I consider myself a religious person but that being said I don't think Science is based on faith but rather requires faith since nothing can be proven and to me scientists need to have a strong belief that their work is correct, something that keeps them going after the 100th test. I mean without faith do you think Sir Issac Newton could have spent so long locked up in a lab trying to find a way to prove a magical entity like Gravity keeping everything on earth was actually a form of science? But I'm not saying religious faith, like Shepard said in Serenity ""When I talk about belief, why do you always assume I'm talking about God?"xPixelatedx said:
Science is based on faith?
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The thing is when extra credits mean about exploring faith in games they mean faith as in "emotional investment in belief".
Now most scientists do have emotional investment in their work but it is technically not required, as a computer can follow a method without "believing" it.
Now most scientists do have emotional investment in their work but it is technically not required, as a computer can follow a method without "believing" it.
We can never truly be sure of something.
And I guess that in philosophical way "believing" in something can be compared to believing in science.
However, Science is based off skepticism and curiosity to what is. Faith, does not change, it as a static believe, making it quite unbelievable ignorant. Science is ever-changing, logically and scientifically eliminating what according to results, can or cannot be.
And I guess that in philosophical way "believing" in something can be compared to believing in science.
However, Science is based off skepticism and curiosity to what is. Faith, does not change, it as a static believe, making it quite unbelievable ignorant. Science is ever-changing, logically and scientifically eliminating what according to results, can or cannot be.
As valid as the point is still using faith in relation to science gets my knickers in a bunch. As comedian Tim Minchin summarized; "Science adjusts its views based on whats observed, faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved".
Well, since you are asking nicely and since freaking DotA 2 queue doesn't want to pop:xPixelatedx said:
1) In "hardcore siences" (physics, chem, etc.) when you say you have "proved" something it means just one thing: you have a complete mathematical proof of it.
2) Almost all the mathematical proves require arithmetic, certanly all the ones applied to the "real world" and having any kind of usefulness.
3) Gödel proved almost a century ago that you can't formulate a complete and consistent theory capable of expressing arithmetic in natural numbers ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems ). That is either you know how to do operations in numbers OR you are sure those are the correct operations derivated from your theory.
4) With that you can prove that with curren math and sience, you can't prove that arithmetic is right ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_second_problem ).
5) Thus you just showed that using math you can't be sure if arithmetic is right, therefore anything that uses arithmetic might be wrong.
Alternatively you can just go the physics way:
1) To do sience and be sure there's no error you need perfect messures.
2) You can't messure at quantic level the position and energy of anything ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle ).
3) Therefore any sience you do is a well learnt guess.
I will gladly clarify any obscure parts and would love to know if this solves your question. In short, yeah, sience uses "faith", but saying that is BS right of a dipshit ass! Because if you call sience "faith based" then EVERY FREAKING THING IN THE UNIVERSE IS FAITH BASED, including your exsistence and every freking thing you have think, been, feel, see, taste, etc, making the word meaningless. TBH the argument is just a some words that can be argued to make sense, but full of crap.
Humm... good news, I think writing that sentence makes you elegible to recive a cash refound from your history teacher. At a quick glance and not having deep knolwedge about Newton:funnydude6556 said:
- He had TONS of faith but not especially in sience, he was a fervent alchemist and a man of God. However he seemed to belive that God created the world and then he GTFO, that he had little to no invervention, that spirits and devils were bs and satan didn't exsist.
- He spend lot's of time in a lab, but that time was alchemy time, not sience time at all.
- His work with gravity is purely (AFAIK) theoretical, he didn't do anything of it in a lab or proved anything, just did theorical framework.
- He didn't spend his time doing it because he wanted. He was quarentined due a epidemic.
- His work is only tangencially about gravity. In general the principia mathematica is made to use a new mathematical tool that he created (the calculus) on mass, motion and related subjects, since gravity (in the newtonian framework) is just a byproduct of mass that affects the motion it was one of the chapters.
That's the way I look at it as well.Souplex said:
It's all well and good saying that something has been proven via science to be correct, but the vast majority of the people believing in it haven't actually witnessed these results for themselves. So they are believing in them based upon faith.
Actually science is based on disbelief. Not accepting facts for what they are, asking questions about established facts and questioning reality.
I believe in science so I can say that faith is a good part of it. A scientist isn't satisfied with that. A scientific statement means that it's possible to prove it wrong and that's what a scientific experiment is supposed to accomplish.
I believe in science so I can say that faith is a good part of it. A scientist isn't satisfied with that. A scientific statement means that it's possible to prove it wrong and that's what a scientific experiment is supposed to accomplish.
And again, you could say that, but then you would have to admit that every perception and every tought you ever had, every action, every motion and ever feeling, every freaking aspect about anything in the whole creation and outside needs to be taken on faith.xXGeckoXx said:
And among those, among everyfukingthing, sience is among the ones that requires the lest faith.
So, using the word without consideration yeah... you could say that, but in context? Lulz, no.
I'm certainly glad you brought this point up!Asita said:
I really start to grind my teeth when I'm confronted by people who say thing's like, "That's just a theory, you don't have proof!"
It may be "just a theory," but so is gravity and I don't see you trying to disprove it by jumping off of buildings and floating away!
But I'm the kind of person who thinks that people shouldn't even be allowed to know about a word's existence without knowing its meaning(s)and how to use it PROPERLY.
To answer the question posed by the title:
Short answer, no. Long answer: NO NOW FUCK OFF IT'S 3AM! (It wasn't really I just needed some flavour context)
Here's the TLDR basis of faith: "I believe in X despite seeming really really implausible, because I have faith."
Here's the TLDR basis of science: "I am pretty certain that X is causing Y because despite sounding crazy, hundreds of my peers have shown that it happens through testing."
Short answer, no. Long answer: NO NOW FUCK OFF IT'S 3AM! (It wasn't really I just needed some flavour context)
Here's the TLDR basis of faith: "I believe in X despite seeming really really implausible, because I have faith."
Here's the TLDR basis of science: "I am pretty certain that X is causing Y because despite sounding crazy, hundreds of my peers have shown that it happens through testing."
Science isn't based on faith any more than religion is. Faith is simply belief without understanding. You can have faith in science, and you can have faith in religion, but science is based on observation and experimentation while religion is based on written and oral transmission of past testimony.
Laymen have faith(or do not) that scientists are conducting experiments properly and thoroughly before reporting their findings. Theists have faith that the testimony they take their wisdom from is based on true events and has been been transmitted accurately and without secular tampering. So no, science is not based on faith, but people put their faith in science everyday. For my part, I think XKCD puts it better than I can:
Laymen have faith(or do not) that scientists are conducting experiments properly and thoroughly before reporting their findings. Theists have faith that the testimony they take their wisdom from is based on true events and has been been transmitted accurately and without secular tampering. So no, science is not based on faith, but people put their faith in science everyday. For my part, I think XKCD puts it better than I can:
Not only can we never really be certain about many things (the specifics of evolution comes to mind), for the majority of people who are not themselves scientists or researchers, we are effectively having to take their word on such things. It is in effect, no different than religion, childrens' learning from their parents or most forms of education...we trust that what we are being told is true.
Unless one is him or herself doing the testing/research and observing the results, we are taking the conclusions presented based on faith alone.
Many things are easily observable and are difficult to dispute. Gravity, water displacement, electricity, combustion, etc are among those that we can easily observe the results of ourselves. However, a random person who we've never met telling us XYZ is beneficial to the heart or ABC is a carcinogen should always be taken a pinch of salt. I don't know the person, how can I know that they or their research has any credibility?
In particular, I'm usually sceptical about most discoveries in very specific fields, particularly those with no tangible or quantifiable outcome. Astrophysics, archaeology, meteorology, applied physics to name a few, are fields in which almost everything is guesswork and/or built only on previous discoveries which themselves have a questionable basis. Add to this media and government agenda and/or bias (this [http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/let-scientists-write-drug-laws-says-fired-british-expert/], for example) and I personally find cause to question the vast majority of reports with which the public are presented daily.
Unless one is him or herself doing the testing/research and observing the results, we are taking the conclusions presented based on faith alone.
Many things are easily observable and are difficult to dispute. Gravity, water displacement, electricity, combustion, etc are among those that we can easily observe the results of ourselves. However, a random person who we've never met telling us XYZ is beneficial to the heart or ABC is a carcinogen should always be taken a pinch of salt. I don't know the person, how can I know that they or their research has any credibility?
In particular, I'm usually sceptical about most discoveries in very specific fields, particularly those with no tangible or quantifiable outcome. Astrophysics, archaeology, meteorology, applied physics to name a few, are fields in which almost everything is guesswork and/or built only on previous discoveries which themselves have a questionable basis. Add to this media and government agenda and/or bias (this [http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/let-scientists-write-drug-laws-says-fired-british-expert/], for example) and I personally find cause to question the vast majority of reports with which the public are presented daily.
I'm not sure if I'm talking about the same thing as the OP (which seems to be about the philosophical differences between faith and empiricism), but from a historical perspective, science was very much grounded in religion.
As the best educated in medieval European society, monks often were at the fore front of scientific study. Names like Copernicus, Mendel, and Eilmer of Malmesbury (a lesser known, but nevertheless inspiring individual) crop up. There was never any concern about "science vs religion", as God was unquestionably seen as the creator. Their mentality was that science was simply a means of better understanding what God had created, so there was nothing to worry about at all - a far cry from the stupid Creationist debates you have in this day and age.
Meanwhile, religious doctrine in other nations required scientific and technological developments. In muslim countries, for instance, there was a need to accurately determine where Mecca was, no matter how many hundreds or thousands of miles away you happened to be standing. Thus, a great deal of advancements in charts, astronomy, astrolabes and compasses came as a consequence of trying to maintain this religious practise.
As the best educated in medieval European society, monks often were at the fore front of scientific study. Names like Copernicus, Mendel, and Eilmer of Malmesbury (a lesser known, but nevertheless inspiring individual) crop up. There was never any concern about "science vs religion", as God was unquestionably seen as the creator. Their mentality was that science was simply a means of better understanding what God had created, so there was nothing to worry about at all - a far cry from the stupid Creationist debates you have in this day and age.
Meanwhile, religious doctrine in other nations required scientific and technological developments. In muslim countries, for instance, there was a need to accurately determine where Mecca was, no matter how many hundreds or thousands of miles away you happened to be standing. Thus, a great deal of advancements in charts, astronomy, astrolabes and compasses came as a consequence of trying to maintain this religious practise.
Shall I explain to you where faith comes into science? Well, it all comes from the foundation of science which is philosophy.Scars Unseen said:
Solipsism is one of the first. We have to take it on faith that the world outside of our mind is real and not a dream or simulation. Without believing in that nothing we do in science, no matter how rigorous, is pointless. Science relies on our observations of the world being valid in order to function.
As explained in the extra credits video, there are several postulates in geometry that cannot be proven and must be taken on faith. We use them because they work, but we have nothing beyond that to support them, therefore we have to have faith in these postulates in order to apply these geometrical rules.
A more recent example is the Schrodinger equation. We know it works, an with it we are able to extract a wealth of useful information about a quantum system. But how was it formulated? Why is it how it is? Well we don't really know. We use it because the results we get from it correspond with observations.
Much of science is supported by logic and observations, but there are several fundamental ideas that one must take on faith in order to be able to use science otherwise the whole thing crumbles. On the bright side if these ideas turn out to be untrue science will adjust, or the whole of reality has no meaning so it wouldn't matter anyway!
That's quite a good way to put it. I was going to say something about the need for scientists to at least take some faith, in the sense that they are required to go out on a limb, defying common knowledge or common sense to make progress (like asking if heavier objects don't fall faster), but your explanation makes more sense.Yopaz said:
Faith is belief without evidence, and science doesn't roll like that. Science runs tests, multiple trials, etc, so as to know with more certainty. While we can never be 100% sure of something, we can be 95%, or even 99%, and that makes the likelihood of something being incorrectly said as true to be very false as low. As science does more tests and trials, the % chance of something false being claimed to be true becomes smaller.
To believe something on faith is to hold something to be true, and never test it. When someone says that they take something on faith, it means that they believe without evidence, and/or in the face of evidence showing them wrong. So no, science does not rely on faith. Some philosophers say science is required to take on faith that they exist, but that is getting into the idea of us living in what is the Matrix, and even if that were the case, the Matrix would be the reality we can observe. EC shot themselves in the foot, and I find it more than a little insulting to academia that a man working in an accredited college could write something like that and then keep it in.
To believe something on faith is to hold something to be true, and never test it. When someone says that they take something on faith, it means that they believe without evidence, and/or in the face of evidence showing them wrong. So no, science does not rely on faith. Some philosophers say science is required to take on faith that they exist, but that is getting into the idea of us living in what is the Matrix, and even if that were the case, the Matrix would be the reality we can observe. EC shot themselves in the foot, and I find it more than a little insulting to academia that a man working in an accredited college could write something like that and then keep it in.