Science is based on faith?

[Torrasque]

Judging from the first 3 posts, what I have to say has already been said, discussed to death, and agreed upon.
I'll still say it though, just to add my voice to that side of the discussion.

Science is built on testing things many many times, while faith is built on human ignorance. It is actually impossible to have faith in something if you know everything there is to know about it. You can't believe in god if you know god exists, it would be like saying, "I believe in cats!". Believing in cats has no weight or significance whatsoever because we know cats exist.

Yes, all of science is only 99.99...% certain, but if you've played any game that uses chance, you know that 99.99% is a pretty good chance of certainty.
Frankly, saying that science is based on faith is really degrading. It mocks all the testing that millions of scientists have done for hundreds of years, and ironically enough, the statement is based on ignorance.

 

[Saxnot]

Following basic logic here you can make a statement that a deity does not exist in the sense that there is no evidence for one and things that have no evidence to support their existence can be assumed to not exist because otherwise an infinite amount of things would exist. (okay based on some scientific theories an infinite amount of things DO exist but this would imply that an infinite amount of things exist everywhere).

Can it be assumed? If you're talking about the fundamental structure of the universe and the place of belief in our understanding of it, you can't really use an argument like this. Just because it seems ridiculous and silly to you that an infinite number of things potentially exist everywhere, does not mean it isn't true.

The existence or nonexistence of god is fundamentally unsolvable. To illustrate: can you think of a situation that would definitely, without any doubt, prove or disprove the existence of god?

No, but it seems to me that you've missed the point.

I don't NEED to do anything to prove or disprove the existence of a god. Things that can't be proven or disproved can be assumed to not exist. What annoys me is that this would be a great time to start talking about how irrational god is as a concept but this thread is about faith and not god so I can't.

What you're doing here is placing the existence of a god in a special category for no rational reason. I can't prove or disprove that there are an infinite amount of marshmallows inside a magic compartment in one of my cells but I don't NEED to.

Because since you can't definitely prove or disprove anything 100% then if you can't claim that things that can't be proven or disproved to exist or more accurately in this case things that have no proof for them and can't be disproven don't exist then you can't can't actually make any kind of definite claim about things in our reality, ever.

However at this point things have gotten sufficiently philosophical that this is just my opinion. If your opinion is that you can't make definite statements about our reality, that's fine, my opinion is that that's absurd. But it's just MY opinion.

My opinion is indeed that, philosophically speaking, we can't make any definite statements about reality. That is a little absurd, certainly, but also very consistent. To say that unfalsifiable things can be assumed not to exist is understandable, but inconsistent in my view.

If you feel that not having any evidence for god is sufficient reason not to actively believe in god i agree with you. I feel the same. But so long as i don't have total knowledge of everything i can't say for sure god does not exist, and therefore i cannot conclude his nonexistence. To say that god definitely does not exist just because i don't know of any evidence for him seems rather strange and presumptious to me.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

The thought I've always had about the axioms we depend on in science is that we don't so much assume that they are true, we just accept that they exist. That is, we aren't assuming that it is correct that a+b=b+a and so forth, but we are defining a set of rules that all the work we do is based on. The idea being that in order for one mathematical equation to have any relevance to any other, they both need to have been based on the same set of rules.

So to my mind the question has always been "does it matter what rules we use, so long as everyone follows the same rules?" Of course the very first problem that comes to mind is "x=x". If "x~=x" it's pretty tough to even communicate a formula in general, but thinking about this I always come to rest on the proof a friend of mine produced for either his BSc or MSc in mathematics (I've forgotten which), "1+1=2". In this proof he exhaustively defined "1" and "2" and depended on "x=x" to prove that "1=1", but couldn't he have simply duplicated his pages of work for the definition of "1" to define, say, "y" and then defined the system as "1+y=2" where "y" has been defined separately from but the same as "1"?

Well, I just can't leave someone's intellectual curiosity unslaked! You're both right and wrong, according to modern philosophy. You're spot on that axioms can be accurately described as agreed-upon set of rules, but the fact is that unless you assume (i.e. have faith) that these rules are true, then no scientific facts or mathematical proofs can be accepted as true. Truth flows directly from the axioms that you use; if these are not taken to be true, then your proof or the results of your research are just supposition. There's no gradient in logic; either it is 100% true, or it is not true.

Probably the most difficult thing to come to terms with as a scientist is the fact that nothing can actually be proven 100%, no matter how obvious it seems to us. This means we have to draw a line at some point where we assume that something is true, without unequivocal proof (i.e. an axiom). In the case of your friend's proof (from what you've said), he still puts faith in an axiom, "x=x", in order to support his proof. If I ask him to prove that x=x, he'd probably respond with an exasperated "are you bloody serious?", but despite the fact x=x seems exceedingly obvious to us, it's still something which we are taking for granted as being true. The equation x=x cannot prove itself: that would make it a tautology (i.e. as meaningless as saying "because I said so").

Any legitimate scientific paper will begin by stating the axioms/assumptions it is based on. This is a kind of short-hand for "we are putting our faith into the following concepts which are accepted as true; if they turn out to be wrong, disregard this paper."

 

[sibrenfetter]

What do you guys think?

As a scientist myself (PhD is nearly in the pocket) I cannot fully agree to the faith statement. The things is this: Faith or religion always states an absolute truth. There is no chance a religion would say "god might exist", they deal in absolutes. Science on the other hand deals in chance. Indeed, one never knows for certain if you have the "full" truth, but you can get closer to it with new insights (yet never attain it). Let me give a personal example: My 5 year research project is about stimulating people to connect to other people online networks. To do this I had a new communication method developed and tested it with people from a massive (160.000+) network. Yet of these people, in the end "only" 850 participated. Based on their results I surmise that for 2 of 3 aspects my tool is an improvement on the sought after network building. Now here's the thing, obviously this was only 2 moments in time with only a limited number of people of the whole population, yet I make quite strong conclusions. I can do this knowing that I choose methodologies taking this into account, but I am ALWAYS aware that my findings might disproven, or very likely refined by future researchers. This is what science is all about and I am fine with that. Now faith, does not work like that. Faith does not work on the principle of proof, but on absolute belief, otherwise it does not work. One cannot say: 'I believe in only one god now, but in the future I'll likely believe in two when a new one is shown to exist as well'.

Now In the beginning I said not fully and here is why: In many scientific fields some statistical measures have gotten a nearly faith like believe in them. Where better and new methodologies are available they are not always used or recognized. And more importantly,statistical proving relies on chance calculations. Normally it is seen as 'proven' when there is the 95% chance that the found results in not due to chance. This 95% rule has a nearly faith like property and needs to improved.

 

[Rednog]

My opinion is indeed that, philosophically speaking, we can't make any definite statements about reality. That is a little absurd, certainly, but also very consistent. To say that unfalsifiable things can be assumed not to exist is understandable, but inconsistent in my view.

If you feel that not having any evidence for god is sufficient reason not to actively believe in god i agree with you. I feel the same. But so long as i don't have total knowledge of everything i can't say for sure god does not exist, and therefore i cannot conclude his nonexistence. To say that god definitely does not exist just because i don't know of any evidence for him seems rather strange and presumptious to me.

Sorry but this is a completely disingenuous argument. It is completely hypocritical to say that you agree that if there is no evidence of something's existence then it doesn't exist, but then you turn around and say well I don't know there might be something out there that proves it so I'll just assume existence until proven other wise. Which you pretty much say is cannot be proven anyways.
That's a complete cop out; unless you can truly say that you believe in every mythological entity (pick and choose from the thousands if not millions) even though there is no evidence and that they "can't be proven to exist or not exist" then you really can't say that about any "god". It is a failure in logic to say that oh well I believe in god because I can't prove otherwise but you can not believe in something like the Jabberwocky even though you can't prove his existence/non existence either.

 

[disgruntledgamer]

you seem to be missing my point.

You seem to have failed to make one.

Again, i wasn't giving my or asking for your opinion about faith. If you are not religious that is your business.

Well I'm giving it anyway Religion poisons everything.

The point i'm trying to make is that attempting to disprove god by quoting parts of the bible that turned put to be factually wrong doesn't discredit it to believers, because their belief is (usually) not based on its factual accuracy, but on it's moral and spiritual value to them.

Well than you failed miserably, because a lot of people do take a literal interpretation of the bible, and the bible is anything but moral.

A holy book is not an encyclopedia. Its value does not lie in factual accuracy, but in spiritual and moral guidance. to say that its incorrect about the earth and the sun is obvious, but doesnt adress the essence of why people believe in it and doesn't adress the existence or nonexistence of god.

Well many people who take the bible literally (and there are a lot of them) would disagree with you on that, and you want an answer of why people believe in their religion, it's because they were brought up with it. If you were born in a Muslim country you would probably be Muslim, If you were born in India you might be Hindu and if you were born in China you'd probably be Buddhist. It's not rocket science to figure out the obvious.

There are over 240 active religion in the world, it's absurd to think they are all correct so they're probably all wrong.

I agree it's off-topic, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting or worthy of discussion.

Yes it does.

You asked me what i would say, i answered what i would say, and you concluded that i would not say what i said. If you didn't want an answer, why did you ask the question?

Well I guess I gave you too much credit, because if some nut came up to most people in the street praising Zeus any rational thinking human being would either ignore, run away or call the cops on him to put him in a rubber room.

Again, i'm sorry you feel that way.

I'm not

You could always try to understand and respond to the point i'm making.

Nooope

After all, critical open-mindedness and a welcoming but sceptical attitude towards new ideas are hallmarks of science.

Nope again science stops being open minded when encounters things that cannot be falsified. Or more specifically it doesn't waste its time.

are not the point of holy books.


Ok. You're not christian. That doesn't really enter into it. I never said religion was good or evil.

I did religion poisons everything.

 

[disgruntledgamer]

Frankly, saying that science is based on faith is really degrading. It mocks all the testing that millions of scientists have done for hundreds of years, and ironically enough, the statement is based on ignorance.

Well said sir, well said.

 

[Deacon Cole]

The most important thing is that faith does not work. If it worked, my nine-year-old niece would still be alive.

 

[rob_simple]

I've never heard a reputable scientist call science infallible. The beauty of science is that we are constantly discovering new things that disprove some theories and confirm others, but science, unlike religion, has no agenda or bias: it only seeks to reveal more about the world we live in.

(In my opinion) faith, as far as religion is concerned, is rooted in fear and control and has nothing to do with science.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

I agree with their summation. As I have said before, the surest proof of maturity and wisdom (to me) comes in the form of an intelligent and experienced mind that, despite any number of years of hard studying and education, accepts the possibility that they still may be wrong. Being secure in your opinion despite understanding this possibility shows an open mind and a wisdom beyond your years.

 

[Eddie the head]

.. *Reads thread*

.. I'm just going to say it now- faith does not have to be related to religion. Faith can be the believes you hold, morals within the world that you've come to agree with. It can be faith in yourself to accomplish anything, faith in your spouse to not cheat on you, faith that America will get out of this horrible economy.. ect.

Most see faith as a religious form, and I don't blame them for faith is only used mostly for worship since I am a Christian, I would know this. However, faith alone is just believing in something, an extent that can be strong even if it has no solid form of proof backing it up yet. Ether way, I should watch a youtube video for some of the comments make me wish this thread was in the religion & politics forum.

Ok I am getting a little tired of saying this but, I'm not angry or anything just a little annoyed. That being said you are right faith dose not just mean religious. That is correct, but you are speaking vary poorly if you chose to use it in this context. Yes faith is not just defined as "religious" but it has a heavy religious connotation to it. That means the the ideas that it invokes are religious.

It is not wrong to say science is based on faith, it is incredibly poor communication though. (not unlike my spelling at times) Look at it this way if I called Gorge Washington a tyrant it's not incorrect, but it didn't convey my point well.

 

[Saxnot]

My opinion is indeed that, philosophically speaking, we can't make any definite statements about reality. That is a little absurd, certainly, but also very consistent. To say that unfalsifiable things can be assumed not to exist is understandable, but inconsistent in my view.

If you feel that not having any evidence for god is sufficient reason not to actively believe in god i agree with you. I feel the same. But so long as i don't have total knowledge of everything i can't say for sure god does not exist, and therefore i cannot conclude his nonexistence. To say that god definitely does not exist just because i don't know of any evidence for him seems rather strange and presumptious to me.

Sorry but this is a completely disingenuous argument. It is completely hypocritical to say that you agree that if there is no evidence of something's existence then it doesn't exist, but then you turn around and say well I don't know there might be something out there that proves it so I'll just assume existence until proven other wise. Which you pretty much say is cannot be proven anyways.
That's a complete cop out; unless you can truly say that you believe in every mythological entity (pick and choose from the thousands if not millions) even though there is no evidence and that they "can't be proven to exist or not exist" then you really can't say that about any "god". It is a failure in logic to say that oh well I believe in god because I can't prove otherwise but you can not believe in something like the Jabberwocky even though you can't prove his existence/non existence either.

Sorry, you misunderstand me. I meant that if there is no proof for, say, unicorns, i don't have any reason to believe unicorns exists. But if it's impossible to positively prove that unicorns certainly do not exist, i cannot say they don't exist either.

Therefore, i must remain uncertain about the existence of unicorns. i don't believe in unicorns, i don't think it's likely they exist, but my position on unicorns is one of uncertainty. I do not assume they exist, but i do not say they don't exist either.

Do unicorns exist? probably not, but logically speaking i must remain unicorn-agnostic.

 

[Joccaren]

Wrong.

You were also going well until you stated evolution as undisputed fact (and gravity for that matter too).

You can never prove a hypotheses, only disprove it. That IS science in a nutshell. Just because the theory of gravity has still held up, doesn't mean tomorrow it will. You may argue this to be "semantics", but this is science 101. In this regard, yes, science can also be "faith" based.

Gravity exists as much as you are alive. You can go into the philosophical side of things and say "But I might not be alive, I might not even exist", but that's bullshit for all intents and purposes within the universe. If you're going to say Gravity or Evolution aren't undisputed fact as to existing - not how they work, that is constantly being worked on, and definitely not a fact - then you will apply that to everything in life. That phone/PC/W.E you're typing that message on might not exist, that message itself might not exist, you might not exist.
There is no hypothesis for these things in every day life, unless you take a philosophical path to it all, which is rather pointless. There is also no hypothesis that gravity exists, or that evolution exists. They exist. Even if only in a few subjects, they do exist - we can see them existing with our own eyes. How they work is not certain, but the fact that they exist is.

 

[Wyes]

I think science requires faith in quite a few unfounded assumptions: That laws are constant, that things really exist, that all things are material, that there is only one reality, that reality necessarily obeys laws, that the Correspondence Theory of Truth is accurate, that things exist without being perceived, and most importantly, that cognitively meaningful representations of reality can accurately be produced through symbols. All of these assumptions are not particularly reasonable to assume for any other reason than that they are necessary, i.e. we have to assume them in order to do anything. So in that way, science is based in a faith fundamentally separate from reason or observation.

But there's nothing wrong with that. The whole debate about this is silly because it assumes that science exists to explore and describe fundamental, ultimate reality instead of just explaining and predicting phenomena. Science is a tool, and it's a tool that is more concerned with pragmatic prediction than any kind of existential or ultimate knowledge. Grand unfounded statements about the essential "nature" of things is the realm of religion, not science, and those who have decided to turn science from a tool that predicts to an oracle that illumines are guilty of Scientism and are essentially religious in their devotion.

So yeah, science takes a first step of essential faith when discussing the axioms that guide it, but that's fine because science is only interested in predicting and explaining mechanisms, not finding out ultimate truth. Even if our general assumption that things really exist is wrong, as long as that assumption helps us predict in accurate ways a phenomenon, then I have no problem with it.

This is spot on. This is the only response this thread needs.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Yes, all of science is only 99.99...% certain, but if you've played any game that uses chance, you know that 99.99% is a pretty good chance of certainty.

Exactly. I don't 'believe' the sun will come up in the morning, I know that the probability of it not coming up in the morning is so small as to be insignificant.

 

[Sigmar ov The Hammer]

I value knowledge, and as such I have faith that science is the greater key to knowledge than any religion or belief.
I wont ignore more spiritual aspects of learning, but I will ignore the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) as I feel they have no worthy contribution to this world and do more harm than good.
I have my own morals and values, all I have faith in is that science is the best way to achieve knowledge that can better humanity and it's wellbeing.

 

[azukar]

It seems like the universe exists.
It seems like I exist.
It also seems like I can make observations about the universe around me that demonstrate some kind of underlying consistency.

Those three assumptions may or may not be true. In the sense that "faith" means "assumption without knowing for certain", then I guess I have faith that they are true. Though, if they're not true, then any other system of belief is pretty meaningless too.

 

[Saxnot]

Again, i wasn't giving my or asking for your opinion about faith. If you are not religious that is your business.

Well I'm giving it anyway Religion poisons everything.

Sometimes. In the middle ages, for example, technological innovation and experimentation was done partly by monks. William of Ockham, for example, was a franciscan monk well-known for his work in philosophy and physics. Afterwards, of course, the church tried to repress technological progress, but it shows that even the church had a time in which it promoted (scientific) knowledge.

The point i'm trying to make is that attempting to disprove god by quoting parts of the bible that turned put to be factually wrong doesn't discredit it to believers, because their belief is (usually) not based on its factual accuracy, but on it's moral and spiritual value to them.

Well than you failed miserably, because a lot of people do take a literal interpretation of the bible, and the bible is anything but moral.

A holy book is not an encyclopedia. Its value does not lie in factual accuracy, but in spiritual and moral guidance. to say that its incorrect about the earth and the sun is obvious, but doesnt adress the essence of why people believe in it and doesn't adress the existence or nonexistence of god.

Well many people who take the bible literally (and there are a lot of them) would disagree with you on that, and you want an answer of why people believe in their religion, it's because they were brought up with it. If you were born in a Muslim country you would probably be Muslim, If you were born in India you might be Hindu and if you were born in China you'd probably be Buddhist. It's not rocket science to figure out the obvious.

There are over 240 active religion in the world, it's absurd to think they are all correct so they're probably all wrong.

We disagree on the amount of people who take the bible literally. But that isn't essential, because it's not the accuracy of what's in the bible that makes it significant. If it was, it would have been chucked out as soon as they got to the wine to water or magic multiplying fish bits. Its significance, again, lies in its moral and spiritual value. You may feel these values are not worthy, but many would disagree with you. To them, the most important part of the bible is the message of love and forgiving that they see in it. To attack the bible on its factual correctness is missing the point of the bible.

As for the country deciding the faith, that is true in many cases, but doesn't really affect the argument. Whether it's the bible, quran, talmud, vedas or mahayana texts, their significance is moral and spiritual, not factual.

I agree it's off-topic, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting or worthy of discussion.

Yes it does.

What, in general? All discussion that go off the topics they started with are no longer interesting or of value?

You asked me what i would say, i answered what i would say, and you concluded that i would not say what i said. If you didn't want an answer, why did you ask the question?

Well I guess I gave you too much credit, because if some nut came up to most people in the street praising Zeus any rational thinking human being would either ignore, run away or call the cops on him to put him in a rubber room.

I disagree. I think most people would probably laugh at him. But that says nothing about the value of what he's saying. Truth is not decided by public opinion.

After all, critical open-mindedness and a welcoming but sceptical attitude towards new ideas are hallmarks of science.

Nope again science stops being open minded when encounters things that cannot be falsified. Or more specifically it doesn't waste its time.

Exactly my point. The significance of non-falsifiable things lies outside the purview of science. In fact, in the falsification theory, anything that cannot be falsified cannot be scientific. That is not by definition a bad thing. Your feelings towards your family cannot be falsified and are not scientific. That doesn't mean they don't exist or are invalid.

[are not the point of holy books.


Ok. You're not christian. That doesn't really enter into it. I never said religion was good or evil.

I did religion poisons everything.

Again, depends on the circumstances.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Following basic logic here you can make a statement that a deity does not exist in the sense that there is no evidence for one and things that have no evidence to support their existence can be assumed to not exist because otherwise an infinite amount of things would exist. (okay based on some scientific theories an infinite amount of things DO exist but this would imply that an infinite amount of things exist everywhere).

Can it be assumed? If you're talking about the fundamental structure of the universe and the place of belief in our understanding of it, you can't really use an argument like this. Just because it seems ridiculous and silly to you that an infinite number of things potentially exist everywhere, does not mean it isn't true.

The existence or nonexistence of god is fundamentally unsolvable. To illustrate: can you think of a situation that would definitely, without any doubt, prove or disprove the existence of god?

No, but it seems to me that you've missed the point.

I don't NEED to do anything to prove or disprove the existence of a god. Things that can't be proven or disproved can be assumed to not exist. What annoys me is that this would be a great time to start talking about how irrational god is as a concept but this thread is about faith and not god so I can't.

What you're doing here is placing the existence of a god in a special category for no rational reason. I can't prove or disprove that there are an infinite amount of marshmallows inside a magic compartment in one of my cells but I don't NEED to.

Because since you can't definitely prove or disprove anything 100% then if you can't claim that things that can't be proven or disproved to exist or more accurately in this case things that have no proof for them and can't be disproven don't exist then you can't can't actually make any kind of definite claim about things in our reality, ever.

However at this point things have gotten sufficiently philosophical that this is just my opinion. If your opinion is that you can't make definite statements about our reality, that's fine, my opinion is that that's absurd. But it's just MY opinion.

To say that god definitely does not exist just because i don't know of any evidence for him seems rather strange and presumptious to me.

I'm not saying definitely, I'm not even saying probably, I'm just making a (in my view) necessary assumption. My assumption could be wrong but it's necessary.

Also you spelled presumptuous wrong.

 

[The_Darkness]

Yes, all of science is only 99.99...% certain, but if you've played any game that uses chance, you know that 99.99% is a pretty good chance of certainty.
Frankly, saying that science is based on faith is really degrading. It mocks all the testing that millions of scientists have done for hundreds of years, and ironically enough, the statement is based on ignorance.

And, speaking as a scientist and as an agnostic, I'd say you've just degraded Science.
Ok, I'll admit that was an exaggeration, but I still think you're wrong.

Science does not require much faith. It does, however, require some. It requires assumptions. It requires incredibly basic assumptions, but they are there nonetheless.

For one of these basic assumptions... "Take it away, Ghost and Niobe!" (You can stop watching when Niobe says "Here we go.")

Thank-you, Ghost.

Basically, Science assumes that what happened in the past can inform the future. This is how we can make predictions. Without it, the entire Scientific Method would fall apart. But we do not know it to be true. We take it on faith. Well-informed faith, based on the fact that it's worked so far but... well... you see the problem. It's always worked in the past and therein lies the assumption.
Therein lies the faith.

You may not like to call it faith, but it fits the definition. Assuming something to be true when it cannot be proven.