Science: Do we believe or do we accept?
 

I said 'no' but did not expound on that subject in the "Would you date someone who didn't believe in God" thread. I will expound on it here.

Belief is not the word I would use in regard to science. Saying "I believe in science" would be like say "I believe in chemistry" or "I believe in mathematics" or "I believe in history". What would it mean to say that? I accept that on any given subject X, where X is some feature of the natural world we might find interesting, science is going to provide us the best, most reliable suite of tools to understanding that phenomena. That does not mean the process will work perfectly nor does it mean that it will work in every single case, there may be features of the world we might *wish* to explain but which are beyond are ability to grok.

If I have a 'belief' that is connected to science it is in the, overall, regularity of the Universe. By that I mean that for the most part, certainly at the macro level, the Universe is going to behave in a more or less predictable fashion. For instance, on Earth the Sun is *always* going to come up in the East and *always* going to set in the West. It is going to behave that way because the Earth is turning on its axis. There will be no days where the Sun rises in the West the first three days of the week, sets in the North two of those days, rises in the South at some random interval and sets in the East once every random 100 days. That might seem a trivial example so let me give a deeper one. I believe that the universe is *so* regular that Hydrogen always has an atomic weight of 1. It will *always* have one proton and one electron and no neutrons. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is definitional that any object with one proton and one electron is a Hydrogen atom.

Even before we had either the physics or the chemistry to even conceive things like electrons, protons or any other part of the atomic model it was true that there was an element called Hydrogen and that this element always has one proton and one electron. That's what I mean by regularity.

Now, is that a belief? From a strict philosophical standpoint it is. I have absolutely NO proof that the Sun will set in the West this evening and rise in the East in the morning. I do, however, have rather good reason based upon past experience and evidence that this is going to happen. Science is simply the suite of tools we use to explain those features of the Universe that we have some desire or need to explain. But I don't believe in science anymore than I believe in any given tool in my toolkit or in my Magic Trackpad or keyboard.

The other reason I think that belief isn't accurate when applied to science is that science routinely requires us to accept things we would just as soon not be true. The Sun is going to burn out sometime in the next 5 billion years. All stars die. The Sun is a star. We have observed other stars, very much like our Sun, in various stages of life so we have a pretty good idea of what is going to happen. I don't *want* that to happen but I have to accept that given the evidence currently in hand the smart money gets laid on it happening. Another example is that species go extinct. Again, I would just as soon that not happen because we are just another species and so the smart money is that, at some point, we will go the way of the dodo, the dinosaur and, interestingly, every OTHER hominid that has ever walked the Earth (we are the only surviving member of the hominid clade). I accept that but it is not what I would prefer.

The scientific method works for a specific but broad class of problems and it has *some* utility as a general problem solving strategy within a slightly larger domain of problems but it is not a set of beliefs. If you accept that the world is a pretty regular place--and the fact that you did not wake up on the Moon, or fall *through* (not out but through) your bed, or that you did not see a tree walking around is pretty strong evidence that the world operates in a more or less regular fashion--then it follows that one might have some questions about how that regularity manifests itself. Science is going to provide the suite of tools with the best chance of answering those questions. But I wouldn't say that is a belief.

Cheers
Aj

Somewhere on UTube in the last couple of days I ran across all the contestants from the recent Miss USA pagent answering a question. The question was 'Do you think evolution should be taught in public schools?' Some of them said no, some said maybe, and some said yes. That's right, some of them said evolution should not be taught. Another one said evolution should be taught only in college and the students could decide which one to believe. Some said they believed God created them and evolution was just wrong. None of them thought evolution should be taught without also teaching the creation story in the Bible.

Aj.........don't go find it cuz you will break your computer.....I nearly broke mine.

The thing that struck me, was this idea of belief. Almost every single one of them used the idea that science is a belief. Evolution is a theory and not fact. None of them seemed to understand the difference between belief and fact. None of them understood what a scientific theory is and what it means.

I'm not sure where I am going with this, except it is what came to my mind when citybutch asked you if you believe in science.

I don't have a long answer just my thoughts about this today. I accept science because it's factual. No gray areas or fairy dust just the facts.

Too late! My honey, in her never-ending quest to find things that break my brain, played it last night while I was brushing the dog.

Like you, I was struck that not a single one of them seemed to grasp what a scientist means when we use the word theory (it is not 'guess') nor did any of them, as you said, seem to draw a distinction between a belief and a fact. These are non-trivial distinctions. One might, if they wish, hold the belief that Earth is flat, rests on the back of four elephants who, in turn, stand upon the back of a gigantic star turtle named A'tuin. One might hold that belief but that doesn't make it a fact.

I think a useful working definition of a fact is this: a statement about the world that is such that the world is obliged to actually be that way. To give a couple of examples: Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States. Earth orbits a yellow, main sequence star named Sol. F=ma*. For these things to be facts, we should be able to query the world and ask if there is such a thing as the United States and if so, what is the name of the head of state and/or head of government. We should then be able to determine how many people have held that position before the current one, do the math, determine the name of the current person holding the office and by that method decide if the world is, in fact, in agreement with our statement. The same applies to the other two statements.

Now, I might have a *belief* that Hillary Clinton is the 43rd President of the United States but that does not make my belief factual, it just makes it a belief. Nothing will ever make my belief factual because we've already had a 43rd President and much to our regret as a nation, it was Bush the Younger. These women seem to confuse belief (i.e. how they might wish the world to be) with fact (how the world actually is).

In the physical sciences there's a phrase "your theory is not in agreement with observation (or experiment)". That means that no matter how beautiful it might be, no matter how much you love it, your theory is wrong. It simply doesn't matter what one believes about one's theory, if it is not in agreement with observation or experiment then it's wrong. If there is no way to articulate how the theory might be shown to be wrong, then it is not even wrong. It's definitely not science.

What struck me was how utterly unconcerned these young women were with the truth. I did not hear any of them say that, ultimately, if evolution is true it is true and it should be taught because it was true. Instead, their beliefs (what they wanted to be true) trumped how the Universe might actually work.

A long time ago, I read a phrase that really stuck with me over the years. It was, I believe, Sagan (or it might have been Dawkins) talking about the work of a scientist. The first task was to 'be humble before the data'. What that means is that even if the data leads you someplace where you discover something you would much prefer were not true, one must be humble before the data, admit that Nature always bats last and conform yourself to what the data dictates.


Cheers
Aj

Aj,
I laughed joyously when I saw you use the word "grok." I loved the book "Stranger in a Strange Land", and have freaked out many a friend when (discussing preferences for a post-life commemoration/celebration) I say "Barbeque me and have a party" (most of my family do not like soup, LOL)

But I digress. I share similar "ideology" with you about science. I see the regularity (and the beauty) of the universe and know that though we do not know all the answers today, we certainly know more today than we did yesterday. I surmise that we will know more tomorrow. To this I add the belief that scientists are just as willing to manipulate us as are preachers.

My Thanksgiving when I was 10 years old was affected by the announcement just prior to the holiday that cranberries contained carginogens and should be removed from the holiday menu (we ate it anyway.) Today cranberries are touted as a healthy choice and a product that supports kidney/bladder function. Science flip flopped you might say. OR, as I believe, they jumped the gun before having all the evidence at hand. OR scientist A found one thing and scientist B found another. OR (as it is entirely possible), business wanted to increase cranberry sales, so they quashed the carcinogenic aspect of the fruit.

I treat science with the same level of suspended belief with which I treat religion. Prove it to me baby.
Smooches,
Keri

Well, rats!

How about a star whale?

No, eh?
I guess no blue police boxes either, eh? :overreaction:
Seriously, however..

I think this comes from a limited exposure to more than a Biblical background. I'd be curious how many of those women were home schooled and only shown one possible method of understanding and comprehending. And not just education but also in home culture.

My uncles went to Catholic parochial boarding school as kids and public high school. All of them are atheists but have a deep understanding of the Catholic church and the various Catholic rights. They have, however, a keen desire of curiousity to learn beyond the boundaries they started with in grade school. My aunts also fall into that category.

As a result, I grew up in an environment where curiousity and questioning everything was encouraged. I cannot personally imagine not being such an environment but it makes me wonder if the opposite of my environment is what those women experienced? If curiousity is discouraged and downplayed, then accepting things at face value would be the result, I would think.

It leads me to believe that this is truly the "Microsoft/Mac OS/GUI Age". That isn't to say that that MS or Apple rules but rather because of making things easier for people to make those tools work without ever really needing to understand has made us -- for lack of a better phrase -- mentally lazy and "curious-less". (keep in mind that I recognize that not everyone has a desire to learn what happens behind the screen but that desire that things just work and we accept things as they are seems commonplace for everything, not just computers).

Anyways, maybe that's why..

Great. I was just getting over being appalled that women are still in pageants. Now you tell me their "beliefs" about evolution. And their exaltation of belief over science. Next you'll tell me that they still do the swimsuit thing.

Let me suggest that there's another interpretation. Scientist A was wrong but did not realize that she was wrong and neither did anyone else. On better evidence, which was gained by scientist B, the error was discovered.

The late Steven Jay Gould, in a brief he helped write to the Supreme Court once stated that all scientific discoveries should come with the following codicil: "this is provisionally true, to the best of our knowledge, subject to revision upon better data". I would add to that that nothing is ever proven in science. I cannot prove to you, once and for all, that an atom of hydrogen has a single electron and a single proton. It can't be done. Even though earlier today I stated that it was diagnostic (I think I used the word definitional) of a hydrogen atom that it has a single proton and single electron, I still cannot prove it to you once and for all. I would fall down dead if we found a hydrogen atom that did not conform to that configuration and I think we could search the Universe for any length of time you care to mention and never find an exception but I still cannot prove it to you.

It is the black swan problem. There is NO observation you can ever make that would prove the statement "all swans are white". However, there is a *single* observation you can make to disconfirm (falsify) the statement "all swans are white". If I present you with a black swan then the whole white swan hypothesis falls apart. This is a subtle but nontrivial difference and one of the hardest things to grasp about how science actually works.

What looks like flip-flopping isn't actually flip-flopping, it's having better data upon which to make a conclusion that is less likely to be wrong.

Not knowing the details I'll hazard only the most tentative guess--chances are that there was enough separation between the first finding and the second that either technology or methodology enabled a more accurate conclusion. So when someone went back and tried to confirm the first study with better tools, they got a better result.

Cheers
Aj

Something my wife observed with the women talking about evolution was that *every single* woman who did thought that evolution should not be taught or that 'the (nonexistent) controversy' should be taught were from a red state. Every. Single. One. The women who, at least, conceded that evolution should be taught were all from blue states. I think that is very telling.

Like you, I think that we have become a culture that expects things to be easy. We have become mentally lazy and, for some reason, we treat the brain as being different than any other organ. No one would ever suggest that you needn't give your heart, or lungs or legs or arms a workout just to keep them working well. Yet we, as a culture, do not promote the idea that the brain is a muscle and that it needs regular exercise as much as any other part of our bodies lest it atrophy.

Evolution is an elegant theory. By elegant I mean it in the way that mathematicians, engineers, scientists and hackers mean it--a solution that is subtle, powerful and no more complicated than it need be to do the job. On paper, it is a very simple theory. In practice it is fiendishly subtle. It also has very wide-ranging implications.

A few months ago, I read an article (that I wish I'd clipped to my electronic scrapbook) about farmers in, I believe, Alabama who were battling some pest or another. They were expressing surprise that this pest, which they thought some pesticide or another had all but eradicated, had come back with a vengeance and was now all but immune to the pesticide in question. This was, perhaps, the most poignant example of what not understanding evolution looks like. Evolution *predicts* that we should see exactly that kind of thing happen.

I'm going to terminate this post because I think that it might be interesting--and worthwhile--to post a general statement about evolution but that will take some time. Stay tuned.

Cheers
Aj

Having been a philosophy student oh so many years ago...
 

I think this is what I was getting at...

I also like your comment "Science is simply the suite of tools we use to explain those features of the Universe that we have some desire or need to explain."

I think philosophically that science is based on perception and a belief system. There is an assumption that:

1) There exists an external objective reality
2) There exists some sort of uniformity through time
a) the universe has structure
b) predictions and generalizations are possible.

In order to pursue a theory there has to be some level of belief involved, albeit a very very small one... Faith on the other hand is something where not a lot of proof is necessary for the person to maintain their belief. But it doesn't mean that an individual doesn't experience or have proof that the divine is non-existent.

I also think in a lot of ways, depending on who you are talking to, your second comment can replace science for spirituality. "Spirituality is simply the suite of tools we use to explain those features of the Universe that we have some desire or need to explain." Is there an evolution of science? Yes.. Is there an evolution of spirituality? Yes...

Interesting comments from scientists and other folks: http://www.templeton.org/belief/

What I'm finding interesting is the fact that the individuals countering science with their beliefs are the ones saying evolution shouldn't be taught.

If they believed that strongly in the concept wouldn't they want every opportunity to disprove evolution?

My computer is now broken, since I'm a biologist and cannot fathom religious beliefs being used to counter carbon dating, along with the assertion that children should be allowed to choose what they want to learn about. These two things combined cause me to beat my head against the keyboard.

OMGoodness... I loved that book as well... and knew exactly what AJ was saying without thinking the source! That was one of my most fav books of all time!

I hope the dog has no bald spots and is ok......laughin....

I agree with you on this one Snow. Science provides emperical data to support theories. It is factual and supported with results, formulas, and data.

I knew I should have chosen my words more carefully. I originally had written suite of tools for understanding Nature. I think that science and spirituality answer absolutely different sets of questions. I will agree, provisionally, that there is no reason to believe that science disproves a belief in one or more divine beings. At the same time, I'm going to insist that there is nothing that science can do to prove that there is any kind of divine being. If one is going to believe then believe and do so wholly but science can offer you not one shred of support for your beliefs. That is not it's job.

At the same time, that street goes both ways. If science cannot tell one whether or not there is a god or many gods, then spirituality/religion cannot tell science what it's conclusions should be. I understand that, for instance, the young women saying that they believe that some divine being created the Universe and all that is in it. I understand that they believe that the Bible offers an explanation about what happened that it renders all other explanations moot. I get that. I also have to say, "so what?" Evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of life available at present. If we're going to educate people in the life sciences then we're going to have to teach them evolution. Otherwise the life sciences won't make sense. However, it doesn't matter if evolution violates this or that holy book. It really doesn't matter because Nature isn't obliged to agree with what our religions would prefer.

I have said before and I'll say again--I don't promote atheism nor do I try to evangelize for a naturalistic worldview. I have nothing with which to replace that which gives people meaning and unless I do (and that question just isn't in my competencies) it would be wrong, in a deep ethical sense, for me to try to do so. That said, I'm not going to apologize for a naturalistic worldview. Just as you wouldn't (and shouldn't) apologize for a non-naturalistic worldview.

Yet, I'm still going to insist on demarcation. I think that's fair. While I don't see any good reason to believe in a heaven and I'm going to apply a fair and consistent standard (i.e. no special pleading) I am not going to argue that science 'disproves heaven' or what have you. For that, however, I think religion/spirituality needs to recognize the demarcation lines as well. Whether someone believes that the Bible teaches that humans were created by God is and should be irrelevant to the scientific process. "God created humans" is a religious statement, it has no business in a scientific discussion unless there is some proof that we *need* to invoke a divine being (and we don't) to explain some feature of the natural world we shouldn't allow it into the discussion. If we *do* have to allow that idea into the discussion then that statement has to be subject to the same criteria otherwise we are no longer doing science.

Yes, this is a limitation science imposes on itself but it is a necessary limit. It is the reason why you can take a scientist in Mumbai, one in Berkeley, one in Beijing and one in Cairo and all present them with data and they will be able to have a conversation about that data. They may all hold different religious beliefs or none what-so-ever but that won't get in the way because there is a common language to talk about the matter. The problem with invoking religious language in a scientific discussion is that in order to have a common ground we now have to agree that one person's religious assumptions are the correct ones. It cannot *simultaneously* be true--in the sense that I used it earlier, where that means 'the world is actually obliged to be that way'--that the Universe was created by one divine being in 6 days and was birthed by another divine being while being the egg of yet another divine being. Those three statements are mutually exclusive if are meant to take them as factual.

So before we can get down to explaining how something might give birth to a universe we would have to establish that this something exists. If I really and truly believed that the Greek pantheon described an objective "out there" reality is there anything you could say to convince me otherwise? Most likely not.

In science, on the other hand, ultimately there *must* be things that would convince me otherwise. If there isn't, I'm simply not doing science. I may not have a word for what I am doing, but whatever that word is it isn't science.

As an aside: something I have always found curious about the idea that there is not an objective reality 'out there' is how astoundingly self-centered it is. I take your existence as read (otherwise I'm either hallucinating or you are an AI in which case you can pass a Turing test). I presume that you take my existence as read. That means that without proof, I presume that your existence has some objective fact whether or not I have ever encountered you. If I had never been on the Internet, or had I died in, say, 1977 you would still exist. Therefore, barring evidence that I'm hallucinating or that you are an AI, I can say you objectively exist. I think that an objective reality is a pretty safe bet--like using a scale between 0 and 1, with zero being "does not exist" and one being "does exist" that objective reality is a .9 easily. I would say that our confidence on that should be high enough that for any ordinary purpose we can treat it as if it were true.

That .1 percent of skepticism is, to me, the mark of a scientist. There is a chance, however unlikely, that there isn't an objective reality. Although I think that there are a lot of other entities--certainly on this planet--that would probably disagree and would go about behaving as if they actually exist whether or not we believed in it. Like the honey badger, it don't care, it exists whether we believe in it or not.

Cheers
Aj

This.



It is my understanding (don't get me wrong, I'm no expert, having decidedly NOT majored in theological studies or anthropology) that spirituality and religion, per se, were devised as a means to explain "the unexplainable" in early developing culture. Phenomena that weren't understood were attributed to higher beings, spirits, gods, etc. as a way for emerging societies to make sense of the world around them. As the sciences evolved and offered explanations for these occurences with data and repeatable results, spirituality was no longer required to insulate us from fear of what we do not understand.

That being said, I think the concept of demarcation is valid. Spirituality should absolutely be applied to philosophical questions, and that which cannot be explored by science (until we evolve the technology to do so, of course). However, I see the religious card being used less as a tool to promote community and more as an excuse to hide behind bigotry and ignorance. Unfortunately, science cannot be applied to human morality.

Forgive me, I neglected to mention the division of power and all associated repercussions of that! Thank you for being so much more eloquent about it! :)

Theology does have a place in concert with science when one discusses morals. The reason why is because we are spiritual creatures... even AJ. *Grabs popcorn, sits back, and waits for three pages of arguments*