But yes, that was *also* supposed to be a metaphor for a more abstract principle on how scientists approach cutting-edge science, so that’s not a solid argument. (Which is the point: I’m not interested in arguing about “little trivial details”.)

Oh, let me first acknowledge that I was arguably wrong in my word choice. It can be misleading. If I were to improve this post, to communicate one idea clearly and unambiguously, that was clearly a bad choice of words. One of my “flaws” is clearly that I like mixing things up and being a little loose with words.

Now back to defending this old post of mine. There’s something fundamental about these basics of life. We’re hungry, we eat. Things fall, we’re scared of cliffs. It’s something ingrained in the human, and accepted. There’s something fundamentally similar about accepting our scientific methods. Yes, we can argue that by testing the results of our science, we can conclude that our science is “good”. Ala: “Science! It works, bitches.” (Was that on xkcd, amongst other places?) But how many scientists really sit down and choose to accept the scientific method on the grounds of empirical evidence of its success? Philosophers of science, maybe. Scientists themselves? Based on how scarily little many B.Sc students at Stellenbosch University knows about the philosophy of science, I’ve got some empirical evidence (or… maybe it’s a bit anecdotal?) that many people practising science really don’t have a scientific rigour to their acceptance of science itself.

And that, I’d like to call “faith”. Faith in science.

And why are people good? You can point to our genetic basis for our morality, but it still doesn’t say that we *should* stick to our morality. Which is why science is useless as a moral guide: it provides understanding, it provides the tools. But it doesn’t explain why we should use it, and the knowledge, in one way rather than another. Ultimately, there’s a “leap” (in a rigorous philosophical and rational sense) of *acceptance* that’s necessary to embrace basic morality. I call that being “faithful” to your sense of morality.

You need not use my words yourself, I didn’t ask that you do. But when I use these words, when I communicate, on this blog in particular, this is how I use words. I have my reasons for doing so, my logical steps for coming to these definitions, my philosophical perspective on language and concepts for backing it up. It is my intention to try and sketch out more of that in the “on faith” post I mentioned above. The fact that I can’t keep it in is what spawned all these words in these two comments.

Hopefully my verbiage here might serve as an indication for why it is useful for me to first go and sit down and write, with focus and concentration, for two hours, before I continue babbling on. So if there’s a lack of interest in continuing this discussion, it most certainly wouldn’t bother me.

@Teapot, I’m not interested in “raising my game”, because continuing the discussion doesn’t interest me. We’re talking about “rational reductionistic definitions” here, and I’m too wishy washy in my definitions. I feel I really need to sit down and write, with high concentration, for two hours, on “faith”, if I’m to express the “feelings” I associate with the concept adequately.

On the way to work, I thought “faith in your wife” isn’t actually that good a simple example. “Faith in yourself” might be better.

I was curious to see if anyone bites on “reductionistic empirical scientist” -> when someone saying that is placed in a certain box, that comes across as a negative statement. Which isn’t how I mean it. Kinda like who’s the one saying “nigger” -> those in one box may, those in another box may not.

“Quite an admission” does indicate I’m expressing myself badly though. The point is: I’m not reasoning. I’m not saying “X is faith”, and then based on that, “foo is X, hence foo is faith”. The point was that my words are so much in flux, that the statement “foo is faith” is as much a statement about how I use the word “faith” as it is a statement about “foo”.

And the meaning of the post as a whole is more important, which was an attempt to explain the basics of science to young earth science deniers. It does irritate me when the general idea being communicated gets buried in arguing about little words and sentences. Maybe I should explicitly write poetry, rather than prose.

Here’s the thing, first principles:

First of all, lets just be clear about what we are talking about here.
Belief is the acceptance that a proposition is true, and faith is belief in the absence of empirical evidence.

That first sentence would be key, yes. I’m not being very clear. Typically, I don’t take the “reductionistic empircial scientist”‘s definition of faith. I take a more subjective one, more the “I’ve got faith in my wife” kind. So what we’ll end up arguing, is about definitions. Sorry about that, it certainly causes people to pull their hair out, and I cause all sorts of trouble for myself by not sticking to the Canonical definitions agreed upon by A Certain Community. I will continue to be careful about the chaos I might cause due to this, and will try better to be clear.

So my definition of “faith” in the post above is defined such that “trusting that our empirically determined theories will hold into the future” can be called faith. Circular reasoning? No, I’m not defining things as “this is faith”, because I don’t care about words as much as the concepts I’m writing about. I use words only point to concepts, I don’t define them strongly.

Slight evidence of boxing:

You probably see this as a weakness.

Nope. It is most certainly a strength.

I hope this helps a bit. I’ve gotta go to work now. I appreciate your input, I’m not arguing against any of it. Rather, I’m finding it mostly useful in figuring out what I need to watch out for in the future, when I continue to write as I do.

This post was written with much “confidence”, which can come across as “certainty”, which is troublesome if I’m misunderstood (which *will* happen often). If I were to write it again, I’m sure I’d do things a bit differently.

And I’ve got “a glossary for thinktoomuch.net words” in the pipeline. It will be critical, because I’ll be doing similar things a lot in the coming year. And I have been doing so a lot in the past.

Thanks for your input! Much appreciated.

I find it interesting that you want the benefit of the doubt, yet you are so sure of your own position, that you are not willing to accept my constructive criticism and try to understand its implications for your own argument.
Being a rationalist, I am intellectually honest, and if you present a rational argument, I promise to evaluate it fairly.

I don’t expect that you are wrong where I am uncertain, but I think that you are wrong to be so certain.

Please explain which box I have “shoved” you in, and how you don’t belong in such a box what ever that may be

Teapot, be careful. You’ve shoved me in a box I don’t belong in.

I thought that I should just point you here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

Draw your own conclusions….

Teapot

Scientists seem to have one really big secret: science can’t prove ANYTHING!

We can observe an apple, and wonder, “Will it fall, or will it jump over the moon?” We see one falling, and think “hey, apples fall!” With that conjecture, we watch another apple, and it also falls. After watching a dozen apples or so, we conclude “apples always fall”. How do we know though? We can watch a million apples falling, and we still won’t know for a fact that the million-and-oneth apple will not jump. You know what we do? We take it on faith.”

First of all, lets just be clear about what we are talking about here.
Belief is the acceptance that a proposition is true, and faith is belief in the absence of empirical evidence.

Your first statement is roughly correct – the scientific method never provides absolute proof.
Read: Scientific_method

The relevant section is: “Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses. These steps must be repeatable in order to dependably predict any future results. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many hypotheses together in a coherent structure. This in turn may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.”

Empirical evidence gained in this way never provides absolute, irrefutable and final proof that the hypothesis is correct, because the next measurement may invalidate the hypothesis, and a new better hypothesis has to be made.

You probably see this as a weakness.
It is actually science’s greatest strength, it provides a mechanism that allows the scientific understanding of the universe to be continually honed to more closely match the reality of the universe.

I am afraid to say that you are incorrect to say that Scientists take it on faith that the Apple will always fall.
The reason for this is that faith is defined as “belief in the absence of empirical evidence”, and the scientific method’s central precept hinges on empirical evidence.

It feel that I should also state that proponents of science are much less certain about their beliefs than religious believers are (for the reasons stated above).

So, in conclusion, science differs from religion fundamentally in the way that it’s practitioners arrive at a belief.
Religious practitioners arrive at belief through faith, and scientists arrive at belief through the scientific method.

I hope that I have satisfactorily answered your question: “What, then, makes science any different from religion?”

Kind regards,
Teapot

‘This self-delusion, the result of what’s called cognitive dissonance, has been demonstrated over and over by researchers who have come up with increasingly elaborate explanations for it. Psychologists have suggested we hone our skills of rationalization in order to impress others, reaffirm our “moral integrity” and protect our “self-concept” and feeling of “global self-worth.”’

I try overcome confirmation bias by arguing opposing side with people who are doing the same. i think it gives you a better understanding of arguments made because it forces you to look for arguments to attack your own points of view while defending against it.