It did, but not directly. The God of Abrahamic religions is the God who said “Let there be light” Who created heaven and earth and created Man in His image. If the being in question did not do those things, I hardly think you could call it God.
I can concoct such a scenario. However, that scenario does not rely whatsoever on readers of Doyle’s work believing it to be true. Evidence that he existed must be found outside the influence of Doyle’s writings.
You don’t poll people about whether or not broccoli cures cancer, and call it data supporting the idea that it cures cancer.
Sure, it’s data about what those people believe to be true. Many of those people are intimately involved in the issue, so their thoughts are relevant. Others are subject matter experts, their thoughts are relevant too.
The general contention Feyerabend and, uh, the fella who wrote The Copernican Revolution would make is that science is good because it helps establish veracity and reliability, but that “proper science” isn’t usually operating on the cutting edge of fields, doubly so when we’re talking about breakthroughs and revolutions.
The point being, I think, that science has a problem if it a) is slow to pay attention to the folks who are making those breakthroughs on the periphery and b) doesn’t actually include a mechanism to promote breakthroughs.
There’s a lot of problems with the contention, but there’s some meat there. And Feyerabend, if memory serves, is a fairly entertaining (if aggravating writer).
Not espousing the theory, just a rec of something you might be interested in.
I’m pretty sure that I have a good understanding of all three of those terms. Perhaps you can provide me with a clue of where you think I might be wrong.
(I am assuming that, when you say that we disagree, you think that you are right and that I am wrong.)
What does he propose as a mechanism for promoting breakthroughs? Real breakthroughs get Nobel Prizes and publications. However 99% of supposed breakthroughs turn out to be bunk, so I don’t see a problem with forcing the level of evidence to be very high.
Omitting a single line (that we both know exists) in a summary of a conversation does not require justification. I was recapping the general gist of our back and forth. You claim that my question did not ask about the creation of the universe, when the entire concept of God in the worlds major religions includes his creating the universe.
Your posting style is hard to follow so I’ll admit I’m not sure what it is you believe. But you have said the following:
So you seem to think that science is about believing what scientists tell you. It’s not. Science is about believing things because you don’t have to rely on what other people tell you. Scientists never ask you to trust what they’re saying. They’ll tell you “Here’s what happened. And here’s how you can verify that it happened.”
Scientific evidence is not the same thing as legal evidence or historical evidence. In a legal or historical situation you may be making decisions about who is a credible source.
You don’t do that in scientific situations. You don’t believe scientific evidence because you find the scientist trustworthy. You only believe scientific evidence because it’s provable by experiment.
And that’s what the scientific method means. It means you have to prove what you saying is true every step of the way.
So you’re saying it’s just a matter of faith? That I could flip your statement around and say: “Higher criticism and comparative religion are irrelevant to most people’s acceptance of biblical accuracy. They don’t know what it is and they don’t care. What they know is that a priest is saying that the stories are true (and creation occurred). And it sort of makes sense. Okay, sounds good.”
But the fundamental difference is that whether or not most believers in evolution know about, care about, or understand the scientific method, the scientific method is still there, and the mountain of evidence accumulated so far is still observable, measurable, testable, repeatable, etc.
Prove? No, of course not. Provide data for, and in support of? Yes it does. Perhaps only a tiny fragment, but it is still data.
Unlike God? :dubious:
Here I am admitting that if I have “faith” in anything it is in the scientific method, and your response is to point out that it’s not physical or touchable, and not everyone agrees on its exact definition… which would make it just like something that lots of other people have faith in.
The difference of course being that the outputs of the scientific method are physical, touchable, pointable, etc… unlike the outputs of religious faith.
It’s an interesting conversation, and if I didn’t want to be put on the spot I should stay out of GD.
I’d say there is something very different between a proposition which can be justified and supported to whatever level one feels they want to go to, and a proposition where the trail of justification stops at belief. (And quite early, also.) There is also falsification. Even creationists have a vague sense of this, since they often say stuff like “evolution can’t be true because a cat never turned into a dog.” Very vague.
I’d say that trust and belief as you use them are two markers on a range of provisional acceptance of something. The reason that there actually isn’t any faith in science is that scientists should be ready to reject a proposition they hold once evidence against it is found.
While on one hand you might have someone who knowledge of evolution comes from a trip to the museum and looking at the poster of the fish coming out of the water. His belief has to be very provisional. On the other hand, you have the expert. His belief is not 100%. He probably hasn’t read all the journal articles in anything except a tiny specialty. He provisionally accepts their conclusions until something comes up against them. Even when you review a paper, you are provisionally accepting the conclusions, since you don’t redo the experiments yourself. You look for weaknesses, and contradictions, but it might still be wrong.
So anyone can move from very provisional acceptance to less provisional acceptance, and there is nothing fundamentally different between the pure amateur and the expert. Not true in religion, where faith is actually fundamental.
Well, first, I don’t like general principles that include the word “you” or “your”. Are you talking about your beliefs, or mine, or anyone’s? How about “a belief”?
Second, who is accepting or rejecting the basis for justifying that belief? Is it you, me, or someone else?
Within the context of this thread, do you have a particular belief that you would like me to examine?
Not sure why you are pointing out “the fundamental difference” between science and religious beliefs. I don’t have any religious beliefs and I accept the findings of science. I have studied and examined quite a bit of science (for a layman). There are people who know a lot more than I do and there are many people who know next to nothing about science. Some of them have religious beliefs and some of them don’t. In this thread, I am pointing out that those who know next to nothing about science and who still accept evolution are doing so on what is equivalent to religious faith. I’m not saying that’s how I view science. I’m not saying that’s the way it should be. I’m just saying that’s the way it is for many people.
In any case, why is the amount (the mountain) of evidence relevant? Does more mean better? There are more theists than atheists. What does that mean? There’s a ton of religious literature and many, many accounts of god-experiences. Okay, the evidence that supports science is “observable, measurable, testable, repeatable”. Why is that better than the evidence for religious beliefs? That’s a question of philosophy (of epistemology and aesthetics) and perhaps even psychology and sociology. For me, the arguments in favor of religious beliefs are not convincing because of the starting point: the existence of the supernatural.
Ah, you mean like pyramids, temples, cathedrals and churches.
FWIW, if you haven’t already done so, I suggest you explore the problem of the demarcation of science. Not as clear-cut as some people think it is.
I think that there are at least three ways of viewing what science is:
A knowledge-gathering approach grounded in naturalism and empricism.
An activity: It’s what scientists do.
The body of knowledge that is compiled from what scientists do.
In addition, there’s the naive, idealistic view of science based on what various people say it should be, but, in practice rarely is.
And, there are the views based on ignorance that range from “Science is a bunch of made-up crap that has nothing to do with anything in my life” to a reverence bordering on worship.
The first sentence in the quote above is a bit difficult to parse. Key problem is the word “because”, and the fact that you are *telling *me that I don’t have to rely on what other people *tell *me. Perhaps you can clarify what you mean. As for the rest, you are making some strong claims about what scientists do and don’t do. Seems to me that you are merely expressing your opinion. Fine, I won’t ask you to provide support for your opinion.
Okay, but how is that related to anything I said about science?
You’re right – I don’t. But some people do.
I’m sure that you are very knowledgeable about science and about scientists. But, don’t you see the irony of your post? All you’ve provided is your opinion, with nothing to support it. No evidence, no proof, just your post as your cite. Was that your intent?
Any good scientist will say that science isn’t about presenting facts. It is about presenting the best explanation for the evidence as it is shown. However, I think this is hedging the real question here.
It appears the instigator of this thread is under the assumption that non-believers (in God) are as such because they believe in evolution. But there are plenty of reasons to not believe (or believe) in God (or a god).
I accept the evidence and arguments supporting the theory of evolution. To imagine a world in which evolution is proven as junk science is difficult for me. But to give it the old college try, if evidence were to be presented and posited in such a way that the best explanation of the evidence was anti-evolutionary, I would still not believe in God (or a god). Evolution isn’t the only great mystery of the world that some people choose to attribute to God while others attempt to explain it scientifically.
If evolution is proven non-existent, the only thing that will have happened is… evolution is proven non-existent. This does not prove the existence of a god.
You quoted my post to Apollyon in which I asked a number of exploratory questions that were meant to go deeper than the usual platitudes about the wonders of the scientific method.
The one thing that is clear here is that you don’t understand my posts. But, rather than ask for clarification, you find it easier to criticize me.
How about responding to my reply to your post?
BTW, what have you studied about the philosophy of science? Did you do the usual Popper/Kuhn/Polanyi thing? And then you followed up with Lakatos and Feyerabend? Or are you strictly a “practical” scientist?
Even if not only creationism was a cast-iron, 100% non bullshit fact, AND the creator was also proven to be the Abrahamic god, that would still not explain why He, in His infinite Wisdom, saw fit to create necrotizing fasciitis.
I don’t think anyone here is saying that religious beliefs don’t exist. We are saying that just because a billion people believe some crazy shit, that doesn’t make it evidence.
In other words, don’t believe everything you think.
