People place trust in science because it is a logical system for explaining why things happen. People want to know why things happen and science explains it. It's that simple. Are the scientific conclusions we draw sometimes inaccurate? Yes. But no good scientist will can ignore real evidence. If evidence is brought against a certain theory, it is no longer useful. Therefore there is no "leap of faith" required to understand science. There is a leap of faith required to believe in something that cannot be proven to exist.
Jason, you must have been tired when you wrote this. You're saying people are bad? All people, people in general, what exactly do you mean when you imply that people are "bad?" People do develop science, but I do not agree with your statement that "people are bad" and I certainly do not agree with the statement that "people are bad and people develop science, so science must be bad." That is just completely outrageous.
Are you serious? A fire mountain? You got me on that one. Science definitely does not come from a fire mountain. I can't help laughing out loud on that one.
First, I don't really see how science comes through death. And if you mean that politics dictate where money is spent in science, you are partially correct. Much of modern science does require very expensive research, and one of the only organizations that has large amounts of money to spend is the gov't. So they do get to decide where they want to put their money. There are also plenty of private funds spent on the development of science, but I don't have to tell you that. We live in an age where one must be able to take a politicians word for what it's worth. It is a politician's job to make every one like him. How can he do that if he only has one opinion on every topic? So the obvious answer is that a politician is going to tell you what you want to hear until he has to actually do something, in which case there is a fair chance you could be SOL. Do I like it? No. Is that the way our society works? Yes.
I hope not. I try to make my decisions based on the most accurate information available. That is all I can hope to do.
We are finding ourselves to be wrong less and less as time passes. By following the methods of science, we can only continue to grow our base of knowledge. We cannot go backwards. As long as we have intelligent scientists who are doing intelligent research, we will always be heading in the right direction. We will continue to rule out mistakes we have made, and thus continue to understand more and more about how the world around us works. We are fallible and we don't know everything. As long as we realize that we are wrong sometimes(and I think most of us do) and we are not hesitant to change out POV if proof is brought against it, there will be no problems.
So you will never respect science until humans become perfect? Do you have no appreciation for what science has allowed us to do? That I just cannot understand.
You're right. Science is not immune to flaws. As long as scientists realize that, there should be no problems. Science should still be an institution that allows humans to become better in every respect.

 

Im taking an introductory History course right now covering pre-history... Its really interesting to see all the early religions and how they developed over time. Its also interesting to see stories pass from one culture to another in various itterations over time too... I could be more specific, but I would probably **** off every religous person here (theres this girl who sits in front of me who is obviously die-hard christian who shakes her head everytime the teacher discusses relations between Gilgamesh, the Enuma Elish, and other ancient cultures and Christianity, its hilarious!)

 

Steppin,

Sigh, why can't I seem to make this distinction clear. Please read this all the way through before you start thinking of responses. Just to see if you get the whole flow.

You say: " People place trust in science because it is a logical system for explaining why things happen. People want to know why things happen and science explains it. It's that simple."

But science doesn't do that, as a blanket statement. I see, you do capitualte that it can be wrong. But what about the decades or centuries or millenia that people are basing their lives on supposed facts that actually aren't facts because science was wrong, or some one was greedy and used scientific knowledge to their own advantage or someone was jealous and their ego led to the surpression of one invention so as to not overshadow their own. Such things have and do happen in science, many, many times.

You are not trusting in raw knowledge. You are trusting in the people who disseminate knowledge. Scientists are modern priests (and stock market analysts for that matter ). If you want to KNOW then do all the science for yourself. But if you don't you are trusting human beings. And yes, all human beings are "bad". I did not mean that they lack good. But all of us have been affected by jealousy or greed or anger to exact revenge or pain in some way on someone else. No one is immune to that, including scientists.

Science is not as an empirical method for knowledge as you seem to believe. Yes, the method in theory is great. But it doesn't work that way. I work at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In the past 12 months we have had two cases of scientists falsifying data and conclusions and releasing erroneous info to the public as well as tons of things that were thought right to be found wrong. There you have it, examples of pride and falibility directing your knowledge of science.

The very science you are served is very, very subjective as to the scientist studying, the scientists personality, and the current state of human knowledge from which the scientist draws his or her own conclusions.

This is what make it unreliable. This is what makes it therefore not so trustworthy. This is what makes me wonder why people give a blanket "I trust in science". Sounds like blind faith.

jason

p.s. Contrapostive (I think , although maybe in this case contranegative hehehe): If people were perfect in ability and love and had unlimited knowledge of the basic building blocks of all sciences, science would always be right in its conclusions.

 

Steppin Razor said:

We will continue to rule out mistakes we have made, and thus continue to understand more and more about how the world around us works.


I do not deny this. But what about the peoples and cultures that live by and are even based upon those mistakes for very long periods of time?

You see? Science was wrong and people based their lives on wrong information. They didn't know the truth. They lived against the truth. That's almost the definition of believing in something that's untrustworthy

I don't think we should give up on science because its not perfect. I'm saying its as bad a basis for a worldview, by sciences own argument, as spirituality is. How do you know God exists? How do you know your scientific conclusion is not wrong? Heck, people have killed eachother over opposing, and yet supposedly equally correct, points of scientific view.

Come to think of it... have you ever read about how we came to use AC current in our homes instead of DC? Thomas Edison, brilliant man, one cranky bastard. AC, being the better mode for long distance distribution, would have lost to DC had Morgan been a proponent of DC and Edison of AC. Edison didn't have the funds or political clout. In turn Edison did everything he could to discredit Morgan's ideas. It was a nasty battle and in the end Edison was crushed inside and out. Imagine if he had better financial backing.



jason

 

>Science is not as an empirical method for knowledge as you seem to believe. Yes, the method in theory is great. But it doesn't work that way. I work at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In the past 12 months we have had two cases of scientists falsifying data and conclusions and releasing erroneous info to the public as well as tons of things that were thought right to be found wrong. There you have it, examples of pride and falibility directing your knowledge of science.<

But you are proving my point. Yes it can be wrong, someone can even report false data on purpose. However, science can be challenged and proven otherwise w/ proper evidence. Science isn't like religion. Religion - has this approach (the way I see it) "Believe this because I'm the dad and I say so" Challenging it is frowned upon or looked at as lack of faith.

Those guys were caught because someone didn't take what they said on "Blind Faith" they say, hey that doesn't look right show me how that works and prove it.

>Heck, people have killed eachother over opposing, and yet supposedly equally correct, points of scientific view<

Please, are you trying to compare the amount of people that were murdered in the name of religion VS the name of Science? That is laughable. Yes people may have done things to each other over science. But there you are talking individuals, not one race trying to whipe out another over years and years.

 

Part of the reason I believe in science is because I have done countless experiments and labs that prove various equations and theories are true in the environment they were done in. If one scientist (as you were talking about at work) comes out with some new theory or conclusion, do you think people are just going to believe him? Of course not!! People are going to look at his work, scrutinize the hell out of it, and try to pick holes in it. If the conclusions or theory is able to withstand such intense scrutiny, it will become more and more respected as time passes and more and more people are not able to discredit it.

I still cannot believe how you can possibly compare faith in science to faith in god. You must at least admit that in science there is a proven method that (even just theoretically) works well to advance knowledge.

I understand that your view of science has been jaded by your frustrating experiences at work. It is understandable for a person to be upset when his entire life's work, his passion, is about to be discredited. That is something that I can almost not blame a person for. I cannot possibly imagine how I would feel if I had worked my entire life on something I have an intense passion for and am later told that all the blood, sweat, and tears I put into it was totally and utterly for naught. That could absolutely break a person.

On the other hand, it is just stupid when a person tries to falsify data in order to make the experiment look better. You've got to believe that whoever did that probably did so for a reason. Either their career was threatened to be basically over, their job was at stake, there was a large amount of money spent, etc.

So I am finally starting to understand that you are more worried about the people who do the experiments doing the "right thing." That they would not try to kill a person who could possibly disprove theories one has worked to prove. That people won't try to falsify data in order to keep their job. I understand that in order to believe in scientific experiments that I myself have not performed, I must have faith that the people performing the experiments will always do the "right thing." As our knowledge base grows, science will continue to become more and more complicated and will thus make it more and more difficult for the layperson to understand what is going on, nevermind actually perform the experiments themselves.

On the other hand, if science is able to invent a technology that can instantly and safely transport a human body from one place to another, does everybody who uses it really have to understand exactly how it works? No, it is just an invention that increases the quality of life of the human race as a whole.

Now I'm jumping all over the place, but there are checks and balances that are built into the scientific method and elsewhere that help prevent people with bad intentions from achieving their goals.

So I still argue that faith in science is exactly one million times (??)more rational and logical than belief in a god.

 

NO.

 

What would Jesus drive?

 

A Justy, duh. Plain and simple, just like the cup in Indiana Jones.

That is IF Jesus did exist. But do we really want to get into that?

 

I figured he might drive a Suburban to haul the other 12 guys along.

 

 

uh oh! right when I finished typing the previous post, I hear THUNDER!!!

 

I need sleep...

 

OK, I can tell by your responses that this isn't getting through. Whether you agree or not doesn't even matter yet Let see how simple I can make this. No logical paths in flowing prose. Just simple, small statements.


- Science can be wrong, for whatever reason.

- Science can correct itself.

- When wrong, science does not know its wrong.

- Sometimes it takes science decades or centuries to realize it is wrong.

- Sometimes incorrect science takes decades or centuries after being known to be wrong to be corrected.

- Within the timespans between the advent of incorrect science and when it is corrected, people have based their worldviews on incorrect science.

- Sometimes those timespans can cover a whole generation or even multiple generations

And now the big kahuna question:

If during those timespans when science was wrong, especially the longer times, how would you evaluate the worldview of the people who trusted in that incorrect science? They based their view of the universe, culture, nature and even morality on their views given by current scientific understanding.

What makes science so trustworthy if people are basing their lives on it, even when it is wrong?

Social Darwinism is a great example. I cannot see how someone who believes in a completely godless evolutionary process could say that social darwinism is wrong. Social evolution is the same process by which genetic eveolution (which can actually be argued to be the same thing) produces the strongest within and between species. Whoever does say that social darwinism is wrong does not trust in science. To trust in science means that social darwinism is the best thing for humanity in terms of culling the human herd and making this race the best it can be. You do realize there are many organizations that believe this TODAY? Most of them are called "neo-*****".

jason