Is Science a belief system?

Great Debates
61

the scientific method is based on observable, empirical and measurable evidence. scientists take this evidence, use the laws of reasoning, and formulate a theory that can predict and explain to a certain level of accuracy, alot of what happens if a regular guy were to take more observations.

if for a long time no scientist comes up with a contradicting piece of evidence then the theory becomes a law of science.

the problem surfaces when such evidence is revealed, which goes to show that a theory cannot be proven right only proven wrong, this i believe should have been mentioned early. a theory cannot be invulnerable unless the sample size is infinitely large, but that itself is impossible isnt it?

if something cannot be the correct for all situations it is supposed to encompass then it cannot be accepted as the all-encompassing truth, in which case any acceptance of it as such is tantamount to faith (or ‘belief’, being the popular word of the day).

newton mechanics was the set of laws that governed all motion until einstein came along with his famous six-syllable equation.

scientists can do calculations to show that E=mc² is valid, but it does not show that einstein was right, only that newton was wrong.

has einstein found the truth? the response to that question must always include the words “I believe…”.

62

Yeah, didn’t think so.

63

Reread your own blatherings, Puzzler.

Post #57 has you going on about science not always being earth shattering as though that’s what I asserted.

I’ve already covered your “moving target/definition switching” stunt with regards to your response to Trisk.

Sorry I couldn’t get back to you earlier. On occasion, I do leave the computer. But any further response from me to you will only be in the BBQ Pit as that’s the only proper place for it.

64

Have you bothered reading them?

You can dodge and evade, but at least be honest.
Here’s your original comment:

Yeah. Like every scientific experiment / paper is being repeated by “huge number of scientists”, even “beyond the death of those who perpetrated the fraud." When you refer to something that way, you imply great importance.
Have you ever, in your life, actually read a scientific publication? Not report of scientific discoveries in the popular press, not popular science – actual scientific publication, at the original?

Not in the least.

Sure, run away.
See ‘ya.

65

Perhaps I missed it, but reading through the hubbub of this thread I don’t see anything Puzzler said that’s irrational or disagreeable.

66

Sorry for the delay in responding - I was away. No dispute with the above at all - except to not that laws (different, statistical ones) were found for QM. My example is that any hypothesized law would be found not to work. This would indeed be an extreme demonstration. I don’t know how the stars and our bodies would continue to work in this case, so perhaps the point is a bit moot. Our very presence is a demonstration that there are some laws - perhaps this is a weird variation of the anthropic principle.

“Religious people” cover a lot of ground. I don’t think the Reform Rabbi is less religious than the fundamentalist preacher, but he thinks like your first set of principles.

Ah. There is a working assumption that paper writers don’t lie - much. I agree with your next post. I believe Feynman mentioned that some value (e?) was incorrectly calculated by some famous scientist, and published values thereafter slowly drifted away from the wrong but accepted value towards the correct one.

Monty, Puzzler is quite correct. One very prestigous journal in my area is considered “write-only”. It’s circulation is quite small, papers published there count a lot for tenure, but hardly anyone reads them. It’s gotten worse since I got my PhD. Mistakes or fraud about things no one cares about can stay in the literature for years without anyone knowing. A friend of mine ran into this while doing his PhD in Physics. Unluckily for him, finding that an accepted result was wrong wasn’t good enough for a PhD, and he had to go in a different direction.
Anything significant gets lots of attention right away, but you can’t count what you read about in the NY Times as representative of the output of the scientific community.

The “famous scientist” dilemma is controversial. Some conferences have blind reviewing, to try to correct for this perceived bias, but the same people still get published. I think famous scientists can get away with a bit more, but from my experience program chairing and journal editing (where I see lots of papers and even more reviews) famous scientists and engineers are famous because they do better work. It isn’t that hard to break in if you are good - but lots of people who complain that their paper isn’t accepted because they aren’t famous really don’t write that well.

67

First, it’s my turn to apologize for the long delay (and for reviving the half-dead). I’ve been doing some home improvements, and the work had piled up in the meanwhile.

badchad, thank you.

Voyager, thanks as well, especially for restoring my faith in the SDMB. I became to expect high emotions in certain subjects, but when a discussion in a relatively neutral subject such as this one turn to personal allegations (and by non less than a member of the SDSAB!), I began to wonder if this is the right place for me. I’m glad to see rational debate prevail.

Regarding blind reviewing, I must ask you: in my area, I am capable in many cases guessing who the author is, even without looking, at least for the frequent contributors. If not by the writing style, the reference list will reveal their identity. Isn’t it the same in your area?

I suppose I should retract my statement regarding “religious people”. A better phrase would have been “bible-literalist”. But I think my basic argument holds.

Anyway, since the subject of religion keeps popping up, I’d like to toss an idea that I’ve been thinking about at the time this discussion took place – just in case anyone still reads this. I must say this is a half-baked idea, so it might be full of logical fallacies. In this case, I’d like to hear them.

Consider this new religion I have invented (there is one God, and Puzzler is His prophet :wink: ). It is a very young religion, and not much like other religions. For example, the followers of this religion believe in a single holy scripture, which is very short. This “bible” is quoted in full hereinafter.

[Chapter 1]
[1] At the beginning, God created reality as we know it. [2] And God saw that reality was not too bad. [3] So He decided to keep it. [4] At the second time frame, God was tired of keeping reality functioning. [5] And God said “Let there be universal laws to govern the behavior of reality”. [6] And there were universal laws. [7] And God saw that the universal laws work, so He decided to keep them. [8] On the third time frame, God spoke to every intelligent being, anytime, anywhere. [9] And this is what He said.

[Chapter 2]
[1] I am God your Lord, who had created reality as you know it. [2] Know that I have created universal laws to govern reality, and these laws are good. [3] Go forth and find these laws, for that is my will. [4] And by doing my will, great things will come to you. [5] Not to mention some pretty nifty technologies. [6] Oh, and try not to be Jerks, and be nice to each other. [7] But that is not a law, just an advice. [8] That is all.
*

Here are my questions:

  1. Do you consider it a religion?
  2. If yes, can you distinguish current scientists from followers of this new religion by actions alone?
68

Thanks for the nice words. I think I can figure out who the author is, since there are only a limited number of people doing work in a niche area. I’ve never tested myself, and though an advocate for blind reviewing claimed that people guess correctly less often than they think they do, I’ve never seen any real studies.
One problem with a blind reviewing system is that for it to work an author cannot summarize past work. (Or else their identity becomes obvious. My area tends to discourage papers with very minor advances over previously published work, so reviewers tend to reject similar papers without a specific statement by the authors about what is innovative.

Many papers by “famous” authors get reviewed by “famous” reviewers, who are not likely to be impressed. I’ve seen plenty of papers by famous authors get rejected, and have even been yelled at by some of them. The conference I’m involved with has an audience feedback system, and many famous authors come out very high in reviews and in audience feedback, so we have a metric to check to see if we’re accepting junk. Those who don’t work in areas of low interest to lots of attendees (but high interest to a significant subset) which is another matter.

Your question is interesting, but I’ve got a conference to run next week and don’t have the spare brain cells to consider the question of what constitutes a religion.

69

Even if that is a religion and that you cannot distinguish scientists from followers of that religion, I think Science is still not a belief. Scientists can be “agnostic” to the existence of consistency and merely assume it as a practical necessity. Followers of that religion actually believe that the universal laws exist.