DAwkins interviews creationist automaton

[Jenny_in_Chico]

Don't get me wrong, I'm great with the fact that scientific understanding keeps advancing - I just find many scientists, as well as their sycophants, a tad smug; and for no good reason. They always see their forebears as primitives, and themselves as the apex. They're not.

That has certainly not been my experience. For example, my PhD advisor is the most humble and kind man I have ever had the privelege of knowing. I've been surrounded by scientists every day for 18 years and most of us are in awe of the scientists and thinkers who laid the foundation for our particular discipline.

I also hear again and again from colleagues how frustrating it is to be presented with evidence that one doesn't understand, or how helpless we feel because there is so much about the natural world that we want to know and never will, because of the limitations of our present technology or simply because we won't live long enough to see new evidence accumulate.

However, your experience of scientists may be different. I am in academia, rather than industry or medicine or the public sector, and perhaps the sociological makeup of the practitioners you know is more self-congratulatory.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

That has certainly not been my experience.

I may not have phrased it correctly. I was not referring to scientists belief that they have (or do not have) all the answers. Here's my Straw Man for what I was thinking:

Trust us, we're scientists. Of course this is the truth.

But you were wrong in the past.

That was the past, dear boy! We've got things all sussed out now, you can trust us.

But scientists in the past said that too.

Well, of course, but they were clearly wrong, and our methods are much better now. Won't happen again, you can trust us.

But scientists in the future will say the same thing about your mistakes of today, which you will insist are trustworthy today. How about some chance of error here?

Oh, no, that won't happen again. We're 100% right. This time. Really.

Think it doesn't happen? Let's see what science says about human-caused global warming in oh, say 100 years.

Today, if you don't believe that the earth is screwed and man caused it, you're a primitive screwhead, because science INSISTS that it is right.

Like it was right about the coming Ice Age?

Oh, that's different. Science was wrong then, but it's right now.

Pardon me whilst I gag on the hypocrisy. No, I do not blame individual scientists, nor do I blame the general public for putting their trust in science - I do it too.

But science does not like to admit it is wrong, and that historically, it is wrong a lot. Even when science will admit that it gets things pretty amazingly wrong from time to time, they still refuse to believe they could be wrong THIS TIME, and the best example I can think of is Human-Caused Global Warming. I frankly don't know if humans caused global warming or not, but I don't think it's a dead cert that science is insisting upon, and which all the non-scientists who think science has every answer insist you must believe or you're a dangerous lunatic right-wing freak.

 

[arnisador]

What if your department head invited you, and you could see the rocks falling up for yourself? Would you go, or simply dismiss him out of hand?

My dept. head? Er...let me interpret the question more generally, then. Sure, I'd check it out myself. If I saw them, I wouldn't dismiss gravity out-of-hand...I'd want other minds on the problem too. Helium-filled balloons fall up, after all.

What if he told you "God" was going to make it happen, and you saw it for yourself?

It's one thing to see something, but interpreting it as 'God' is surely an inference. Or as Capt. Kirk put it, "What does God need with a starship?"

 

[Chris Parker]

Hi Bill,

Not to disparage your take on all things scientific, but when you say The Singularity, are you refering to the Big Bang? I haven't come across the term Singularity for it before, but have for other things (Black Holes, Human Singularity [evolving past biology, hmm, possibly too far to take this thread's already heady topic], and a couple of others).

But, just so we're clear, science is working on what came before the Big Bang. I've mentioned String Theory a couple of times, and it's expansion, M-Theory, proposed by Ed Witten. String Theory (and M-Theory) predict that there are at least 11 dimensions, the 4 most are familiar with (length, breadth, width, time), convex, concave, parallel, and so on. Most don't have names, refered to as the 9th Dimension, or the 11th, and so on. In this model, strings are on membranes, or branes, which are really nothing more than hugely stretched strings themselves. This allows for the "regular" strings (relating to electro-magnetic force, the strong and weak nuclear forces, matter, and others) to be attached to this brane, whereas the predicted gravitons (particles of gravity) are possibly disconnected, allowing them to move freely between dimensions, leaving the ones we are familiar with, and going into others, offering an explanation as to the ridiculously weak strength of gravity (as compared to the other forces).

But this theory goes further, proposing that the branes are actually rather frequent, and float through the multiverse, occasionally colliding with each other. And those collisions are what the Big Bang was, a collision of immense forces, releasing a fantastic amount of energy and matter.

But, of course, there are problems. For one thing, there is no way to test or prove any of this other than by mathematical equations to test whether or not it would stand up to known and established laws. Then you get the issue of not actually knowing what would happen if these branes did collide... it may result in a "Big Bang", it may not. If it does, then Big Bangs may be going on all the time, resulting in many Universes being created all around us, just out of our perception. And, of course, you will always have the question "yes, but what came before that?". But I thought you may like to know that science is certainly delving into what came before.

As for your oxygen example, you can test and see the results for yourself. You don't need to be a scientist. But in order for you to do that, you need to understand that "oxygen" is just a name used to describe a particular gaseous element with specific properties. Those include a certain number of protons, electrons (8 each) and neutrons (16), a certain atomic weight (16), and a place on the Periodic Table (8). But that is all very "science-y", and as you say, most won't see the elctrons and protons themselves. But what we can see is displays of it's properties that have an effect on the surroundings.

For example, one property of oxygen is that it burns, and burns quite nicely, thank you. To test yourself, try this http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/demos/burning_splint/burning_splint.htm. It also allows us to breathe, by providing sustenance through our blood stream to the various parts of our bodies. Try not breathing (only for a short while, don't want to lose you!), and see the reaction of a lack of oxygen. Or check out the oxygen masks in a hospital, and see what happens when you remove them, or stop the flow... actually, probably best we don't do that one.

(Please note the above testing methods are by no means exhaustive, or entirely scientific [with removing oxygen masks etc], but are merely an indication to what can be done).

But, as you can see, even if you can't "see" oxygen itself, you can test for it's presence. I'll defer to Elder's statements about the operation of science here, as to improving existing models and providing new ones as evidence warrants, but realise that the Flat Earth Model was science until new evidence demonstrated a need for a new Model. And that is the way science continues today, constantly re-evaluating and re-testing, not leaving anything to faith, as it were.

Did you see NASA crash a rocket into the Lunar Pole? That was done to discover what it was made of. Now, there have been numerous missions to the moon before, and they have brought back Lunar materials, so you may say we already know. It's dry and dusty, and rather barren. But there is a theory that the poles may contain frozen water, so instead of just saying "No, we're scientists, we've been there and done that, and there isn't any", they re-tested and re-examined in a new way to possibly add to the model we have of the Lunar construction.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Hi Bill,

Not to disparage your take on all things scientific, but when you say The Singularity, are you refering to the Big Bang? I haven't come across the term Singularity for it before, but have for other things (Black Holes, Human Singularity [evolving past biology, hmm, possibly too far to take this thread's already heady topic], and a couple of others).

Yes, I am referring to the singularity that existed in the instant before everything we know of came into being in a massive explosion.

But, just so we're clear, science is working on what came before the Big Bang.

I am aware of that, and believe me, I love reading about it. It is way, way, beyond my ken, but it's very cool.

However, it feeds my point. I can, just barely, wrap my mind around concepts (not 'understanding', just grasping the rawest concept) of the 'Big Bang'. I find myself utterly at sea when it comes to having a reasonable layman's understanding of the latest string or superstring theories.

And yet, I believe that the scientists are not lying to me. I believe what they say to be fact. I even believe it knowing that tomorrow's theories may be different than today's theories.

I take it on faith. Like most laypersons.

And that is my point. Many laypersons who are hostile to religion refuse to accept the notion that their 'faith' is similar to the 'faith' of the religious, because they feel their beliefs are rooted in facts, while those of religious people are unprovable and therefore suspect.

But as you say - nth dimension dimensions may well turn out to be unprovable; they're certainly unprovable at this time. There is evidence for them, but that isn't proof. The scientists know this, they understand the difference. The laypeople do not, and take it on faith. They just refuse to see it as faith. I LOL.

I believe that many non-religious refuse to accept the similarities between the faith-based nature of their beliefs and those of the religious because at the core, they see one fundamental difference between them; they are 'right' and religious are 'wrong'. They're just grasping for the correct metaphor to differentiate themselves without seeming to come right out and say they're right because they're right and so there, nyah. So they nuance and derive and divide the meaning of a simple word, 'faith' so that what they do does not have be called that horrid word.

As for your oxygen example, you can test and see the results for yourself.

Yes, you are quite correct. But again, my point was not that oxygen does not exist, or that no one can understand it. My point was that at the core, all knowledge is either direct or indirect. I know fire is hot, I can and have burned myself, as have most other people. I do not know that all molecular activity ceases at 'absolute zero', because I have not observed that for myself, nor am I likely to. Same for oxygen. I am not likely to gather the equipment or perform the tests needed to prove oxygen exists or what its properties are. I am quite willing to take the word of others for it. But that makes my knowledge indirect.

Indirect knowledge is not bad, wrong, or evil. We need it or we'd go nuts trying to personally prove or disprove every thesis. However, in order to accept it, we are required to place our faith in others who do understand it. Most of the time, that faith is completely justified. Sometimes it is not. But it is part of what we have to do to get by in the world.

All part of my thesis, which is that faith is personal. Having faith in oxygen is required of me, a layman who cannot or does not want to do the science to prove it exists. A scientist may not have to make that leap, they can prove it themselves. Their belief in the exact same thing is not faith, it is based on direct knowledge. Faith is internal to the person, not an objective yardstick that is the same for all people depending on the objective reality.

And again, getting back to my original statement about oxygen, I was responding to an assertion that oxygen is 'obvious'. It is not obvious. Even you have pointed out that a number of things must be done if one wishes to prove it exists. That's not 'obvious'. Obvious is self-evident. Oxygen is not self-evident.

 

[elder999]

For example, one property of oxygen is that it burns, and burns quite nicely, thank you. To test yourself, try this http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/demos/burning_splint/burning_splint.htm. .

Sorry-oxygen doesn't burn, especially in the example you've provided.Oxygen promotes combustion. Some would say it's necessary for combustion, but this isn't strictly true: hydrogen will burn in a chlorine atmosphere.

The only place oxygen "burns" is in the fusion reaction of stars. Oxygen itself is nonflammable.

 

[Chris Parker]

Not to stir up the whole "what is the definition of faith" thing again, but...

Within science, for it to be accepted, there must be evidence, or at the very least a supportable theorem or hypothesis. Without that it is not science, it is philosophy at best, and guess-work at worst. So to say that you take science "on faith" as you have no direct understanding of the workings of certain aspects is not quite right. For it to be science there must be evidence to support it, whether you know of it and have personally examined it yourself or not. Religious faith, on the other hand, does not.

And having faith in oxygen is not required of you at all, that is another wonderful thing about the sciences. You can have no faith in oxygen at all, and you will continue to breathe it in. You don't even need to have knowledge that such a thing as oxygen exists. God, on the other hand, requires faith and knowledge of Him, if you are to be saved. Oh, and oxygen is obvious. If you breathe, it is obvious that oxygen is present. If you start to suffocate, it is obvious that it is absent.

Oh, Elder, yeah, poor choice of words on my part. Thanks.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Not to stir up the whole "what is the definition of faith" thing again, but...

Within science, for it to be accepted, there must be evidence, or at the very least a supportable theorem or hypothesis. Without that it is not science, it is philosophy at best, and guess-work at worst. So to say that you take science "on faith" as you have no direct understanding of the workings of certain aspects is not quite right. For it to be science there must be evidence to support it, whether you know of it and have personally examined it yourself or not. Religious faith, on the other hand, does not.

Again, that's the core of my argument. You state it correctly, but then ignore the implications.

We know that science is based mostly on provable fact. So we say that belief in scientific theories is not faith, but just a rational belief.

Yet, we know that scientific facts change. What was once 'true' beyond dispute is now false - rocks do fall from the sky.

Since people once believed that rocks did not fall from the sky - because science said so - by your statements, what they believed, which was not faith at the time but rational belief, is now magically transformed into faith, because as it turns out, the facts were wrong.

My point is that what a person believes is what they believe. Regardless of what it is based on. Faith is decoupled from the veracity of that belief.

It cannot be otherwise. If it were, the poor man, dead centuries now, who believed rocks do not fall from the sky would be spinning in his grave as his beliefs were written as 'rational belief' and then 'faith' and then 'rational belief' and so on as new facts emerge and new scientific theories become popular.

I say what the person believed is what they believed. True or false, they had faith then and faith it remains.

Faith is utterly decoupled from objective reality.

If it were otherwise, as I've said before, if someone somehow proved that a particular religion was true, you'd have to go back and rewrite history - all the people who believed in it in the past would now no longer be 'faithful' but rather 'rational believers in the truth'. Well, they're dead and gone. Their belief cannot change now. Neither does what we call it. Faith.

Oh, and oxygen is obvious. If you breathe, it is obvious that oxygen is present. If you start to suffocate, it is obvious that it is absent.

That is indirect based on what we're told about human physiology. We do not see, touch, smell, or otherwise sense oxygen directly. It is non-obvious. The effect of the lack of it is obvious, I will give you that.

 

[Chris Parker]

No, I'm not ignoring any implications here, I'm just not retro-actively applying them. For one thing, science is rarely (if ever) "true beyond dispute", it is more realistically "true until something better comes along to replace and improve our understanding and knowledge of it". My point is more that for you to accept something as science is to accept that there is evidence to support it. Science requires evidence, faith does not. That's all.

Your hypothetical man of rational belief was a man of science in his day, and most likely a man of faith as well. Changing scientific understandings do not invaildate his rational beliefs nor his faith, the Church itself is just as much a changing and altering entity as science is. Do we need to go down the path of the changing views of Satan/Lucifer the Bringer of Light, Mary of Magdalene again? How about the very early Church led by Jesus' brother James in which there were no miracles, and no resurrection, and the teachings were simply a different slant on Judaism, until Peter started his own take on things (for the record, this Peter had no contact with Jesus during Jesus' life, but rather was a persecutor of the followers of James' group, who then said he had a vision in which Jesus appeared to him, and instructed him to lead people in the "true" way. Through a propaganda campaign Peter's Church won out, and James' Church was destroyed. That is the direct origin of the Catholic Church). Interesting that the very early followers of Jesus had such a different view and understanding of Him, and would openly call those who claimed miracles and resurrection blasphemers and heretics... how times change.

As to requiring history to be rewritten, again, that happens all the time. But evidence would move God into the realm of science, and out of that of religion.

Oh, and you know that tangy smell in the air surrounding a storm? That would be ozone, a compound made up of three oxygen molecules, given the formula O3. And that smell would be oxygen.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

No, I'm not ignoring any implications here, I'm just not retro-actively applying them. For one thing, science is rarely (if ever) "true beyond dispute", it is more realistically "true until something better comes along to replace and improve our understanding and knowledge of it". My point is more that for you to accept something as science is to accept that there is evidence to support it. Science requires evidence, faith does not. That's all.

Science requires evidence, yes. A layperson's belief in the theories science produces does not require evidence. It is faith.

Your hypothetical man of rational belief was a man of science in his day, and most likely a man of faith as well. Changing scientific understandings do not invaildate his rational beliefs nor his faith, the Church itself is just as much a changing and altering entity as science is. Do we need to go down the path of the changing views of Satan/Lucifer the Bringer of Light, Mary of Magdalene again?

No, and for the reasons I stated. Faith then is faith now. Faith is decoupled from objective reality, it is a personal belief.

And the rational man of olden times is no different from the rational man of today - believing what science holds to be true, and finding later that it might not be so. Again, the fallacy of thinking that science of the past was often wrong, but science of today cannot be. Every age thinks this. Every age is mistaken.

How about the very early Church led by Jesus' brother James in which there were no miracles, and no resurrection, and the teachings were simply a different slant on Judaism, until Peter started his own take on things (for the record, this Peter had no contact with Jesus during Jesus' life, but rather was a persecutor of the followers of James' group, who then said he had a vision in which Jesus appeared to him, and instructed him to lead people in the "true" way. Through a propaganda campaign Peter's Church won out, and James' Church was destroyed. That is the direct origin of the Catholic Church). Interesting that the very early followers of Jesus had such a different view and understanding of Him, and would openly call those who claimed miracles and resurrection blasphemers and heretics... how times change.

But faith remains faith, as I said. Faith is personal, and is utterly decoupled from objective reality - or even changing religious ideology.

As to requiring history to be rewritten, again, that happens all the time. But evidence would move God into the realm of science, and out of that of religion.

I didn't say rewriting history. I said rewriting what the nature of an individual's belief was. We say a person had faith in something, and it turns out to be true. We cannot retroactively change how he felt, he's dead. If it was faith then, it's faith now. If faith were coupled to objective reality, we'd be required to change his former faith to rational belief anytime the facts changed. We can't change what he believed, too late.

Oh, and you know that tangy smell in the air surrounding a storm? That would be ozone, a compound made up of three oxygen molecules, given the formula O3. And that smell would be oxygen.

That's evidence, but it is not direct. As far as I can prove personally, it could be cow farts. Oxygen is not obvious.

 

[Chris Parker]

You know, I don't really see any way to say this other than this: For it to be science, there must be evidence. For you to accept it as science, you must therefore accept that there is evidence. For a layperson to accept it as science, they must accept that there is evidence. Otherwise it cannot and should not be labelled as science. That is not faith, then, or it is not science. One or the other.

Now, Bill, as I said, science does not believe that it is definatively correct, and will never be corrected. In fact, science is best described as the best working knowledge at present until disproved. That is very different to what you are saying about "the fallacy of science".

And yes, faith remains faith, uncoupled from objectivity. That is exactly what I have been saying. But recognition of science is not faith free from objectivity, it is recognising that evidence exists to support a claim.

As to re-writing history, this is the quote I was refering to:

(Originally posted by Bill Mattocks) If it were otherwise, as I've said before, if someone somehow proved that a particular religion was true, you'd have to go back and rewrite history...

And again, there would be no need to change anything. Either he had a faith at the time that God would send the rain for his crops, or he had a rational belief that the birds flying low meant a storm was on it's way. One is faith, the other science (of sorts).

Now really, Bill, with that last line, you are just running away. To accept that the smell you smell is ozone, you accept it as science. If you want to argue with it, I could say that I have no personal experience being shot through the chest, so for all I know it feels like kittens licking my toes... but we're having a rather silly argument then. Your argument is basically saying that for anything to be absolutely true, in a scientific way, for you then you must personally do the experiments yourself, see the atoms dancing under your equipment, know the true taste of methane and sulphor by tasting it yourself. A big part of the advancement of science is that past knowledge is used to move onto bigger discoveries, so every scientist doesn't need to rediscover gravity, inertia, and friction again and again. And that would simply waste time when the knowledge is there, if you need to you can see the evidence and experiments yourself. But to just say that "I've never seen an oxygen molecule, so I have to have faith that it is there" is honestly just a cop-out. Scientifically speaking, you know it is there, and that is not a matter of faith, it is a matter of knowledge.

 

[elder999]

How about the very early Church led by Jesus' brother James in which there were no miracles, and no resurrection, and the teachings were simply a different slant on Judaism, until Peter started his own take on things (for the record, this Peter had no contact with Jesus during Jesus' life, but rather was a persecutor of the followers of James' group, who then said he had a vision in which Jesus appeared to him, and instructed him to lead people in the "true" way. Through a propaganda campaign Peter's Church won out, and James' Church was destroyed. That is the direct origin of the Catholic Church)

That'd be Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee. His and Peter's supposed interactions were....interesting: Peter was sort of a bridge between Paul and James, who (according to the "Gospels") had a vision that "resolved" some of those conflicts.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

And yes, faith remains faith, uncoupled from objectivity. That is exactly what I have been saying. But recognition of science is not faith free from objectivity, it is recognising that evidence exists to support a claim.

Religious people recognize 'evidence' to support their claims. You might not accept it, but they do.

Faith is uncoupled. You agree with me. That means faith is uncoupled. Period. If one holds a belief that they do not have personal understanding of, it is faith. Whether in science or religion.

As to re-writing history, this is the quote I was refering to:

(Originally posted by Bill Mattocks) If it were otherwise, as I've said before, if someone somehow proved that a particular religion was true, you'd have to go back and rewrite history...

You caught me, I mispoke. Forgive me.

And again, there would be no need to change anything. Either he had a faith at the time that God would send the rain for his crops, or he had a rational belief that the birds flying low meant a storm was on it's way. One is faith, the other science (of sorts).

Both are faith. One may be substantiated by objective reality and the other may not. But as you agreed, faith is decoupled from objective reality.

Now really, Bill, with that last line, you are just running away. To accept that the smell you smell is ozone, you accept it as science.

No, I am pointing out a basic philosophical concept, which is the reality of knowledge. Knowledge is either direct or indirect. Explaining a non-obvious concept like oxygen by using another non-obvious concept like Ozone is still indirect.

If you want to argue with it, I could say that I have no personal experience being shot through the chest, so for all I know it feels like kittens licking my toes... but we're having a rather silly argument then.

I know that impacts hurt, and I can surmise that severe impacts hurt a lot. On the other hand, I have injured myself seriously, and discovered that it did not hurt at all at the time (later it hurt like hell). So although my knowledge of being shot through the chest might be indirect, it is certainly based on direct knowledge.

Your argument is basically saying that for anything to be absolutely true, in a scientific way, for you then you must personally do the experiments yourself, see the atoms dancing under your equipment, know the true taste of methane and sulphor by tasting it yourself.

Not at all. What I believe to be true has no relationship to what is objectively true. Oxygen exists whether or not I have the ability to prove it does. What I am saying is that for my belief in it not to be a form of faith FOR ME, I have to have direct knowledge of it. My belief does not affect the objective reality.

A big part of the advancement of science is that past knowledge is used to move onto bigger discoveries, so every scientist doesn't need to rediscover gravity, inertia, and friction again and again. And that would simply waste time when the knowledge is there, if you need to you can see the evidence and experiments yourself. But to just say that "I've never seen an oxygen molecule, so I have to have faith that it is there" is honestly just a cop-out. Scientifically speaking, you know it is there, and that is not a matter of faith, it is a matter of knowledge.

Objectively speaking, oxygen is a reality. My lack of direct knowledge of that makes my belief in it faith. I do not require anything more than that of it, and neither do most people. As I said before, I am not going around demanding that people prove everything to me before I'll believe it.

And that is true of most of us. Most of us (not all) believe that man walked on the moon. But we did not personally experience that, we were not in Mission Control or in the capsule itself (I'm sure Elder was, he's done everything :rofl.

My belief that man walked on the moon is faith, because I have no direct evidence it is true. There *is* direct evidence of it, I am not arguing that. I am arguing that *I* am not in receipt of it. My belief is based upon what I am told, what the majority holds to be true, and finally - faith.

If, in the years to come, it were to be shown that the moon landings never happened...then what? The objective reality changes, but the beliefs people had cannot change retroactively. Reality changes, and how people feel about that going forward changes, but you cannot change what people felt once those feelings are in the past. Their belief is faith, and it remains faith even if it turns out not to be objectively true.

Oh, but the objective facts! We have moon rocks! Yes, like the one the Netherlands has. Turned out to be petrified wood. And yet, they all believed they had been given a moon rock. They believed it was a moon rock because apparently the US government told them it was when we gave it to them. They put their faith in our statements. Ah, faith again.

Sigh. I know that I should never have walked down this path. I'm out of ways to keep saying the same thing. Now someone will say I'm a crack pot because I don't believe the moon landings happened. I do not know why I am so unable to explain the simple concept that I'm talking about faith as it pertains to belief, not the objective reality of oxygen, moon landings, etc. Faith is how we feel about it, not whether or not it is true.

 

[elder999]

And that is true of most of us. Most of us (not all) believe that man walked on the moon. But we did not personally experience that, we were not in Mission Control or in the capsule itself (I'm sure Elder was, he's done everything :rofl.

Nah. I watched on TV, probably the same as everyone else my age...:lfao: (Mom got me up-she was thrilled-I was somewhat blase, as I recall.....)

Oh, but the objective facts! We have moon rocks! Yes, like the one the Netherlands has. Turned out to be petrified wood. And yet, they all believed they had been given a moon rock. They believed it was a moon rock because apparently the US government told them it was when we gave it to them. They put their faith in our statements. Ah, faith again.

Actually, we really have no way of ever knowing for sure what happened there-the rock was a gift to the museum from one of the Netherlands' former prime ministers in his will-it's entirely possible that he did have a moon rock, but a relative swiped it, rather than let it go to the museum, and passed on petrified wood instead-or, it could be that the U.S. ambassador who made the gift put one over on the former prime minister, which seems more likely......

In any case, the many of us who watched Apollo 11 take off, followed it in the papers and on television, and saw men walking on the moon, have a little in the way of evidence-though some might say we're taking it on faith that it wasn't done on a soundstage somewhere......:lfao:

Sigh. I know that I should never have walked down this path. I'm out of ways to keep saying the same thing. Now someone will say I'm a crack pot because I don't believe the moon landings happened. I do not know why I am so unable to explain the simple concept that I'm talking about faith as it pertains to belief, not the objective reality of oxygen, moon landings, etc. Faith is how we feel about it, not whether or not it is true.

I think what you've been trying to express is a matter of semantics-one sort of "faith" is not at all the same thing as the other.

 

[Omar B]

The thing is, with science contradictions do not exist. If something is discovered that proved a previous idea wrong, it's thrown out (like the flat earth). Science much like math builds upon and evolves from previous knowledge and the more we learn the more cohesive the whole hangs together, like Einstein's relativity suddenly provided answers and clarified much that was misunderstood before. One's inability to recreate an experiment, or unwillingness to try, or even to learn enough on the process to understand does not change the fact that these are the conclusions arrived at upon this date. The earth did not change shape when they discovered it was a sphere, people carry on, some at the time didn't accept it.

Religion's dogmatic, in that it is what it is and that's all what it is ... Kinda like Popeye. I never got how some can call a belife in science "faith." If anything it's the complete opposite of faith, it's fact (till disproven, if ever).

I always think of it as Pythagoras's theorem which is so damn usefull. But for me it's usefull because it's what we use to intonate and temper musical instuments because it's the best way to divide the 12 tones on a sliding scale. Though it is the best, the more you play with it the more of a remainder you get left over and the further down the neck of the guitar/bass/cello/violin you go the more dissonance is produced. So it's the best theory we have for dividing the scale, but it's still a tiny bit of a fudge because though most can't hear the remainder, I can. Most people don't have perfect pitch and can't tell an E from an F, how are they gonna hear the 5th in a major chord is ringing a little dissonant? It still does though, the fact remains.

Ok, football time for Omar.

 

[elder999]

Some Religion's dogmatic, in that it is what it is and that's all what it is ... .

I said I'd never do this , but: fixed that for ya! :lfao:

 

[arnisador]

No, I'm not ignoring any implications here, I'm just not retro-actively applying them. For one thing, science is rarely (if ever) "true beyond dispute", it is more realistically "true until something better comes along to replace and improve our understanding and knowledge of it".

This review of Richard Dawkins' latest book appropriately takes him to task for not adequately drawing this distinction--the over-stated claims of the creationists have led him to over-state the strength of a scientific theory.

Modern Science really stems from the 1500s onward, with the experimental method and the coming rebirth of philosophy. The science of the Greeks was done in a different way.

science does not believe that it is definatively correct, and will never be corrected. In fact, science is best described as the best working knowledge at present until disproved.

Yes, agreed!

By the way, on string theory, there are lots of reasons to be skeptical about it. It's not unreasonable to pursue it but there's a lot of work yet to be done there, esp. in terms of testing its predictions.

 

[Xinglu]

There is also a difference between the term theory as used by a scientist and how it is used by the average person.

In fact, the average person considers gravity a law, but this is incorrect, there are some laws found in gravitational theory, but gravity is still a theory. Yet, it is accepted as fact by everyone I've met. Evolutionary theory like gravitational theory has laws in it that govern it, it is a theory.

The average person seems to not understand this and misuses the term theory. For example, the number one objection I hear from creationists is that evolution is a theory and theories should not be taught in school. Yet they ignore the fact that by definition Creationism is a theory, better yet, Music is a theory (ever heard the term music theory?), music undeniably exists, I've never seen anyone deny that, yet it is a theory! Laws govern it, but it's still a theory.

 

[elder999]

Yes, agreed!

By the way, on string theory, there are lots of reasons to be skeptical about it. It's not unreasonable to pursue it but there's a lot of work yet to be done there, esp. in terms of testing its predictions.

Following along with the whole "theory" thing, string theory (and M theory) almost qualifies as not a theory, in that the only way we have of testing and disproving it (for now) are mathematical models-it's also gotten rather,.......crowded for my taste. The same applies to the theory of "global warming/climate change"-the only way we have of testing or disproving it are some rather diverse computer models. General relativity has been tested in a variety of ways, as has Newton's Universal Gravity-while there circumstances that are anomalous to each of these-thereby keeping them in the realm of "theory" -as in, we need a new theory to help explain the rest of this (anomalous) stuff.. :lfao:

For the record, the definition of "scientific theory," as put forth by the National Academy of Sciences, is as follows:

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world. The theory of biological evolution is more than "just a theory." It is as factual an explanation of the universe as the atomic theory of matter or the germ theory of disease. Our understanding of gravity is still a work in progress. But the phenomenon of gravity, like evolution, is an accepted fact.

Thus, when the Apollo 11 astronauts (Bill!) dropped a hammer and a feather on the moon at the same time, and they landed at the same time, they further "proved" the "theory of gravity" in that they had removed an element from the situation (atmospheric drag) for experimentation and received a result that followed predictions and supported the theory based on the known facts.More complicated experiments have been done for the theory of relativity.The same sort of thing has been done with evolution-there are experiments with bacteria, DNA and insects that provide experimental support for the theory of evolution. No such experiment has been conceived for "creationism." Doesn't make it wrong or right, merely, until such time as an experiment that can prove or disprove it is conceived, not a theory.It's a fair postulate, which is a better word for a ""scientific guess," but it's not a theory. Doesn't mean that they conflict, or that they don't-just that one is a genuine theory supported by experimentation, observation and results, and the other is an educated guess that has none of these things to support it.

 

[arnisador]

In fact, the average person considers gravity a law, but this is incorrect, there are some laws found in gravitational theory, but gravity is still a theory. Yet, it is accepted as fact by everyone I've met.

I'll say it again--if the average person knew how much is not understood about how gravity works, they'd never get on an airplane. We can predict very well what will happen, but the reasons why are much less clear. It's a field? What's a field made of? Space is curved? What is 'space' that it can be curved? It's carried by particles? Can you show me an actual graviton? There are theories with great explanatory power within their realms--small, medium, and large--but now way yet to stitch them together coherently. I believe it'll be done satisfactorily at some point. But I know a tenured prof. of mechanical engineering who teaches aerodynamics and plane design who believes on scientific grounds (he says) that the earth is 6000 years old and was intelligently designed. I think the biologists, who have had only about 150 years to improve on Darwin's work, can claim at least as much success as the physicists, who have had 300 years to improve on Newton's work.

Following along with the whole "theory" thing, string theory (and M theory) almost qualifies as not a theory, in that the only way we have of testing and disproving it (for now) are mathematical models-it's also gotten rather,.......crowded for my taste.

Yeah, the state of string theory is indeed more that of a hypothesis--a set of mathematical models in search of an application. I've read the arguments that it's sucking some of physics' best minds into a dead end and that that's a waste, but as a mathematician I know that history teaches us that many of these abstract structures end up being useful eventually in one way or another (non-Euclidean geometry in relativity, algebraic groups in particle physics, etc.).