Is science faith-based?

[Landrew]

Religion and science are opposites

I have also heard science being called a faith-based belief system. I disagree, because I see religion starting with it's conclusions first, and working backwards. For example: the bible says that the earth was created magically in six days, 6200 years ago, more or less, therefore the only evidence that counts is that which agrees with the bible.

Science does not start with the conclusion. Conclusions come only after all the evidence has been considered according to the scientific method. Even then, the conclusion is not asserted as a fact, and held up for peer review. This is a much more intellectually honest approach.

There is faith in science, but it comes about as a result of consistency and repeatability, not merely posited from a religious institution as an unquestionable fact.

 

[FuriousFunk]

But you have no evidence the Sun will shine or even that gravity will exist tomorrow ! It's extrapolation from past experience, not evidence at work. Scientists have faith that tomorrow will be a lot like yesterday and often assume without evidence that yesterday was a lot like today.

yes, there is evidence that gravity and the sun will produce in the future. We see past events and use the information to prove the upcoming future. The mass required for Gravity is still here and there is no indication that gravity has ever stopped functioning. The Sun will continue to shine because we see that it has plenty of Hydrogen inside it and we know that the photons from the sun was produced as much as 100,000 years ago so there is certainty that the Sun will shine for at least another 100,000 years as of today barring any celestial collisions. Just because you do not understand something does not mean that a magic man is controlling it. I do see the Christian logic in claiming to but not reading ONE book and then claiming to know everything instead of actually reading THOUSANDS of books and claiming to understand a specialized field. This idea of science requiring Faith is the Christian attempt to make science into a religion. Science is based on reproducible events that are predicted, there is no faith involved because we have this thing called peer-reviewed where nothing is considered a law until it's proven to the consensus of the science community. We don't read books that include unicorns, dragons, talking donkeys, bushes and snakes and then say "Well, it must be true because it's in this book that I am supposed to believe". Every answer is not in your book of fiction that requires you to ignore logic and have faith. The only faith in science is that we trust that the previous facts are true and the great thing about science is that we challenge ALL facts at all times, all assumptions are subject to scrutiny.

 

[Landrew]

What is evidence?

Yes there is evidence that the sun will shine tomorrow and it's good evidence. That's not absolute proof of course, and technically, there is no such thing as evidence which stands as absolute proof. I think that's what was meant by "no evidence." (please correct me if I'm wrong)

Almost anything qualifies as "evidence," but is it good evidence? Science was invented as a tool to test evidence and apply weight of credibility, or a level of scientific certainty to evidence (or take it away). The more we apply skepticism and science to "evidence" and assertions, the more weight of certainty (or uncertainty) we can acquire in our own beliefs.

 

[brantc]

"And that right there is where science and religion part ways. Science is not based on faith. Science is based on evidence."

Yes that is true, but science determines the validity of the evidence, it doesnt just look at all evidence equally, so the theory(model) actually leads science these days.
So if you are partial to a theory then alot of times its your conviction that causes you to continue on wrong or right.

The way science should be done is go where the evidence leads you no matter what your theory.

And also to not ridicule anyone for having a different theory(crack pot, woo, WRONG, etc,).

 

[fossilhound]

"And that right there is where science and religion part ways. Science is not based on faith. Science is based on evidence."

Yes that is true, but science determines the validity of the evidence, it doesnt just look at all evidence equally, so the theory(model) actually leads science these days.
So if you are partial to a theory then alot of times its your conviction that causes you to continue on wrong or right.

The way science should be done is go where the evidence leads you no matter what your theory.

True. Which is where publication and peer review take over, by skeptical experimenters who look for those errors caused by personal bias.

 

[eerok]

True. Which is where publication and peer review take over, by skeptical experimenters who look for those errors caused by personal bias.

This is exactly right. Science is a methodology, and nothing can be skipped. The checks, quibbles, and refinements that flow from peer review are as essential to the goal of objectivity as any other part of the method. And objectivity is inarguably the goal of science.

 

[QuestioningAnswers]

“Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe.”
- Albert Einstein

Science is indeed based purely on faith; the faith that you live in an objective universe. You could just as easily be living in a subjective universe in which you are unknowingly creating everything you are experiencing. With that possibility, you must take it on faith that you’re living in an objective universe and not the subjective one that only seems objective.

As Einstein said so well, scientists are truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe.

 

[Nichiro]

A man once said that I am an atheist. I have no faith.
I told him "Fine. Do you drive a car? He said yes. I asked him if he reached home safely daily in the evening for his dinner with the family? He said yes."
Then I told, you might be an atheist not believing in God. But you do have faith.
He asked me How?
I said, "You have faith in braking system of your ca, you have faith that the driver in front and back of you knows how to drive. You have faith that the traffic cops are doing their duty. You have faith that lights will work when there is darkness. You have faith that your family will be there when you reach home safely. You have faith that dinner will be served when you reach home.
Thus your life is full of faith.

It is enough if you have faith.

 

[eerok]

It is enough if you have faith.

This doesn't bear at all on science, where one is merely required to provisionally accept things. This is not at all like having faith in things.

Faith is not adaptable, but science is designed to adapt to new information.

 

[blobru]

“Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe.”
- Albert Einstein

Science is indeed based purely on faith; the faith that you live in an objective universe. You could just as easily be living in a subjective universe in which you are unknowingly creating everything you are experiencing. With that possibility, you must take it on faith that you’re living in an objective universe and not the subjective one that only seems objective.

As Einstein said so well, scientists are truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe.

Science is based on the hypothesis that the universe is orderly. That hypothesis is confirmed by the success of well-ordered scientific models. So it is an experimentally confirmed confidence, or "faith", distinct from and much stronger than the unquestioning faith in the authority of the Bible which Einstein abandoned as a child.

Einstein's sayings, strewn haphazard about the net, are playfully terse and poetic, and without context easily misconstrued. I'm not sure the source of this quote (I have seen it attributed to the 18th century British chemist Humphry Davy, though as far as I can tell, this is erroneous), but assuming it is his, in the full context of his writings, he's clearly not saying that Science is based in the same sort of faith in authority that Religion is, and which Einstein explicitly rejected. It is based in careful observation, speculation refined by experiment, which inspired in Einstein a lifelong awe at the grand order it reveals. If one goal of religion is to reveal the universe and our place in it, then, in this poetic sense, science is true "religion", and scientists are truly "religious", because their understanding of and respect for the universe surpasses traditional, authority-based religion, would seem to have been Einstein's intent. However, I would be interested to see the quote in full context.

A man once said that I am an atheist. I have no faith.
I told him "Fine. Do you drive a car? He said yes. I asked him if he reached home safely daily in the evening for his dinner with the family? He said yes."
Then I told, you might be an atheist not believing in God. But you do have faith.
He asked me How?
I said, "You have faith in braking system of your ca, you have faith that the driver in front and back of you knows how to drive. You have faith that the traffic cops are doing their duty. You have faith that lights will work when there is darkness. You have faith that your family will be there when you reach home safely. You have faith that dinner will be served when you reach home.
Thus your life is full of faith.

It is enough if you have faith.

Again (and this confusion of experimentally or experientially confirmed confidence with religious faith in the authority of scripture is so pervasive it should have its own name, zip code, and congressman: "the G g equivocation": Faith in God = faith in gravity... NOT!), you are confusing two different things, which owing to the limits of the English language happen to be referred to by the same word, but which are nevertheless different, as different as an iconic 70's rock band is from Elizabeth II, so different, in fact, as to be opposites.

The "faith" referred to above -- in your car's brakes and traffic lights and dinner when you get home -- is confidence acquired from repeated observation and practice. It is based in testable experiment and simple experience. The very sort of thing that science deals with. It is not religious faith. There is a world of difference between "I believe the traffic lights will work today" and "I believe my soul will go to heaven when I die." The one is based on an experience you and others have had many times before, and thus have good reason to believe in; the other, is not.

 

[Bythemark]

A man once said that I am an atheist. I have no faith.
I told him "Fine. Do you drive a car? He said yes. I asked him if he reached home safely daily in the evening for his dinner with the family? He said yes."
Then I told, you might be an atheist not believing in God. But you do have faith.
He asked me How?
I said, "You have faith in braking system of your ca, you have faith that the driver in front and back of you knows how to drive. You have faith that the traffic cops are doing their duty. You have faith that lights will work when there is darkness. You have faith that your family will be there when you reach home safely. You have faith that dinner will be served when you reach home.
Thus your life is full of faith.

It is enough if you have faith.

Nope. Informal trials have been done on the reliability of the brakes, the dinner, the lights, the family's safety, and they've all been reliable. If, for example, the car's brakes are unreliable, we get them fixed and then test them out to make sure that they are reliable. The same goes for future scientific research--science has consistently gone forward and answered more questions, and it's not so much faith as it is observation of patterns that I believe that scientists will continue to answer questions and continue to make faith a thing of the past.

 

[jsullivan]

Many people of faith also are people of science; one must just understand the difference between faith based beliefs and hard science.

 

[Fox]

Faith is belief without evidence, science has evidence, so no.

 

[skeptic griggsy]

Apologists equivocate in using the term faith. They claim, as Dawkins's nemesis Alister Earl McGrath, that they mean trust rather than blind faith when they equate religion and science, but in the end they mean blind faith, because their arguments lack verisimilitude, and when someone doubts, they say have faith, but even if trust is meant, it becomes blind faith to overcome those very doubts!
Does anyone else have any observations on their use of the fallacy of equivocation? Dawkins won't touch thelogy, but I sure do, because of the no there there so as to expose it. Advance theologians like McGrath, WLC and Alvin Plantinga make no more sense than any fundamentalist theologian! Theology is just dressed-up animism behind one mindless spiriit.
Yes, mindless spirit.

 

[GracefullyTalentless]

Through empirical data, shouldn't a scientist do everything in his power to destroy anything he has faith in?

If he fails to do so, then does he no longer need faith?

 

[eerok]

Through empirical data, shouldn't a scientist do everything in his power to destroy anything he has faith in?

Faith is an emotion, and scientists have emotions like anyone else.

If he fails to do so, then does he no longer need faith?

I don't understand the question. In any case, a scientist need only respect the methodology to do useful science, since the scientific method is designed to promote objective knowledge. It doesn't matter what he/she believes otherwise.

 

[GracefullyTalentless]

Faith is an emotion, and scientists have emotions like anyone else.

You can't emphasise the emotional aspect of faith to the exclusion of its cognitive implications.

To do so is to suggest that that those with faith, of any kind, have given no thought as to the reason(s) to why they have faith.

My point was that a scientist who has a presupposition (a faith, if you will) should set out to prove that supposition wrong. He should place value on his doubt, rather than his faith, for that will be the defining characteristic of his nature - (perhaps it is what seperates him from a man worshipping the sun).

If he is unable to prove himself wrong, through repeated and replicable trials, he no longer needs to hold onto his presupposition.

 

[Anaxes]

Semantics

The issue is one of sloppy semantics (which religionists love). As one of scientific bent, I make judgment decisions about truth based on the available information; this grades from pretty blasted certain it is wrong to blasted certain it is right, with a lot in the middle. At the extremes, I am at a point of belief, which is open-ended and subject to revision. Faith is something you HAVE to believe or risk going to hell (at least risk ostracism from the community).

 

[Tero]

Well, it's not the same. In real religion, feelings are involved. Well, I do think some stuff in science is cool, but it is not a personal fate issue. So not the depth of feeling that some people are addicted to in religion.

 

[Anaxes]

Doctrine and emotiion

Many people are emotionally dependent on a doctrine derived from social milieu. Each of us grows up in a network of relationships. At earliest ages, we often imprint the emotional responses demonstrated by available elders. Some of us come to confront and question the set of conclusions implied by such experience; apparently, some never do. Some of us are fortunate enough to encounter circumstances which motivate the basic inquiry. Adherence to and elaboration of primarily emotion-dependent doctrine makes the content of such a form of ideology, not philosophy (certainly not fact). "Truth" as encountered in most religious contexts, implies consistency with accepted doctrine, rather than having some accurate relationship to any aspect of existence described by the terms involved. [How do you paragraph within these windows?]