Are many dopers against religion?

Great Debates
141

You are missing the point. Completely. Repeatedly.

The scientific method is a particular way of applying logic, just as a lion is a particular type of cat. It does not follow that the mere use of logic is the same as applying science.

You yourself asked,

It’s because the two are not the same thing. The scientific method is an application of logic, just as a lion is a type of cat. However, the application of logic is not the scientific method itself, just as a cat is not a type of lion.

Can you say, with confidence, that A=B implies that B=A? Or that “A implies B” does NOT automatically mean that “B implies A”? If so, then you have already discerned something about the universe WITHOUT resorting to the scientific method!

142

Excellent job. Additionally, I’d like to point out that this investigation must indeed be thorough. Priceguy’s experiment, apart from being fictitious and non-scientific, is far from thorough. It only sought to compare religion and science, and only in one specific field of knowledge – the ability to make cool technological toys.

Indeed, as both g8rguy and I pointed out, this fictitious experiment does not even address the issue at hand – namely, whether science is the only way to gain knowledge. So to keep citing the results of this non-existent, non-scientific experiment is truly an exercise in folly.

143

Obviously.

No. I’ve never said that I’ve proved a negative; in fact I’ve said that such a thing is impossible. I do however feel fully justified in saying that B doesn’t exist until a shred of evidence appears to say that it does.

And your claim is what, that it isn’t? In that case you should be able to name another way, shouldn’t you?

The difference being that the concept of “right” and “wrong” is entirely fictitious and created by humans. Not that this discussion has much to do with the thread anymore.

Incorrect. It didn’t specifically seek to compare religion and science. In fact, I look at the world and see no results produced by any nonscientific method. Ever. Also, Newton’s Laws, evolution and relativity aren’t technological toys by any stretch of the imagination.

My point, JThunder, though I despair of you ever grasping it, is that no matter how you twist it, we’ve already seen what science can do, and what every other method can do, which is nothing.

The problem seems to be that you believe that the scientific method is everything there is to science, and that science didn’t exist prior to the formal formulation of the scientific method. The scientific method, as I have explained, is merely the best way to do science. It’s a set of rules. That is it. It’s a marvellous set of rules that has done immensely much good for mankind, but it’s still just a set of rules.

Once again: Either tell me a nonscientific method that has proved able to gain results/facts/truth/knowledge/enlightenment, or acknowledge that we have no reason to believe one exists. Note that logic, no matter what you believe, is not nonscientific but in fact a very important part of science.

144

** That isn’t quite what I meant. “Truth” is that which accurately describes or represents the world, and the world is what can be observed (even if we can’t observe it at this present time).

A more accurate statement of the idea might be that truth is an accurate description of those things that interact with us.

** I’d like them to at least offer their alternate definitions so I could offer my opinions on them. So far, I’ve only heard people say “that’s not what truth is!”

** Um, not quite.

Truth is that which accurately describes or represents the world.

A statement is true (or not-true) no matter how it is reached. But for something to be known to be true, it must be derived from observations of the world. I might get a true answer to a yes-or-no question by asking a Magic 8-ball, but the available evidence indicates that the responses of said 8-balls bear no relationship to the truth.

Now, we can demonstrate that there are things which cannot be true: specifically, concepts. This knowing is within the bounds of science; the things we’re knowing about are not. In short, science can and does show us where its boundaries are.

Not really. There’s a difference between correct and true. Admittedly, we’re splitting a very fine semantic hair, here.

Allow me to rephrase myself: definitions can be valid or invalid. No invalid things can be true, but valid things are not necessarily true. (Actually, I’m not even completely sure of the last part. If we’re considering the Ultimate Nature of Reality, everything valid in it would be true. But that’s a whole 'nother ballgame.)

145

And my response is that this is a claim that, scientifically, you cannot make. You are perfectly justified in saying that your experiments do not support the existence of B. You are perfectly justified in saying that there isn’t a shred of evidence that B exists. You are perfectly justified in saying that all available information leads you to believe that B does not exist. Grand, and I agree to this point.

What you’re not justified in saying, I would argue, is that B does not exist, period. Because there’s always the chance you missed something. There’s always another experiment. We may quite happily believe that B does not exist; we do not know that B does not exist, and we hence cannot make the claim that it does not.

Deductive reasoning/mathematical proof. Intuition. Divine revelation. I’ve more faith in the first than in the second, and I don’t believe in the last at all, but so what?

Because you see, whether I can name another way or not isn’t relevant to the question of whether science is or is not the only way; it may be the only way that person X can think of, but that’s a limitation of person X. It’s really getting back to what JThunder was going on (and on, and on… :p) about earlier: a scientist fundamentally cannot make the claim that no other means of gaining knowledge exist. He can make the claim that he can think of no other means of gaining knowledge, he can make the claim that none of the other means he’s tested seem to have worked, he can make the claim that he does not think that there are other ways of gaining knowledge.

And the minute he steps beyond this and moves from the realm of scientific explanation to a claim of having reached proof and truth (which would be what he’d have to do when he says that there are definitely no other ways of gaining knowledge), he’s overstepped the bounds of what his science has told him and stated an opinion as fact.

It has, I admit, wandered rather far afield, so if you’d prefer, I won’t insist on discussing it further.

Logic, like mathematics, is a tool science uses, but neither are a subcategory of science[sup]1[/sup]. Science is, at heart, inductive.

Moving along to TVAA now… I’ll buy that we can verify the consequences of certain logical principles, which is a form of science. I’m not sure I buy that this makes logic a subset of science, but rather something which science can examine, to a point. Does that make sense?

So let me put down some definitions, and see where we get with those. Anyone is welcome to point out where I’ve said something fundamentally stupid (and I think I probably have, in fact).

Truth: The first clause of TVAA’s first definition is pretty close, as far as I’m concerned, except that we ought to substitute “perfectly” for accurately. I’m leary of extending it further than that. I actually like the word “correct,” but TVAA, at least, finds a distinction[sup]2[/sup].

Knowledge: We say that we know a thing to be true when we have ruled out all possibility of it being false, and we have done so without the possibility of having been mistaken.

Belief: Weaker than knowledge, we believe something to be true when we have little or no reason to do otherwise. That is, if something is definitely true, we have knowledge. If it is probably true, then we have belief.

Given this set of definitions, I actually reach the conclusion that science never delivers knowledge; I’ve managed to conflate knowledge and proof, which was not the intent. I feel that they’re akin, and that my definition of belief is okay, but I’m not entirely happy here.

[sup]1[/sup]With a nod to TVAA, who may end up convincing me otherwise.
[sup]2[/sup]Out of sheer curiousity, what distinction do you see? I don’t want to have a debate on this, because it’s rather farther afield than I’m prepared to go, but I am curious.

146

** I suppose it makes a difference whether you’re a person who thinks that mathematics is a science or not. I think it can be.

** Eh, good enough.

I’m not sure I like this definition, merely because I think we’d then be forced to conclude that knowledge was not possible. Of course, we could just use a different word to refer to the things we know… but that seems rather unnecessary.

** Nah, this isn’t good enough. It requires that belief be contingent on probability, and plenty of the people who believe things don’t have the slightest grasp of probability.

Yeah, that’s a problem.

A logical conclusion may be correct, but not right or “true”. Truth depends on reality, while correctness has more to do with drawing conclusions from necessarily limited data.

In fields where “absolute” knowledge is possible, such as mathematics, correctness and truth are identical. In most cases, though, correctness is a weaker concept.

Here’s an example: you’re shown two boxes, one of which contains $50 and the other of which is empty. You’re told (truthfully) that Box A has a 60% chance of having the money, and Box B has a 40% chance. You choose Box A, which is empty.

Your guess, that “Box A has the money”, isn’t true, but it was the correct guess to make.

147

One presumes it’s fairly obvious that I take a somewhat different view, essentially equivalent to my above statement about logic: that mathematics makes predictions which can be examined for truth, that it is in invaluable tool for scientific purposes, but that it transcends science to an extent in that not everything which you can get at mathematically lends itself to observational testing.

Re: truth vs correctness. I see what you’re getting at, then. Thanks for clearing that up. :slight_smile:

148

Ah, but that’s the rub: how can you “do” mathematics without having a system to observe?

149

I would think a lot of scientists and mathematicians do that every day, really. We spend lots of time going on about complex numbers and contour integrations and bizarre ways of representing numbers and whether it’s possible to find closed forms for certain expressions and whatnot. A lot of these are the sort of thing you can’t find answers for observationally, right?

Instead, we start with a set of definitions and postulates (and here observation probably has a role) and start working our way up. We deduce the consequences of our postulates, and while some of those consequences can be tested observationally, some of them surely can’t. How do I test observationally that [symbol]p[/symbol] is transcendental, for example?

150

So every time a child is going to find out that there is no Santa, the parent has to say “We haven’t managed, through properly controlled scientific experiments, to produce conclusive evidence that Santa exists”?

151

** Not at all. How do you think we solve problems using those numbers? We observe the behavior of systems designed to represent them.

** Yes, but how do we work our way up? How do we evaluate mathematical statements?

Easy. Find the proof that [symbol]p[/symbol] is transcendental, allow your brain to evaluate it, and observe its output.

152

That’s about the size of it, if you want to be (a) a strict scientist and (b) intellectually honest. Mind you, I’d phrase it differentlyl I’d say, rather, that we have no evidence whatseover that Santa exists, that his existence would require all sorts of things that we don’t believe are possible, and that we hence have no reason to believe he exists. But we haven’t proven his nonexistence. Science doesn’t provide proof of anything, after all.

Now, I’m perfectly happy to say that Santa does not exist, that he’s a figment purely of human imagination, etc. And all this means is that I do not adhere strictly to science. Since you’ve seemed to argue that this isn’t something one can do, you don’t have the same luxuries that I do, even if it makes you more consistent.

But how does one go about doing this? It’s easy, for example, to observe the behavior of a system designed to represent addition; not so easy to observe the behavior of a system designed to represent taking square roots, and I’m not sure one can design a system at all to test whether the square root of 2 is irrational.

I guess I’m not understanding your point with some of this; let’s say I’ve come up with a deductive proof that [symbol]p[/symbol] is transcendental. How do I “allow my brain to evaluate it, and observe its output?”

153

** Sure you can – just build one that follows the rules of symbolic logic.

Mathematical arguments consist of a series of statements that, when evaluated according to certain rules, lead to conclusions.

154

I think you are all missing a big difference between mathematics (and logic) and science. Both proceed from a set of assumptions and axioms. Science is continually checking its assumptions against observations of the world. Theorems in mathematics do not check their assumptions, but proceed from them For example, both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry are correct. Which one of these matches reality is totally irrelevant when viewed in terms of pure mathematics. (It matters when applied in physics, of course.)

A disembodied brain, cut off from the rest of the universe, could, in principle, come up with all of mathematics. Now if you want to say this brain observes the output of its thought processes that’s fine, but I submit this is different in kind from the type of observation of the world we do in science.

155

Voyager, just for what it’s worth, on this point, I do agree with you; it’s what I mean when I say that science is inductive and mathematics is deductive. TVAA does have a point that we can test certain mathematical conclusions by observation, but I think we probably diverge from there.

TVAA, I’m still not getting. So let’s say that I’ve managed to evaluate the series of statements that lead me to conclude that sqrt(2) is irrational. What do I do next? I would argue that I stop; given my assumptions and definitions, I’m done. Do you disagree?

156

Well, given our current knowledge and a bit of extrapolation, the brain would probably die. More precisely: the mind would die, as it wouldn’t have access to data.

I’m not at all sure.

157

So basically we agree on everything but semantics. Great. That’s a shitload of typing I’ll never get back. Have a good life, everyone.