Comments on: Is Science just another religion?

By: mstrbrass

mstrbrass — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:30:36 +0000

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By: cgavpoerg

cgavpoerg — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:47:23 +0000

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By: SciPhile

SciPhile — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 04:46:33 +0000

I had a similar discussion with a Christian theologian. Calling science a religion is just another attempt to save theism from disproof.

http://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/good-science-is-not-dogmatic/

By: tom

tom — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:03:54 +0000

If science were a religion then scientists isolated from each other would not constantly come to the exact same conclusions.

By: orDover

orDover — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:24:23 +0000

And what if we are just brains in a vat, with all of our sensory information being fed to us by robots? What if The Matrix is real?

By: SnugglyBuffalo

SnugglyBuffalo — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:53:35 +0000

As I said earlier, there’s quite a difference between accepting certain things as self-evident and axiomatic, and accepting things “on faith” as it is commonly defined.

Attempts to equate “self-evident” with “taken on faith” are absurd, and have no practical use whatsoever.

If we don’t assume the principle that unobserved cases are (or are likely to be) like observed cases

To be fair, doesn’t our current understanding of quantum physics say that this assumption is false?

By: The Apostate

The Apostate — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:55:34 +0000

Errancy,
Induction is not a serious problem for most philosophers of the twentieth and twentieth century because their need to correspond with the science of the day. Inductive reasoning has been limited to categorizations and matrixes which place various sorts of empirical observations.

Furthermore, anyone can sit around and say there are serious “philosophical problems” that comes up from inductive reasoning, but it is quite another to know what these problems are or to employ valid examples. What you have provided above is akin to pondering whether “God create a rock he cannot lift.”

By: Errancy

Errancy — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:50:03 +0000

Ubi:

I’m pleased to see that this has been promoted from high school to freshman philosophy. I’m sure that Hume, Russell, Popper and all the other philosophers who have written on this would be happy too.

OrDover:

This isn’t just a semantic disagreement. I’m working with the same definition of faith as you are, “belief without evidence”. You just haven’t understood the extent of the problem.

It isn’t that there’s a remote possibility that the future won’t be like the past, and so the slight uncertainty of observation-based predictions means that they involve a modicum of faith. That would be a relatively trivial point.

It’s that unless we accept on faith certain principles of reason, observation-based predictions are completely uncertain. If we don’t assume the principle that unobserved cases are (or are likely to be) like observed cases, then we have no reason at all to think that our observations of today are even relevant to tomorrow, let alone that they are “an extremely solid ground of empirical evidence” concerning how it will be. That principle can’t be proven, or even supported by evidence; it has to be taken on faith.

I don’t like this any more than you do. I share your assumptions, reason in the way that you reason, and put the same trust in the conclusions that I reach as you do. But I recognise that I can’t justify my axioms, that there’s a step of faith at the foundation of my beliefs, even those based on science.

By: Ubi Dubium

Ubi Dubium — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:09:08 +0000

The Apostate -
Yes, In my college days long ago I knew Philosophy majors and a Philosophy Professor or two. They were generally quite thoughtful and articulate. I never heard from them any of the ridiculous arguments being made here by Errancy. I only ever heard stuff like that from Freshmen just taking their first Philosophy class, and somehow thinking they had suddenly discovered some great secret of logic. (This was usually when they were in the Freshman “I know everything” phase, before they had had enough education to realize how little they really knew.) No insult to real Philosophers was intended, only to those who think that “what if the future is nothing like the past” comprises deep philosophical thought..

I agree with OrDover – arguments about semantics get really old really fast. I’d rather talk about something else.

By: orDover

orDover — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:22:59 +0000

Interestingly, this conversation parallels the one going on in the “god of small miracles” article, where the commentor Jason is holding up the conversion of man after the death of his baby as a miracle. That strays very far from the actual definition of the word, which according to dictionaries and theologians (Aquinas) alike means an event which cannot be explain by nature, or is outside of nature, definitively supernatural. It is God intervening in or halting nature to do his own work. If the definition of “miracle” is opened up so wide that it includes an event which does not contradict nature, is not at all supernatural, but fits within its schema perfectly, then the word loses all power and meaning. Suddenly a miracle can be anything you say it is, and then it might as well be nothing at all.

Likewise for faith. If the definition if “faith” is expanded to include something for which one does not have 100% certainty regarding, but which one has an extremely solid ground of empirical evidence supporting, then faith becomes meaningless, and certainly believing in a deity “without seeing,” as the story goes, loses its importance.