Science and Faith

Great Debates
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I would also like to emphasize and expand upon a previous post:

Religion historically was a broader endevor than science. It encompasses:
-the desire to provide explanatory power;
-the need to provide a values base for a society’s codes of conduct;
-group membership;
-and individual spirituality.

In the secular world science has proven to have superior explanatory power about the observable and falsifiable. And shared secular values are providing an alternative values base to theocracy. Religion is now, for much of the world, relegated to matters of spirituality and of group membership. As an aside, I believe that it is this dual encroachment by the secular world upon two of the legs of religion that threatens fundamentalists of all stripes so much.

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I would also like to emphasize and expand upon a previous post:

Religion historically was a broader endevor than science. It encompasses:
-the desire to provide explanatory power;
-the need to provide a values base for a society’s codes of conduct;
-group membership;
-and individual spirituality.

In the secular world science has proven to have superior explanatory power about the observable and falsifiable. And shared secular values are providing an alternative values base to theocracy. Religion is now, for much of the world, relegated to matters of spirituality and of group membership. As an aside, I believe that it is this dual encroachment by the secular world upon two of the legs of religion that threatens fundamentalists of all stripes so much.

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DSeid, I don’t know about you, but I would imagine that much of what you mention in your last post also can be applied to science.

JS Princeton, I am not sure I understand how a corner petstore is a “philosophy of life”. A Weltanshauung? I think it is fair to say that religion is just that: a philosophy of life. I think that that is a very good definition.

Nato is not a worldview. Science, I would say, is a worldview. Or do you consider scientific comments on cosmogony, epistemology, and existence to not be part of a worldview? Or perhaps you are thinking science doesn’t do these things?

It isn’t belittling to compare religion and science. At least, unless you already belittle religion.[ul][li]Science offers a worldview[]Science declares the method in which you may judge this worldview[]Science sets the method in which you may add to this worldviewScience determines what can and cannot be said with this worldview[/ul]Which is to say, science is a worldview, I would imagine any worldview would have these properties.[/li]
DSeid:Science is about providing answers that fit the observed as best as possible.
[/quote]
You keep saying that. Is that an empirical claim?

I find that speculative at best with respect to science, and highly uncharacteristic of anything but extremists’ views of their religion.

I would not say that Aquinas, for example, sought to increase the number of axioms taken on faith without sufficient investigation. Are you saying he isn’t a true scotsman?

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It’s not so much that it fails to meet the criteria so much as it expands upon it.

In Voudun for instance the worshipers achieve a trance state and communicate with the others as a god or goddess. The experience is very real and palpable to the worshipers. To those of us foreign to the culture we speculate about what is “really” going on. But since the events are largely internal to the worshipers, it’s based upon logical deductions from our mental framework rather than strict observation. The worshipers very clearly see a person behave like someone other than themselves and take on the attributes that are associated with that god/goddess. The worshiper that is possessed has no memory of the events as if someone else had truly taken over their body. There is often a practical purpose to the rituals, advice and blessings are given in exchange for offerings. The religion is not about enforcing faith, but about getting things done in their world.
To a Voudun practioner, faith doesn’t make any sense to them. They interact with their gods all the time. They don’t actively “believe” in their gods any more than we “believe” in our family members.

As far as being “unfalsifiable”, to the uninitiated, science might as well be falsifiable (who’s actually seen those atom thingies anyway?). So if you want to judge the falsehood of Voudun, I don’t think it’s valid unless you become initiated and experience possession. Or perhaps you could try to fake a possession to see if they don’t catch on. To my knowledge no observer has managed to do this.

I don’t believe in Voudun, but I think the practioner’s reality is just as palpable as my own. I simply have a different explanation for the same events.

Buddhism can be very philosophical, and there are disagreements among the schools and some have been more influence by the local religions, but Buddhism can not properly be called a philosophy. Buddhism has very specific forms of practice that are derived from and reinforce the aforementioned axioms. Philosophy by itself, is seperate from praxis and is not derived from it.
Is it a religion? If it isn’t, the next best term for it would be a science.

I think that a religion generally includes a cosmology and a way for people to live together and experience meaning in their lives.
Rather than attach faith to it, I would say that the explanations are intuitive and generally metaphorical. Some explanations require an extreme amount of faith, especially if the religion is based on a book written a long time ago and won’t be added to or changed. But I don’t think that’s a prerequisite for religion.
If science were a religion, it would be a deformed bastard religion incapable of providing anything outside of a cosmology. Perhaps one day it will grow as kabloomie points out. But as I see it today, it’s a disservice to science and religion to equate the two.

I agree with everything except the last sentence. I’m really not sure what these shared secular values are, other than leftovers from religious values.

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That’s just the point, erislover, it’s not. Neither is science. Science in and of itself does not tell one how life should be lived any more than the corner petstore in and of itself does. They both have members that offer advice based on experience derived directly from their particular expertise, but they are simply speaking from their contextualized experiences. If you think that people who offer advice from their specialized experiences are necessarily promoting a worldview that should be attributed to the speciality itself, then you have to include all the ad absurdium examples I gave as possible religions. If not, then you have to explain what science specifically is doing that promotes a specific worldview. You off-handedly mention scientific comments on cosmogony, epistemology, and existence. Don’t you think folks in NATO offer us commentary on some of these items as well? Perhaps you think the content of the comments is different. Then how, praytell, are they different?

I am arguing that equating science and religion puts science in a box that it doesn’t fit into. Regardless of whether the speculation that goes on about origins, epistemology, and existence by scientists is useful, it in and of itself is not science, it is philosophy. If you want to argue that materialistic or many-worlds or anthropic philosophy is a religion then you may have a point, but that is manifestly NOT science.

Science is simply a way to systematize organization of observations. A pet store simply a way to purchase an companion animal.

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Doesn’t it? Or are you only thinkig of the specific branches of science which help you make this point? “Surely science is a particular thing!” Answer: “You are thiking of particular things that fall under science.”

Psychology. Sociology. Economics. Game Theory. Mathematics. Particle physics. Astrophysics. Politics. Reproduction. Birth. Death. Origins of the universe. These are all investigated scientifically, and they all come to their conclusions scientifically. They are empirical investigations carried out under a blanket of a scientific worldview.

I have heard it said, “Science is a method, nothing more.” This person is thinking of a scientific method. Science is no more a method than Catholicism is praying. Science has an outlook, and from this outlook it performs investigations. Science is a container for a way of looking at reality, it is a worldview.

You say science is not normative, “Science in and of itself does not tell one how life should be lived any more than the corner petstore in and of itself does.” “Religion” doesn’t tell people how life should be lived, either. It is a blanket term for a worldview based on dieties in its most common form, and perhaps even more generally it is a blanket term for worlviews based on authorities (in most cases where the authority is a deity though this needn’t be the case).

This religion tells us this. This science tells us this. Christianity tells us we should love our neighbors. Market economic thoery tells us we should vary the price of an object based on its scarcity and demand. Or does it say that price will mystically change according to scarcity and demand? Neuroscience tells us how we see. You care to distinguish that from Christianity, and I would not disagree. I am saying that the foundation of science is no more and no less certain than the foundation for religion.

Why is that? Christianity is a religion, astrophysics is a science. I think there is a distinction there. I do not think the distinction is one that is so clear as many would like it to be.

If, for example, there existed a religion which asserted that we can never fundamentally know about reality (and, of course, there is at least one), how could we distinguish a scientist which practiced this religion from one that did not? Or how could we distinguish the assertions of a follower of this religion from the assertions of a scientist (whether or not the scientist practiced this religion)?

I am saying: you are making a distinction between science and religion, but what is this distinction? Science has underlying axioms which it uses and cannot test. What seperates this from religious axioms? From a philosophical set of axioms? “Science is not religion.” I would tend to agree, which is why we have two different words for them. But I would tend to disagree, as well, depending on the perspective. If the perspective is one of underlying assumptions which are taken as true without proof then I think it is fair to say that they are on the same level here. If you are thinking of the perspective of the kind of things they assert, then they seem to be somewhat different. If you are thinking of the perspective of how either influences behavior, then they approach again in subtle ways.

I don’t wish to discredit science or promote religion (if you think I am doing so), but rather I wish to say that the distinction between axiomatic science and faith-based religion is not clear no matter how bright of a light we shine on them, nor how powerful our metaphoric microscope.

Science is Microsoft Excel? Who knew! :wink:

Let me ask you a non-religious, scientific question. Do atoms exist? And another. If you and I are competing farmers who have more work to get done in two days than either of us can do alone, but which both of us could accomplish together, do we help one another to get the work done? (and, given the answer to this, “Why that answer?”) All three of these questions have been and continue to be investigated by science. Am I to understand that science says nothing about its own investigations?

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erislover… First of all, there are people who treat science as a religion. This I will agree to. I do not think science necessarily corresponds to all religious attributes. At its heart, science makes no such demands upon the souls of those who practice it.

You seem to be conflating the imperative with the descriptive. I have to say that the working definition I had of science was indeed the scientific method. Any other definition of science leaves me puzzled. The scientific community itself is not “science”. Members of the community are not representatives of “science”. Talking about science this way makes people believe that “science” is some sort of mysterious enterprise or secret society. It’s not surprising then that science would be compared to a religion in this POV, or for that matter, a cult!

Again science doesn’t tell us to do anything. People (who may or may not be scientists) tell us to do things. Maybe you would like to say that religion doesn’t tell us to do anything either. Except that the raw components of a recognized organized religion are built around the categorical imperative. There is no SHOULD in science, only statistics, probabilities, and induction. Market theory of economics does not tell us how we SHOULD run our business. People interpret results from it to make perscriptive and proscriptive claims, but the science itself is completely neutral. Do what you will, and record the results. It’s not an imperative.

Ontologically there is nothing different from one axiom and another. That’s what makes things axiomatic. However, axioms are ubiquitous. You can’t say that religion and science are related solely because they have postulated certain things as true and work from there. Anything you care to believe is based upon some unprovable axioms. If you are trying to say that science and religion have similarities then they must be separable from other things that do not share them. Since everything has axioms, then you are basically saying everything is religion. That’s why appealing to first cause axioms won’t do the trick; you’ve ended up compelling me to again bring up the pet shop. I leave it to the reader to determine some of the unproven axioms of pet shoppery.

How so? Where do the distinctions get muddled? Be specific!

This is absolutely right, without the “Microsoft”. Science can be adequately described as a spreadsheet and operations on said spreadsheet.

That’s right. Science is completely dispassionate. Scientists, on the other hand, are human beings who live in the world and will try to convince others that they can predict the future. They may be right most of the time (again, we can use science to determine how often they are right compared to, say, Miss Cleo), but there is nothing in science that compells you to believe them. Science itself does not have the teeth you wish to give it. It can list evidence for the existence of atoms until you lay down and die, but it will never answer the noumena question for certain. The best science can do is put a big “IF you accept these axioms…” in front of what it does and build from there. It doesn’t tell you that you must accept it, and you can investigate the pardigmatic ifs as much as you desire, but don’t be surprised if nothing comes from it. That it is ultimately more productive to work in science accepting the fundamental axioms does not make science a religion. It makes science just like any other thing in the world that has axioms!

The competing famers question is not answered by science. I can give you what has happened in the past, but that does not mean you have to do what has always been done in the past. It’s the old, “is grass green or grue?” question. You will never be able to answer this question using science.

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Neither does religion. Specific instances of religion demand things from me. Much like chemistry demands certain things from me; for example, that I accept, say, that when I write a value down on a piece of paper that the value I have written corresponds to what I intended it to. Or that stars exist and their composition can be determined from looking at the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum they emit. Or that there is such a thing as the electromagnetic force.

In fact, let us take this specific example of an ice slurry of water heated until it boils by subjecting it to a constant flame from a Bunsen burner. During this process, we take measurements of the temperature. What is this experiment assuming? What are the assumptions telling me to do? Are they telling me how to measure temperature? Are they telling me what a thermometer reading is? While I perform this experiment (several times) to conform to the scientific method (say, to confirm the hypothesis that this thermometer says water boils at 100 degrees), am I also testing my memory with the scientific method? My ability to read my own handwriting? My mastery of writing arabic-style numbers? Let us say the experiment is over. And let us also say that no experiment or set of experiments can prove anything. What have I just done? have I confirmed my hypothesis that I can write numbers, or that water boils at 100 degrees centrigrade? Or that water boils at 100 degrees centrigrade as measured by this thermometer?

etc

Think of all the experiments you can, and then from that attempt to isolate the set of assumptions that form the foundation of all of them.

I don’t mind equating scientific behavior with the scientific method, but it must be seen and remembered that any particular application of the scientific method carries with it a slew of assumptions which are not in question for the experiment. These assumptions dictate the form the experiment will take. They prescribe behavior.

Hah! If only it were that simple. For remember, science never proved that water always boils when the mercury level in this thermometer reaches the “100” mark (whatever that means). But when we go to test the “boiling point” of, say, sugar-saturated water, we aren’t also testing what saturation is, whether sugar-water exists even after we’ve put the sugar in, and so on, and so forth.

Which is to say, if science never proves anything, then science uses an endless number of axioms which correspond to all the previous experiments necessary to apply the scientific method in this particular instance.

…
I am highly critical of the claim that science never proves anything, as you might have noticed :wink:

Do you understand why the following statement of yours is false?

Now, you say, “If you are trying to say that science and religion have similarities then they must be separable from other things that do not share them. Since everything has axioms, then you are basically saying everything is religion.” Well, not really. I am saying that if we characterize religion as a worldview based on axioms, then science is most assuredly is a religion (which is what I explicitly said in my first post on page one). I would not characterize religion like that, so I don’t feel particularly troubled here. :slight_smile: I would characterize religion, in the most general case possible, as an appeal to an authority for the framing of a worldview. The authority would be a diety (if it weren’t, I’d call it a philosophy, personally), the authority appealed to makes statements such that their truth is not in question. Perhaps specific applications of the response is in question, and so on, but in the general case, the authority stands as having the final say on these matters which correspond to how the follower views reality.

I am astounded at the bold seperation of science from scientists. I trust that is not an emprical claim? Or could we scientifically investigate the behavior of scientists performing specific classes of experiments?

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Erislover, almost every specific point that you make in your argument that science demands certain things is utterly true, but together they do not add up the conclusion that science has demanded anything at all! The very fact you can play the game of what the hell am I doing when I’m taking a measurement, reading a journal, etc is a testament to the fact that inquiry remains at the basis of scientific investigation. In fact, your points seem to add up to exactly the opposite position from the one I think you’re arguing for. Every piece of equipment, every measuring device, every writing utensil, every record-keeping project is up for scrutiny because science doesn’t take anything for granted. Yes, science is completely axiomatic; I never said it wasn’t. More importantly, however, it is exploratory.

To put it another way, we can play the Hume game and try to decide what an observation REALLY is, but then you are arguing against the very proof you seem to think that science provides. I give up, how are you being consistent? Which do you believe, that science is built upon the shoulders of those who have gone before or that science is based upon blindly accepting rules?

When you say,

I believe you are absolutely right. But then you turn around and tell me that my statement that there are no SHOULDs in science is false. I’m mystified.

I had to laugh at this one because I just got through in participating in such a study.

SO enough of this mindless chatter… here’s what I see to be the meat of the matter: either you believe that science appeals to some “authority” beyond itself or you don’t. You seem to think that science does appeal to something. I disagree because everything is up for grabs and one can investigate any authority that one wants to appeal to until the cows come home. You and I both agree that science is not a religion. I think that science can be treated as a religion just as other things in our society (football, pet shops) are treated as religions. You seem to think that there is something inherent in science that makes its axioms religious-like (appeal to authority?) more than other institutions. Okay, the ball is in your court. What is this inherent something? How does is it imperative? What is it that science and religion have in common that is not common to pet shops?

::enough with the pet shops already!::

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Science is its own athourity. It does not say, “Believe God,” it says “Believe me.”

Which religion says you SHOULD do something? There are certainly those which say, “You should do this so you won’t burn in hell.” But science clearly says “You should not jump off the cliff so you won’t die.” What’s the difference?

Science is not just a collection of observations. Science also predicts. Believing the predictions is what makes science a religion.

If you do not believe any of the predictions or conclusions of science, it is no more a religion than math. I didn’t say math was a religion, though, did I?

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Let us say that I am weighing out some arbitrary compound for use in an analysis. I turn on my balance, place whatever I am going to put my compound in on the balance, set it to zero, and weight it out. The balance reads, “0.0045 g” I write down “0.0045 g”. I pick up the (say) test tube and bring it over to my instrument. I set the test tube in the instrument in the prescribed manner, perform any set-up that is necessary, and let the instrument do its thing. The software/firmware/readout of this instrument tells me the result is “10.6 µg/mL”. I write down “10.6 µg/mL” in a notebook.

What experiment have I just done? Should I say that I have not done an experiment, but rather a near-infinte amount of them? Was I really testing whether my balance worked? What would distinguish the above behavior from an experiment where I didn’t test the balance?

I doubt that! does the chemist test his spatula before weighing out the compound to ensure that it holds a compound? Do we test that the reaction vessel is 99.9% pure glass? Is this really 0.5M HCl we ordered from Fisher or VWR or whoever? Is my ruler accurate to within 0.1mm?

It isn’t a matter of saying that the balance is beyond questioning, period, I would never say that. But it is the case that that it is beyod questioning when I am weighing out the compound for an experiment. It isn’t a matter saying that we can doubt the readout of the balance. Hell, I can doubt that my name (on this message board) is erislover, but that doesn’t make every well-thought-out and previewed post a test of that.

So science never proves anything and isn’t prescriptive. How can we determine when it is that we may use the balance to weigh out compound? How can we pass this step in the (seemingly infinite) number of experiments? What method of judgement is used when we observe the behavior of our instruments and say, “Well, this molecule is simply unstable in an oxygen atmosphere.” Is there no sense in which that is a scientific observation?

Both! In fact, I would say that characterizes all empirical investigations, whether using the scientific method or not.

Is there an improper way to calculate results? Is there an improper way to record data? You liked my spreadsheet example, but did you notice that there is more to data than writing it down? Who tells you how to record your data like this? I cannot seperate science from scientists here. Perhaps that is our difference. Without scientists, there is no science.

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kabloomie… Science makes predictions but the veracity of those predictions is left up to the reader to determine. Science does not say “Don’t jump off the cliff!” Science could care less whether you drop off the cliff or not. There is evidence for what happens when people fall off cliffs and measurements of the results of these things that have happened in the past. You have failed in your attempt to prove that science is proscriptive. A certain take on Christianity holds that “you should do this or you will burn in hell.” I STILL maintain science doesn’t say, “should”.

erislover, it seems to me that you haven’t worked in research. The best researchers actually do test all of their equipment: spatulas, glassware, and all. In fact, the testing of the measuring equipment is arguably MORE important than the measurements themselves. The companies that provide measuring equipment are an open book and will lay out exactly how they prepared the things they did and what the uncertainties are for each of the products. This information is absolutely crucial for the research scientist. To use your example, the balance is NEVER BEYOND QUESTION. It has associated with it MEASURED UNCERTAINTY. This is built into experimentation for the very concerns you raise. How do we know the uncertainties are correct? We don’t, all we can do is duplicate them.

Of course, there’s a lot of trust that occurs within the scientific community. I trust that you are following the scientific method and aren’t fabricating your uncertainties, etc. Scientists BY THEIR VERY NATURE are a skeptical bunch. If something seems amiss, they don’t hesitate to go test for themselves whether it really is amiss or not. Everyone is attempting to poke holes in the procedure and tools that are used. In effect erislover, In science, ONE ACTUALLY DOES test all the things you seem to think that are not tested. That’s a huge part of what makes science science!

As to how we come to any conclusions at all, you have already answered it yourself. We are clear what our uncertainties are and say what the result is that is built upon the axioms and variables of our set-up. Conclusions are merely concise ways of stating rules about observations. They are built up by induction. They are subject to scrutiny and error. That is science. Saying a molecule is simply unstable in an oxygen atmosphere without saying how unstable the molecule is is simply speculation or generalization (depending on when on the timeline for collecting evidence the statement is made, and assuming it is valid). Even saying that a measurement gives me 10.6 µg/mL. Without the uncertainties, you aren’t dealing with science.

If you think empirical investigation is characterized by blindly accepting rules, then you have a weird definition for empirical. It seems you are caught up in an epistemological game along the lines of, “yes, but how do I REALLY know?” The whole point of the matter is YOU DON’T!!! But you don’t know anything better in any other area of life either. So, singling out science and saying it holds to axiomatic expressions that are similar to religion but dissimilar to, say, pet shops, is as absurd as the number of times I’ve mentioned pet shops in this thread. You must be some sort of relativist (isn’t everyone these days?), but on the other hand you want to say that science is somehow more relative than other endeavors in the world… or at least it’s exactly as relative as religion and there are things in this world that aren’t as relative as those two institutions. I’m sorry, I don’t see how you can support this.

There is no separating science from scientist, true. But there is a huge difference between what a scientist RECOMMENDS and what a scientist REPORTS.

Here’s what, in my mind, are the two things we have: Science is based on axioms… so is everything else in the world. Science is neither prescriptive nor proscriptive (although people can use it to make judgements), some religion contains within it the categorical imperative thus it is proscriptive or perscriptive in some forms.

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I failed to adequately answer the following:

When scientists speak of things such as propriety and beauty they are appealing to something other than science. There’s nothing wrong with that, as that’s arguably what keeps scientists from becoming so dull that they are shot on sight. When it gets right down to it, there is no “wrong way” to calculate results. There is no “incorrect interpretation”. Everything is up for grabs until someone pokes a hole into the result. This is the way science operates. People have egos and finite amounts of time to do work, so they like to avoid having to go through this every time they make observations. This is a consequence of the human side of the scientific endeavor and not a consequence of science itself. Just like inspiration and speculation lead us to interesting observations we wouldn’t have thought to make: appealing to a “proper way” to conduct yourself within the scientific community is a way to simply short circuit the laborious process of falsification for every crackpot that wants to prove that they have discovered free energy. To be perfectly honest, scientists should take every observation at face value and run with it until they find the flaw (that is defined by an observation that stands in contradiction to another observation… which stands on an axiom of equivalency, which maybe you’re interested in debating but as you didn’t pick up on the grass is grue comment, I’m assuming you’re not interested in this end of things). So the proscriptive nature of calculating and measuring is a kind of intellectual short hand and is NOT science.

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And I presume that by “philosophy”, you here mean the first dictionary definition “the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.”? And agree that “rational” means “in accord with reason”?
Sorry, but that just doesn’t suffice as a defintion. Religion is defined as a rational investigation of being, knowledge, or conduct specifically in regards to life? Sounds more like a good defintion of the biological sciences. Try again, and try to come up with one that won’t encompass any and all forms of obtaining knowledge … unless you do mean to say that any means of knowledge acquisition is a religion and that such is the prime purpose of religion. 'Cause the rest of this is silly until we know what we mean by the terms that we use.

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perspective, in response to

said

Allow me to expand.
Leftovers, yes, but significant in that the meal is over. Before laws became justified on the basis of shared secular values, religions were integral to governance. The religion provided the justification for the laws and often the religious leadership had at least as much power as the “official” governing bodies. The Christian Church from the Holy Roman Empire through at least the 17th century is just one good example of how religious values directly controlled governance. The adoption of a secular value system, common values no matter what the religion or creed, epitomized in the early United States, diminished the hegemony of the concepts of theocracy. Since then that concept of governance being justified not by religious edict, but by shared secular values (although clearly based off of the leftovers from the Christian Church, now endorsed by most, including self-avowed atheists) has spread. And theocracy has retreated … some would say that terrorism from fundamentalist Muslims is more in reaction to the secular world’s values encroachment on the Islamic theocratic sphere of influence, than it is to any specific political agenda.

erl Science is only after the first of that list - explanatory power. Individuals will use science according to their values, but it does not provide the basis of secular value systems … as discussed above, those are leftovers from religions. Science isn’t a major part of group membership/identity any more than any other job is. It has nothing to do with individual spirtuality.

As to science’s attempting to create models that ever more accurately and comprehensively fit the observed … I would offer that as the best posible definition of science. (Rather than an empirical finding.)

Interesting that you bring up Aquinas. I see him as a role model for understanding that religion and science are two different things. He saw that reason and faith were autonomous but complementary realms. He foreshadowed the rise of secularism. According to Aquinas, knowledge for Man must come through the senses, and understanding the world with reason is how we come to know God … indirectly. Was Scholasticism a religion? Or was it an influence upon a religion which softened the path for secularism to arise? In any case, Aquinas was a good Catholic who accepted the creeds without question, without doubt, with an absolute faith.

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Dseid, I don’t wish to imply that any philosophy of life is a religion, first of all. The implication was not meant to go in both directions. But that does betray a certain bias in your thinking. Could you have made such a mistake if you were investigating this scientifically? Second of all, “Religion is defined as a rational investigation of being, knowledge, or conduct specifically in regards to life? Sounds more like a good defintion of the biological sciences.” I see. I think you are characterizing most religious people as irrational when you say that, and given the presence of people like Libertarian or Polycarp, or Jodi, or anyone else here I may be missing, do you really feel that this is the case?. Do you intend to do that? Is it so impossible to say that someone might have reasons to believe in God just like they have reasons to think microwaves heat their food?

And let me say: it isn’t that can’t doubt that microwaves behavior in such a manner. But it is that I don’t doubt it.

I am even more dumbfounded. We invesitage the very nature of reality with science, and then turn around and say that it doesn’t tell us anything?

What is more accurate? That is a standard of judging. Where does this standard come from?

JS, I do not understand the juxtapositioning of these sentences:

Clearly, poking a hole betrays an incorrect interpretation.

I work in a research lab. We build instruments with which to do research. And let me say, of course we test our HCl to ensure its molarity (and, of course, it is never exactly a 0.5000 molar solution). But after the test is over, we go on. We do not test it again just te be sure we haven’t made an error on the previous test.

Let us suppose we were wong to do that, and we should test it five times. What more assurance has that given us? And would a sixth add any assurance to that? We don’t get by the “test our theory of hydrochloric acid” by asserting that we don’t really know whether this is a liquid at room temperature. So how do we?

Yes, of course. I trust that this textbook and my chemistry professor wasn’t lying to me, though of course I can never be sure, and of course I can never be sure I really took a chemistry class. I can merely duplicate my memories, right? Or duplicate tests?

“I had plans to investigate the solubility of this compound using a linear regression from different cosolvent ratios. But of course, my name might not even be erislover, and it is entirely possible that I never received a degree in chemistry.” ; “Very well, erislover, go ahead and do that. Be sure to check your knowledge of multiplication tables before you do so.” [note: for demonstration purposes only, I am not a chemist]

What is to be tested by what? Clearly tests come to an end, for we take the compound off our balance and proceed to some other area.

“No, no, that isn’t how you weigh out compound.” Are you sure, or is it only very likely?

I have a theory of what science is. Is this theory descriptive or prescriptive? Am I only very sure that what you are doing is science and what the free energy crackpot does is not?

Let science be critical of itself. Nothing is beyond questioning, is it not? Then let us investigate the certainty of 12X12=144 versus the certainty of “water is non-toxic to humans in single, eight-ounce doses.” These both fall under the eye of science. Can I trust one more than the other?

Let us hypothesize that I am going to do science, except for the fact that I would say I know this balance is accurate to two decimal places if asked. Nevertheless, the procedure is the same. Were you and I to carry out the steps simultaneously, we would accord. Have I done science?

Short hand for what? This is what I fail to see. Don’t you see that the short hand is what is used in science!? It is acceptable in a scientific investigation to read formatted data in this manner. But this manner is not science? Then let us remove the short hand. Let us remove the arabic numerals, the orientation of data. Can we still do science?

I said before that the distinction that is science is not clear, and you asked me to explain that precisely. But don’t you see what sort of question that is? Prescriptive! Not only that, but it goes against the very assertion. If I say the water is murky, and you were to ask, “where is it murky exactly?” what could I do but point at the water? What can I do but point at science?

I am saying: if you remove all the prescriptive elements that correspond to a complete investigation into some phenomenon (which isn’t to say the investigation is absolute, but rather that it is simply done—at this moment we are no longer testing such-and-such) then you remove the science. It is no longer there to be found.

“This is how we do science. But that isn’t prescriptive, it is descriptive. This is the very definition of science!” Very well. Let me pull out the Principia Discordia and respond: “This is how man lives his life. That isn’t prescriptive, that is descriptive. This is the very definition of being a man!” You shake your head, they aren’t the same.

No, they aren’t the same, because they deal with different subjects. But neither is this leaf the same as that leaf: they are on different trees. Nevertheless, we may find similarities between them.

77

Erislover,

It is shorthand for falsification. Standardization is a means for communication. It is not science. It is something that allows science to go smoothly. If we simply abandon it then we will waste all of our time translating between one person’s observations and another.

All the trees in the forest share similarities. However, I contend that the sum total of human institutions are in that forest. Again, the shared similarities between science and religion are the same similarities that religion can have with almost any institution you care to name.

12x12=144 is not a scientific statement. There is no induction that goes on in concluding that arithmetic fact. It need not be tested. Your second statement is scientific. It requires evidence and is falsifiable. We need to compare apples to apples.

It is only very likely. That’s what uncertainty is all about. Science speaks in either probabilities or statistics. Making the jump between scientific theory and practical theory is accomplished only because it was successful in the past. This is the same with all of science. If it worked before, it must work now (provided everything is the same). It is axiomatic of science and indeed almost every institution in the world.

The judgement call is not science. If you wanted to, you could spend all day testing and measuring with your balance. That is just as much science as moving on to another area.

Your use of “right” and “wrong” is not science. It is purely a judgement call that comes out of trying to have less uncertainty. You can measure how uncertain you are to determine whether you should remeasure the molarity. No one says you HAVE to decrease your uncertainty. However, larger uncertainty means that falsification becomes more common. Also, the theory of ambient temperatures is researched quite a bit. Thermodynamic equilibrium with the surrounding environment is not an open and shut case. As I’ve been trying to illustrate, NOTHING in science is.

Nope. Merely inconsistency. It requires further tests to determine which interpretation is correct. If you have two sets of data that are different, and one is duplicated and the other isn’t, then you’re beginning the process of falsification. Uncertainty is one way of measuring the likelihood for this to occur.

78

Caught myself! “Correct” in this case is a measured theory that adequately encompasses all previous measurements without being falsified. Falsification, of course, is a whole other subject. Karl Popper wasn’t completely correct, IMHO, but that’s philosophy, not science.

79

Ahem… whose common values? The common values of Judeo-Christian Europeans perhaps.
What if someone decides they have to beat their puppy to death with a 2X4 in order to exorcise demons? What if someone wants to have their 12 year old daughter “circumcised” against her will? Which is more important individual freedom or the greater good? Should the state execute prisoners? Is it ok to be gay?

The answers to many of these questions often lie in your cultural background even when the religion is gone. Furthermore, even in a common culture there’s plenty of disagreement.

True we don’t have theocracy, yet many still want “under god” to be in the pledge in the US. Strip away culture, which is still influenced by religion, and your left only with commerce and governmental considerations which are largely practical.

Ethically speaking, secularity has no common interest that is universal, though perhaps a few common enemies. Any shared values are a historical accident, unrelated to secularity.

Name some shared secular values so that I can know what your talking about.

80

Oh, but don’t you see, I believe we are comparing apples to apples here, and at the heart of the discussion is this very certainty of which you speak.

For don’t I perform mathematical calculations? You say, “You not only very sure that 12 times twelve is 144, you can rely on it.” So I don’t need to double-check calculations? Couldn’t I be mistaken? “Oh, I seem to have scribbled a 2 here instead of a 1 [in front of the 44]!” Or, “Oh, I seem to have added instead of multiplied!”

If I am certain of this, why would I ever check calculations? Couldn’t my mathematical ability be in doubt the same way our theory of radiation is in doubt?

And let me say: to me, the possibility of doubt is the same. And yet I calculate, and I get up from the balance and proceed with the experiment.

“I know 12 times 12 is 144. If I don’t know that, then I don’t know anything.” Or, “I know that as well as I know anything.” Mathematics is an operation, a procedure. We have prescribed methods of calculation.

To me, it is what allows science to go at all. Without it, we cannot do science.

But I don’t want to, I want to go measure some property of a molecule. How can I get there from here? If the step consisting of, “Get up from balance after measuring” is not science, then how am I scientifically measuring the property of the molecule?

Of course they do! Who would accept this statement as a scientific finding: “Well, it is very likely that this compound had weight to it, and that it has some properties.” Could I get a pHD in physics for a one-sentence thesis that gravity probably exists?

They say the devil is in the details. I do not wish to be socratic and strip away all “inessentials” of science to lay to proposition bare. But I do not wish to do this because I do not think it can be done. I do not wish to do this because I would not assert it if asked. I would assert, “There is no statement of the form ‘Science is…’ which is true from within a logical construct of some kind, apart from the tautology that ‘Science is science’.” But I do not say this because I feel science never proves anything.

The marks on the ruler are arbitrary, they could have been closer together or farther apart, they could have been randomly placed, but it must be possible for me to confirm this ruler in some context before I may proceed. It isn’t that I can’t doubt the ruler, of course I can, as surely as I can doubt that my name is […] and that I live in […] and so on to any number of empirical propositions. But that, when I am—shall we say—playing this game, performing this experiment, the ruler is no longer in question. Just like 12X12=144 is no longer in question, though it is entirely possible I have miscounted somewhere, or learned the rule for calcuation wrong, or something of the kind.

“I can’t be wrong here!” Couldn’t you? Then why can’t you be right there? “I could be, but I would never know.” I would say: I do not recognize what ‘know’ means in that statement.

To be sure there are degrees of certainty. I am not certain I can measure the mass of this compound accurate to seven decimal places. And of course it could have absorbed some water from the air. And should I be in a nitrogen atmosphere it is only very likely that it is pure nitrogen, something else could have slipped in (my suit is not completely airtight and so some of my breath may have escaped, for example). All these things are possible.

It is as if you want me to accept discrete chunks of science. Here I am performing science, there I make a judgement call, here I do science again. If this is the case, I do want to be socratic and isolate what science is by removing the chaff.

Let us suppose you want to test whether a microwave will heat water. And further, let us suppose that I know microwaves heat water, but I want to see how much. Do we not perform the exact same actions? We place the cup in, set the timer, remove the cup, measure the temperature. If science says nothing is proved, then I have not done science. What have I done?

And what makes this theory any less powerful than the theory of mathematics? What if Leibniz made a mistake in his formation of the calculus. “But of course we have checked the calcuations.” And isn’t that an empirical investigation? Yet you are sure that 12X12 = 144, and not that microwaves heat water.

What has proved the former? Why is proof impossible in the latter?