Is Science a belief system?

Great Debates
1

From this thread:

(bolding mine)

Now, I feel like I see on a regular basis the assertation that athiests (or whomever) ‘rely on’ or ‘believe in’ science. I think this is an erroneous and faulty perspective.

If I have water in liquid form, and observe various things about it, and then I heat it up into a gaseous form and observe how its behavior has changed, would a person say, “well, I guess if you believe in science you might think that!”?

If I develop a pully system that enables me to lift objects heavier than I could lift on my own, and am able to design it in order to lift a specifc weight, would a person say, “well, I don’t know. I don’t believe in science, so I don’t think that system will work.”?

Those who claim science is a ‘belief’ (and thus merely another ‘answer’ to life’s questions, just like Christianity, or Scientology) rarely practice what they preach (pardon the pun). The scientific ‘worldview’ is so ingraned into who we are precisely because it is nothing more than an observation-based learning system about the world. Many seem to be fine with science as a tool for almost every aspect of their lives, until it tells them something they don’t want to hear about a belief they held on faith. That is when science becomes not just ‘the way things work,’ but a ‘belief’ that a person has a right to scorn.

Science isn’t belief, it’s a description of the way things work, in a way that helps us understand and predict how things will work in the future. It endeavors to isolate causes and effects (when applicable) so we can know exactly which part of system A is leading to cause B.

Events that ‘contradict science’ (as mentioned in the quote above) do not happen. Things that are as of yet unexplained by scientific means do happen, as well as things that may never be explained, and things that are incrediably unlikely. This does not mean that they ‘contradict’ science, or that science in general is untrustworthy or wrong.

Scientific conclusions can be wrong, but not because they are scientific.

2

But there are beliefs tied up with that…if only the belief that the world follows certain consistant laws, and that it’s possible to understand those laws through observation and experiment.

3

I, too, think science is (a sort of) belief.

You observe that water in liquid ford turn gaseous upon heating: that’s observation. Than, you assume there’s a universal law that dictates that behavior: that’s belief. Formulating that believed law: semantics / symbolism. Using Occam’s razor to choose among competing theories: belief.

Puzzler (a Scientific method believer and follower)

4

Science is a collection of beliefs that are supposed to reflect reality, and a system for confirming them and finding more. When a bit of scientific knowledge is contradicted by the facts, it is changed to reflect those facts, or what you are doing isn’t science anymore. This is opposed to faith based belief systems, which ignore or even deny reality and are only belief systems. So, I’d say that science is technically a belief system, but only in part. Comparing science and an unscientific belief system is like comparing a car and an equal mass of scrap metal, and saying they are the same because they are both metal.

5

Is that really belief?

If cut down a tree, I’ll see it fall. Maybe I do this a few more times. Is it really a belief system if I say, “cutting down a tree leads to it falling towards the ground”?

6

I’m a science-minded Agnostic. But even to me, at higher levels big-s Science can seem just as faith-based as religion.

If a quantum physicist were to explain quarks, gluons, and super-string theory to me, it is as directly evident to me, as observable, and as sensible as priest explaining Genesis. Possibly even less so - most of the priests I’ve met consider Genesis an allegory not directly responsible for explaining the creation of the universe, while I’ve yet to meet a Scientist who considers the Big Bang an allegory.

I generally believe that scientists aren’t simply making things up and are relaying their observations and knowledge to the best of their ability. However, I’m quite sure that medeval peasants believed that their priests weren’t simply making things up, and were relaying their observations and knowledge to the best of their ability. And in both cases, what was being “observed” is something impossible to detect by an average person. Gluons are as invisible and immaterial to me as the soul, and has about as much bearing on my day-to-day life. If I lost either, life would probably suck… but I can’t prove that.

The only real difference is that in science, there is an emphasis on replicable effects, and in theory scientists work to duplicate each others’ work to verify and expand knowledge. But I’m not part of the elite of science that actually does this, so my trust of science is someone taken on… well, faith.

7

The epistemologists tell us, I guess, that it’s a belief that there’s a tree there falling at all. It’s a belief that there’s an objective reality out there with independent minds corroborating your observations of it. The alternative, is, of course, solipsism, which not something one can even begin to test or analyze in any way, it just sits there nagging at you rather uselessly.

8

Reminds me of a definition of faith I saw once, that divided it into three types.

Faith with evidence, which usually isn’t even called faith.

Faith without evidence.

Faith against evidence.

To the extent science relies on faith, it’s the first kind. Science provides evidence of it’s veracity every day; religion does not. The author who made this point referred to the first kind as “The faith of Goddard”. Goddard knew it was possible to reach space with rockets, because the laws of physics said it was possible, and they have an enormous amount of evidence supporting them. Leonardo DiVinci is another good example, he knew that heavier than air flight was possible, despite never succeeding, because the existence of birds proved it was possible.

This is opposed to religion, and other non-fact based belief systems. They deal in the second and thrid varieties of faith, and therefore produce no results. No “miracles”, no evidence, nothing. Like the Asimov quote, science is “the magic that works”. Giving it more credence than a religion makes sense because it works, and the evidence supporting it is so overwhelming and widespread.

9

Well, you could be wrong. If I flip a quarter twenty times and it always comes up heads, do I know that it’s a double-headed coin?

I also feel that there’s a difference in believing in the results of your own experimentation, and the collected body of work as presented to the masses from the scientists on high. The average christian would probably agree with you about the tree, but it’s hard to replicate the Big Bang in your backyard. (Or to collect the evidence for it with simple household items, for that matter.)

10

It’s a methodology, at the very least, one whose result people believe in.

I would wrap of the scientific method, falsifiability, established rules of logic together as a cohesive philsophy of inquiry.

11

Science is a disbelief system. A skepticism system, if you will. As a methodology, it works by suspending belief. Admittedly one can only suspend a few beliefs and test falsifiable hypothetical constructs at a time, but it isn’t designed to enshrine anything, but rather to dethrone.

12

I feel a lot of people look at science as the only answer to everything, that there is no “unknown” or mysterious answer for anything.

Once I was debating on another forum about this and the people there stated “what would we do without science?” and I made a smartass remark along the lines of “I don’t know, find other ways to accept theory as fact?”

So, yes, I think there are folks who do use it as a belief system, sometimes too strongly of one as well.

13

It doesn’t matter; how we use those words is not important, in and of itself. What is your question shorthand for? It looks to me to be something like: “Is science more rational than religion?” or even, “Is science better than religion?”

Hmmm. Or, how about: “Is science the same kind of thing as religion?” If that’s the question, then the answer is: “yes and no.” They’re the same in that they are just two different kinds of epistemologies. They’re different in that one is based on logic and empirecism, while the other is based on faith.

14

Because it works. If I choose science based medicine and you rely on magic, guess who’ll probably live longer ? If I try to cross the Grand Canyon with a helicopter, and you try to teleport across or walk on air with the power of your faith, guess who’ll reach the other side ? Science and it’s offspring technology work; that is why even most of the people who hate it rely on it.

No, we’d wallow in ignorance until the end of time.

15

There is a sort of belief that undergird science. However, there are two reasons that the standard whackjob argument can find no comfort in that.

#1 is that there is no requirement to actually take those axioms as anything more than working principles: practical because they seem to produce results and also because they are axiomatica: i.e. because there really aren’t any other functional alternatives to try anyway
#2 is even more devastating I think. It is simply that the same axioms that undergird science are the ones EVERYONE already relies on when they engage with the physical world in an everyday manner. By treating the world as real and operating predictably, as anyone who is even participating in any discussion must be doing, you have already basically conceeded everything that science requires, and so the argument is over before it begins.

16

Science, to me, is a method of inquiry based on certain assumptions. (Assumptions that Sweet Mercury so aptly set forth.) That the universe behaves according to certain laws, and that those laws can and should be understood. It’s one of the ways to figure out what’s going on in the universe.

17

As others have said, I think it’s accurate to say that science relies on one core belief–that the universe and its constituent parts behave consistently, and that observations made in the past are good predictors of the outcome of future events. This is very much a belief–there is, after all, no assurance that the sun will come up tomorrow or that protons will continue to be positively charged. It’s just how things have always been. But it’s a secure and useful belief, in that the laws of the universe have not apparently switched directions in recorded history. There is little reason to denigrate this belief.

Certainly, science has not answered a number of questions, so in science there are unknowns, and there may always be unknowns. But this does not mean those answers are outside the realm of science, it simply means the tools of science are not refined enough to answer them. The method is, and always will be, entirely sound.

18

That’s really an excellent way of looking at it.

Even the “belief” in laws and regularity are tested all the time. If things happened randomly, if trees did fall up sometimes, that would falsify this underlying assumption. Science can handle this, since at the quantum level things happen in a way that would defy logic at the macro level - but once the right rules were found, the effects could be predicted (statistically) and science marched on.

Let’s not confuse the tentativel belief of an advocate of a theory in that theory with religious belief. Science as a whole clobbers incorrect beliefs like Hoyle’s, even if the scientist dies with it. It’s fine to believe in something before the experiment is done, but not so fine to reject the results because of that belief.

Let’s also not confuse science with science reporting. Everything you need to know to convince you of the Big Bang is out there, freely available - though you have to understand the math to get it. (I don’t). Something is lost between the journal article and the NY Times, it is inevitable, and if you’ve ever dealt with reporters you have to respect how well they do in covering such a wide range of subjects.

But I can’t think of a better answer to the OP than - no, it’s a disbelief system.

19

Au contraire. A good religion is going to take the same approach to belief: that humans are fallible, that no matter how vivid the revelation-experience you have no business speaking to others as if you could not be wrong, that no human or book penned by humans is ever to be worshipped, and that walking around with a too-well-developed sense of certainty is one sure way to make yourself deaf to the voice of the spirit. “Humble” is not about self-abnegation, but about suspending certainty and being willing to listen and learn.

(Yeah, I’m well aware that that’s not how most of them come across)

20

Nope. Not a belief system. It’ a try it and find out system.

As Philip K. Dick says: Reality is what doesn’t go away when you stop believing in it.