can you please summarize the treatment for mental illness which was used in the dark ages and point out its similarities to modern treatment.
 
''Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages the church was a tremendous force in most aspects of people’s lives, and this can been seen in the believed sources of mental illness as well as the treatments.

A popular philosophy during this time, which had become the basic form of psychology was interactionistic dualism, where the body was believed to be governed by the soul (Brown & Menninger, 1940).

It was believed that when someone acted in accordance with the church, it was because of their God-given soul; however, if the did not, it was believed something had happened to their soul. In addition, negative events were attributed to the devil, whereas positive events were attributed to God. As a result of these beliefs it is not surprising any mental abnormality believed to be result of demonic possession was considered logical.

Causes of mental illness included:

Supernatural causes such as demons and demonic possession.
Witchcraft and sorcery.
Mass hysteria.
Melancholy and stress.

Treatments for mental illness included:

Exorcism.
Shaving the pattern of a cross in the head-hair.
Believe that those suffering from mental illness could benefit from hearing mass.
Drinking ice-cold water.

When demonic possession was believed to have occurred, the first option for removing the demon was to coax it out of the possessed person. If this was unsuccessful, the next option would be to insult the demon out. If insulting the demon also failed, the next form of treatment would involve making the possessed individual so uncomfortable that the demon would not want to remain there (Brown & Menninger, 1940). It would be under these circumstances where torturous treatments such as immersion in hot water, and immersion in sulphur fumes would be used.''

http://mentalillness.umwblogs.org/middle-ages/
 
skyrider44 said:
I'm surprised you didn't know that the process of establishing the veracity of the hypothesis requires an act of faith.
Click to expand...
Faith despite evidence or without evidence is nothing like faith in evidence.
But you knew that and it seems you may just be playing word games.
 
skyrider44 said:
I'm surprised you didn't know that the process of establishing the veracity of the hypothesis requires an act of faith.
Click to expand...

Errr.. It does not require an act of faith.

One has a hypothesis based on an idea, and then one performs a series of experiments to see if it is correct, or not. If not, one discards the hypothesis. If correct, then further testing by others may well occur to see f the results can be duplicated.

Where is the 'faith'?
 
RandFan said:
BTW: Granting the premise for argument sake, an honest scientists won't claim that their hypothesis is truth based on that faith. That's a huge difference.
Click to expand...

You assign a position to me not of my making. I haven't said that scientists claim "their hypothesis is truth based on. . .faith." I have said that it takes faith to undertake the often arduous process of validating a hypothesis.
 
skyrider44 said:
You assign a position to me not of my making. I haven't said that scientists claim "their hypothesis is truth based on. . .faith." I have said that it takes faith to undertake the often arduous process of validating a hypothesis.
Click to expand...

The key difference between that kind of faith and religious faith, is that if overwhelming evidence shows the hypothesis to be wrong, a scientist will be praised for abandoning or revising the hypothesis. Maintaining you're right in the face of evidence that you're wrong would be considered silly. In science, the evidence is more important than the faith.

Religious people, by contrast, praise a person for clinging to their faith even in the face of contradictory evidence. In religion, the faith is more important than the evidence.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom