Science: Do we believe or do we accept?

[citybutch]

I think you have deeply misinterpreted me and my beliefs. I believe in both evolution and a divine nature to... well, nature. I am not sure where you get anywhere in my post that I do not believe in evolution. I don't even believe in heaven for goodness sake. Well, at least a heaven that is beyond this life.

I was merely asking in a philosophical sense and hoping for a more intellectual conversation not a rebuttal of my post and an analysis of my "beliefs" which I did not state in this thread and have barely stated in others. ... The questions are common ones when one is having a conversation about the philosophy of science...

Your assumptions led you a little astray in your response to me...

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

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

[AtLast]

I accept scientific inquiry and conclusions based upon valid and reliable research methods. Continual replication of scientific study that yields consistent results is the backbone for my accepting results about a hypothesis. Yes, this has been drilled into me academically and professionally. Probably as much or even more than my early life religious indoctrination. I don’t believe in scientific outcomes in research, I accept that if a study is well constructed (based upon solid scientific methodology being utilized), it yields information that I will want to pay attention to.

Does this apply to my spiritual belief system? Sometimes it does and I don’t fear “scientific” dismantling of my believe systems. I will remain who I am no matter the results of empirical data. But, I might just live a better life due to the imagination and plain curiosity of minds that choose to ask questions about this universe.

[imperfect_cupcake]

The thing I'm getting at is how would you use science influence your morality? I admit at this point I can only see this as a one way street, since I don't think you can use fact-based reasoning to shape something as nebulous as morality and personal opinion.

hum. I dunno about that. My dad taught me certain morals based on ecology and biology. Not all of them mind you, but a chunk. Not using the scientific method, exactly, but the results of behaviour (cause/effect type stuff). Plus physchology, though a messy science with unisolatable variables (like ecology) does make some attempt in a sideways way that one could then apply to moral "law".

for example when I was little:
"barbara, don't throw that on the ground. it's littering. You know how we share this environment with other people and other animals? if everyone put their on the ground whereever in great quanities, then it will cause people and animals to get sick and die. We wouldn't be able to farm the land and use plants for medicines and the animals that help us (ecology web explained earlier) and have their own value would disapear." kind of thing.

also I don't shit close to a river when I'm hiking/camping and I make sure it's in the top soil. I also don't shit very much in the same place and am very aware of where other people in the camping group are shitting and what kind of clime we are in. Those are moral choices (are they? not to fuck with the water supply or the environment) based on scientific knowledge.

I dunno, does that fit in to that slot? I'm not sure but it sort of does??

or maybe not. I'm on pain meds today so my thinking is a bit fuzzy.

[ScandalAndy]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

hum. I dunno about that. My dad taught me certain morals based on ecology and biology. Not all of them mind you, but a chunk. Not using the scientific method, exactly, but the results of behaviour (cause/effect type stuff). Plus physchology, though a messy science with unisolatable variables (like ecology) does make some attempt in a sideways way that one could then apply to moral "law".

for example when I was little:
"barbara, don't throw that on the ground. it's littering. You know how we share this environment with other people and other animals? if everyone put their on the ground whereever in great quanities, then it will cause people and animals to get sick and die. We wouldn't be able to farm the land and use plants for medicines and the animals that help us (ecology web explained earlier) and have their own value would disapear." kind of thing.

also I don't shit close to a river when I'm hiking/camping and I make sure it's in the top soil. I also don't shit very much in the same place and am very aware of where other people in the camping group are shitting and what kind of clime we are in. Those are moral choices (are they? not to fuck with the water supply or the environment) based on scientific knowledge.

I dunno, does that fit in to that slot? I'm not sure but it sort of does??

or maybe not. I'm on pain meds today so my thinking is a bit fuzzy.

Well, this is kind of what I was getting at in a way. If your Da didn't care about the environment (morality) and knowing the repercussions of poor ecological stewardship, your own beliefs wouldn't have been influenced the way they were. That's using morality to influence morality.

I'm saying there's no set of data you can use to measure whether something is more or less moral, more or less worthy of being enforced as a standard. I'd go so far as to say most people believe that killing is wrong, that is a moral judgment. There is no scientific data to back this up, though. That tenet of their personal beliefs is influenced only by opinion and not fact.

Conversely, depending on your beliefs you can end up on either side of the argument when it comes to something like the "gay gene" mentioned previously. Some people want to prove there is one, others don't. Some people want there to be a cure, others want to prove homosexuality is innate and therefore cannot and/or should not be "cured". You use your personal opinions to decide what you deem "important" research.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by ScandalAndy

Well, this is kind of what I was getting at in a way. If your Da didn't care about the environment (morality) and knowing the repercussions of poor ecological stewardship, your own beliefs wouldn't have been influenced the way they were. That's using morality to influence morality.

I'm saying there's no set of data you can use to measure whether something is more or less moral, more or less worthy of being enforced as a standard. I'd go so far as to say most people believe that killing is wrong, that is a moral judgment. There is no scientific data to back this up, though. That tenet of their personal beliefs is influenced only by opinion and not fact.

Yes, this precisely. The closest I think we can get, using your killing example, is that we should expect that in any given population P, there will be rules about killing and that those rules will be harsher for in-group killing than out-group killing. Can we observe that anywhere? Yes, as a matter of fact we do. From various HGF (hunter-gatherer-fishing) cultures to modern, complex urban societies we see a distinction made. If some bloke goes out, grabs a gun and shoots a random person we call him a murderer. If some other bloke, wearing a uniform, goes out and kills some number of other blokes who are wearing different uniforms, then we call him a soldier. We may even call him a hero. What is the difference? In the first case, the guy did not have sanction but in the second case he did have sanction because in the second case we call it war. Soldiers cannot be charged with killing the enemy in wartime, *provided* that the enemy was shooting back or could be expected to do so. There are very good reasons a given society would strongly prefer that any violent impulses were directed outward rather than inward.

Conversely, depending on your beliefs you can end up on either side of the argument when it comes to something like the "gay gene" mentioned previously. Some people want to prove there is one, others don't. Some people want there to be a cure, others want to prove homosexuality is innate and therefore cannot and/or should not be "cured". You use your personal opinions to decide what you deem "important" research.

I think that the question of what causes homosexuality is an interesting question but I do not think it will, ultimately, make much difference on the issue of rights. At any rate, the way rights are framed in the West is not predicated upon it being genetic or on human beings being identical (i.e. there are no differences between different ethnic groups). Although it is in vogue to say that racism is wrong because race doesn't exist, that doesn't work. To take one example, two or three years ago my doctor diagnosed me with hypertension. When she did my response was "well, that's no big surprise". The reason that was my reaction is that I knew that ~85% of all black Americans will have high blood pressure sometime in middle-age. We are 28% more likely to have high blood pressure than whites and just under 20% more likely than Hispanics and 32% more likely than Chinese Americans. Now, is that entirely genetic? Probably not, some of it is certainly diet and stress. However, since that number just leaps out at you it strongly suggests that there is a genetic component to the issue. Now, if races 'don't exist' how can we even say that blacks are more likely to have high blood pressure than whites, Hispanics or Chinese? We can't.

This can *all* be true without, even for an instant, giving aid or comfort to racist ideologies.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by citybutch

I think you have deeply misinterpreted me and my beliefs. I believe in both evolution and a divine nature to... well, nature. I am not sure where you get anywhere in my post that I do not believe in evolution. I don't even believe in heaven for goodness sake. Well, at least a heaven that is beyond this life.

I was merely asking in a philosophical sense and hoping for a more intellectual conversation not a rebuttal of my post and an analysis of my "beliefs" which I did not state in this thread and have barely stated in others. ... The questions are common ones when one is having a conversation about the philosophy of science...

Your assumptions led you a little astray in your response to me...

I wasn't saying *you* didn't believe in evolution, I was offering evolution as an area of contention. You may not doubt evolution but you are in a distinct minority in the United States. Forty percent of Americans believe that human beings were created, in our current form, within the last 10,000 years. They ignore any evidence to the contrary and do not know nor do they want to know what evolutionary theory says. They insist that because their holy book *says* this that nature is obliged to agree with them and that the entire biological sciences are just wrong. Not on some empirical issue, but rather we are wrong because we do not agree with the biblical account. It was an example of the demarcation problem, not meant to say that you doubt evolution.

Put it this way, you seem to like Deepak Chopra. I am not fond of him for reasons I won't get into. It would be uncalled for me to show up at a Deepak Chopra speaking engagement and then, every time he mentioned 'quantum' ask him to explain how he squares his interpretation of QM with the scaling problem (which I won't get into here). What I see happening with creationists is that they are showing up in schools and saying that they reject this theory in biology because it offends their religious sensibilities and that therefore, biology is *required* to submit itself to those sensibilities. I see no reason why biology should do that.

I wasn't trying to analyze your beliefs or rebut your post.

As far as spirituality being a set of tools to understand the Universe, okay so far as it goes but it is a different set of questions. I think that spirituality is *useless* for understanding how stars work. In fact, I would say that it is worse than useless. My problem isn't when spiritual people say "these are the set of tools to help me get through my day while staying sane". I have no problem with that. I do have a problem when spiritual people say "my <insert holy text here> teaches that the reason that stars burn is that <insert pre-scientific account of stars here>". To be clear, I am NOT saying that you are doing this. I am trying to clarify the point I was making.

I was, more or less, agreeing with you. I was not trying to say you believe in heaven. I do not know what your beliefs are other than that you are some form of Christian. But large numbers of Christians *do* believe in heaven and that is fine, unless they are going to insist that heaven is a factual place in which case I think that it is reasonable to treat it like any other factual place and begin to ask questions about it.

Again, this is not to say that you believe in heaven or that you are like a large numbers of Christians. For all I know you are in a denomination of one. I am offering up examples of where I see the demarcation lines being drawn. This is completely separate of your beliefs about heaven, evolution or, for that matter, quantum mechanics or any other specific issue.

Cheers
Aj

[citybutch]

Sorry about that AJ. Because you responded to me and put my post in yours it was a natural conclusion to assume you meant me.

I think the demarcation lines are a lot easier to draw if your mind sits in either one extreme area or the other... and so yes, I do agree with you. I just think as we get down into the scientific subject of matter (for example) the demarcation gets a little fuzzy. And perhaps science will progress to a point where we have absolute answers... In fact, I have little doubt that it will. However, as it stands right now, there has to be a small bit of assumption when you get down to this area... a part of it that is accepted as truth without proof... and THAT was my point. There is, to be a scientist, just a little bit of faith involved (even if you don't want to call it that)... By the way this is a conversation I engage in with both my brother and his wife... He is a nuerobiologist and she a geneticist.. both with their own labs.. Very smart people (like you) who have little spiritual interpretation in the world around them. It's sometimes hard for me to engage but my "play the devils advocate" side comes out and we have fun!

I like Chopra a lot more than you do I guess but to be honest haven't read that much of him. I am too busy studying these days than digging deep into spiritual writers and thinkers. I did enjoy his fictional rendering of Jesus though.

I want to say more but I have to go sit for an exam this morning...

Thanks for your response!

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I wasn't saying *you* didn't believe in evolution, I was offering evolution as an area of contention. You may not doubt evolution but you are in a distinct minority in the United States. Forty percent of Americans believe that human beings were created, in our current form, within the last 10,000 years. They ignore any evidence to the contrary and do not know nor do they want to know what evolutionary theory says. They insist that because their holy book *says* this that nature is obliged to agree with them and that the entire biological sciences are just wrong. Not on some empirical issue, but rather we are wrong because we do not agree with the biblical account. It was an example of the demarcation problem, not meant to say that you doubt evolution.

Put it this way, you seem to like Deepak Chopra. I am not fond of him for reasons I won't get into. It would be uncalled for me to show up at a Deepak Chopra speaking engagement and then, every time he mentioned 'quantum' ask him to explain how he squares his interpretation of QM with the scaling problem (which I won't get into here). What I see happening with creationists is that they are showing up in schools and saying that they reject this theory in biology because it offends their religious sensibilities and that therefore, biology is *required* to submit itself to those sensibilities. I see no reason why biology should do that.

I wasn't trying to analyze your beliefs or rebut your post.

As far as spirituality being a set of tools to understand the Universe, okay so far as it goes but it is a different set of questions. I think that spirituality is *useless* for understanding how stars work. In fact, I would say that it is worse than useless. My problem isn't when spiritual people say "these are the set of tools to help me get through my day while staying sane". I have no problem with that. I do have a problem when spiritual people say "my <insert holy text here> teaches that the reason that stars burn is that <insert pre-scientific account of stars here>". To be clear, I am NOT saying that you are doing this. I am trying to clarify the point I was making.

I was, more or less, agreeing with you. I was not trying to say you believe in heaven. I do not know what your beliefs are other than that you are some form of Christian. But large numbers of Christians *do* believe in heaven and that is fine, unless they are going to insist that heaven is a factual place in which case I think that it is reasonable to treat it like any other factual place and begin to ask questions about it.

Again, this is not to say that you believe in heaven or that you are like a large numbers of Christians. For all I know you are in a denomination of one. I am offering up examples of where I see the demarcation lines being drawn. This is completely separate of your beliefs about heaven, evolution or, for that matter, quantum mechanics or any other specific issue.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by citybutch

Sorry about that AJ. Because you responded to me and put my post in yours it was a natural conclusion to assume you meant me.

No worries, City I probably should have been more clear that I was offering examples.

I think the demarcation lines are a lot easier to draw if your mind sits in either one extreme area or the other... and so yes, I do agree with you. I just think as we get down into the scientific subject of matter (for example) the demarcation gets a little fuzzy. And perhaps science will progress to a point where we have absolute answers... In fact, I have little doubt that it will. However, as it stands right now, there has to be a small bit of assumption when you get down to this area... a part of it that is accepted as truth without proof... and THAT was my point. There is, to be a scientist, just a little bit of faith involved (even if you don't want to call it that)...

Oh, I think there is faith in as much as I trust the natural world to be consistent. Like I said yesterday, I did not wake up on the moon although there is a quantum mechanical description of my body, lying in bed in my house, wherein I wake up and find that I have suddenly found myself on the moon. Perhaps a better example is this. There is a means, using quantum mechanics, to describe the state of all of the atoms making up the Statue of Liberty that has her waving the arm holding the torch. It is *possible* for that to happen, no physical law forbids it. However, in order for it to reach that state, we would have to wait for several hundred times the lifetime of the Universe for just one movement. I have faith, if you will, that the universe is a regular enough place that the statue will not be waving her arms about next time I visit New York. I have somewhat less faith that we glorified chimps are smart enough to figure out most of the questions about the natural world we might have. That said, I think there are questions we will never be smart enough to answer such as "what came before the Big Bang".

I want to say more but I have to go sit for an exam this morning...

Thanks for your response!

I'm looking forward to your next response.

Cheers
Aj