can u believe in science

[loseyourname]

Even then, there is the question of if he is a man from the civilized world that is stranded on the island? If he is, then he has ideas and images of what he believes are knowledge to aid him being stranded. He obviously has most likely heard of how to make fire, therefore he has faith in what he has been taught.

There's an important thing to remember here. A truly scientific person would try to make a fire using the method's given to him, and if they worked, he would then believe. Science is first and foremost an empirical discipline. It is true that we do not have the time or means of even the knowledge necessary all scientific experiments for ourselves to see if they do indeed confirm the hypothesis that we believe they do. We must sometimes (in fact, most of the time) rely on expert testimony that has proven in the past to be correct.

You see, faith is a centrality to this issue because it is central to how one views knowledge, and mans proper place within the world, whether we ascribe knowledge to God or a supernatural cause, or just some unseen chaotic and random evolutionary forces.

My guess is that science and religion both try to be as empirical as they possibly can be, because man by nature is most apt to believe what he experiences himself. The major difference is that they derive their empirical knowledge from different classes of experience. Both also rely on expert testimony, although there are huge discrepancies here in that scientific literature is very strictly regulated and peer-reviewed, whereas religious texts are pretty much believed on faith and faith alone.

[garegin]

i guess i thread is a very fruitful discussion indeed. i agree with anon, in order to do something you have to believe in it. just look at the lab work in your school. one must believe in the rules or formulas. there can be no deductive reasoning with a faith in something. there must be an axiom, it just has to.

[loseyourname]

Which points to another major difference between the systems, that of logical foundationalism. The foundations of deductive logic are simple: identity, excluded-middle, and non-contradiction. We believe these axioms to be true because we observe them to be true in the world around us. Religion is built on the axiom that humans are spiritual beings born of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good spiritual creator. Religious people believe this to be true well, I'm not sure. I'd like to say because they've been taught, but if you go back far enough, there has to have been someone that thought it up to begin with. The best guess seems to be that early man observed his actions to have certain effects in the world, and when he saw an effect not caused by his own or another person's actions, he assumed that there must be some personality behind it that he could not see, hence the idea of "spiritual" beings. Once mankind learned that nature in fact operated according to simple physical laws, this idea evolved away from direct causation into the idea that the laws themselves must have been put there by an unseen personality.

[garegin]

nay, i just read some phisophical works. is it rather natural that most epistomologists would use religion in their works.

[garegin]

this is what science knows.
i think therefore i am.
science has its own practical applications, science's goal is not to attain truth. its goal is to understand things in best manner. newton's theory is good enough for average mechanics, but on astronomical level its unadequate since it doesnt include the speed of light. thoery of relativity is a much more accurate one and so one. the point is that science's mothods have different purposes.

[Anonymouse]

There's an important thing to remember here. A truly scientific person would try to make a fire using the method's given to him, and if they worked, he would then believe. Science is first and foremost an empirical discipline. It is true that we do not have the time or means of even the knowledge necessary all scientific experiments for ourselves to see if they do indeed confirm the hypothesis that we believe they do. We must sometimes (in fact, most of the time) rely on expert testimony that has proven in the past to be correct.



My guess is that science and religion both try to be as empirical as they possibly can be, because man by nature is most apt to believe what he experiences himself. The major difference is that they derive their empirical knowledge from different classes of experience. Both also rely on expert testimony, although there are huge discrepancies here in that scientific literature is very strictly regulated and peer-reviewed, whereas religious texts are pretty much believed on faith and faith alone.

Which is why I say, science is itself a religion, it just uses different criteria and cirriculum, because of its assumption that all knowledge comes from the scientific method. In that sense, it is simply another metaphysical assumption. We've been through this before.

[garegin]

FE, the chemistry or biology they teach you at school. you just believe in it. science is faith. because to reason something, one must believe in something first.

[loseyourname]

Which is why I say, science is itself a religion, it just uses different criteria and cirriculum, because of its assumption that all knowledge comes from the scientific method. In that sense, it is simply another metaphysical assumption. We've been through this before.

Science is an epistemology, and religion is another epistemology. How exactly are you defining religion? It seems that you're saying any system of knowledge that starts from an unprovable axiom is a religion. But that's the case with any system of knowledge, and we already have a word for system of knowledge: epistemology.

[loseyourname]

FE, the chemistry or biology they teach you at school. you just believe in it. science is faith. because to reason something, one must believe in something first.

Let me repeat myself:

Which points to another major difference between the systems, that of logical foundationalism. The foundations of deductive logic are simple: identity, excluded-middle, and non-contradiction. We believe these axioms to be true because we observe them to be true in the world around us. Religion is built on the axiom that humans are spiritual beings born of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good spiritual creator. Religious people believe this to be true, well, I'm not sure why. I'd like to say because they've been taught, but if you go back far enough, there has to have been someone that thought it up to begin with. The best guess seems to be that early man observed his actions to have certain effects in the world, and when he saw an effect not caused by his own or another person's actions, he assumed that there must be some personality behind it that he could not see, hence the idea of "spiritual" beings. Once mankind learned that nature in fact operated according to simple physical laws, this idea evolved away from direct causation into the idea that the laws themselves must have been put there by an unseen personality.

[garegin]

your quite right. they are two systems of knowledge. science has its own methods. the bottom line is that science uses logic, but religion commands faith, and gives no "evidence". if u give evidence, thats not faith. faith is something that you dont see but believe.