I think we need to distinguish between the scientific method and specific theories currently in use.

The scientific method is based on the assumption that the universe behaves in a consistent manner, and that this behaviour can be examined using empirical evidence. In order to ferret out these behaviours, self-correction processes such as peer review, falsifiability and so forth have been invented to compensate for human errors.

The scientific theories are simply those who have been shown to conform to observations, and make predictions which have been verified. Mathematicians in particular understand very well that all new theories must be based on some sort of assumptions, or no progress is possible. You could call these assumptions belief if you wish to be pedantic, but most scientists would agree that this is simply the only way we can get anything done.

No one of us has the time or intellectual capacity to rigorously examine all the "statements" that science makes about the nature of reality. However, the scientific method is the best we know of for determining the truth, and we have enough confidence (or trust, if you will) in the processes to leave the examination of evidence to those competent in the relevant field, and accept their findings.

Of course theories may prove wrong - we are only human, looking at the shadows on the cave wall and trying to figure out what it is that makes them. Sometimes the scientific processes fail. Sometimes the theories may be proven wrong. But until we find a better method for examining the universe, science will continue to be the best way to uncover its secrets.

// The Astro Smurf

As I see it, "systematic following of a belief" alone suggests dogma. Although there are systematic aspects of scientific research, and application of theories, scientists are not merely following prescribed ideas, lock-step. The scientific method includes putting forth a belief (hypothesis), but that hypothesis is malleable. It may be discarded altogether, or reshaped according to new data.

If "a desire for approval" means individual desire to be recognized, that probably exists to some degree in all of us. But, to stick my neck out a little, I would suggest that most researchers are in their trade because they seek to know the world as it is (insofar as it is possible), not as they would like it to be, and not merely for personal gratification.

As i see it,if something has been proven wrong...it was concider right befor...and those who used to refer to this false premise...were trusting it in a religious way...

If you are coming to scream to propose your views...maybe you are convinct in a maner that look like,you've invented it,or discovered it...or is it just because you've been convinct by someone(something) you trust...

Isn't it scientifik to always doubt,anyway...you look so sure,and saying no i'm not brainwashed...sometimes defenders look funny,while defending the work of others.

I'm not trying to persuade any of you,i guess you'll come by yourself at the same "precaution"...just be careful with what you take for the truth and rightness...it change really often.

Is there always 2 or more theories opposing themself...choose your side carefully...

I haven't had time to read any of this thread so I'll probably come across like a troll but here's my standard reply anyway.

Science is a process, not a belief system. However, one can construct their belief system based on the scientific process.

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Kilopi. Thought it was you who mentioned falsifiable. My apologies.

Beskeptical has pointed out that science is a process. I agree. To an extent.

I think that this is its main differentiator from other belief systems. But I still contend that this doesn't put it outside of a BS. (The likes of philosophy and anthropolgy also have constructs/processes, by the way.)

Take a look at the previous posts re. the Newton / Einstein discussion.

Newtonian physics was a breakthrough, and good for a while. The scientific processes at the time would have utilised Newtonian models/theories, would they not? They would have been required to put faith in them.

(I'm not getting into the argument as to wether or not they still have some validity, as this isn't relevant to my central contention)

de nada. BTW, it was fingolfen, in this post I bet. I guess I missed that first time through--used falsifiable instead of falsifiability, maybe that was it.
Then you will have to change your definition.

But I think that would be a bit unfair. You can't decide what you want to prove (the thread title) and then manipulate the definitions to prove it. That would be unscientific.

As to whether or not people of science have professed faith in one thing or another--sure, that happens. But religious people sin. That doesn't mean that their religion says they should sin. Likewise, faith is not really a part of science.

The important difference between science and religion is that religion comes with ABSOLUTE statements, that neither can be proved or disproved, and science evolves from relative truths and statements, that can be testified and proven false (which means: science has to develop, in order to replace (partly) untrue theories, and replace them with better ones).
Science does not claim it has absolute knowledge on anything. Religion claims it has.

All scientific theories are in principle disprovable, and in the end all theories will be disproven (at least it can be shown there is a limiiting case in which the theory does not work).

Religion can in principle not be disproven. Which does not contribute either to it's proof. It is also unprovable.

if something is neither provable nor disprovable, then it is useless.
It can only have value to people who pefer to be ignorant, and don't want to get into complicated knowledge, and prefer to believe in something that is disprovable.

Science is for people that realize that in order to aquire knowledge, some work (sometimes a LOT) has to be done! And even despite you put in a LOT oif work, someone else my disproof all (or part) of your work! That is : you have to try even harder!

Religion is for people who claim to know EVERYTHING ABSOLUTELY ("God created the world", for instance ) without having done any work to get to that opinion, and for which nobody can give any disproof. So it is a very safe position. You don't have to do WORK for entitling yourself an opinion on matters that seem important, and nobovy can force you to do some work for finding a better opinion, cause there lacks the ability to disproof you.

What a comfortable position!

Heusdens. Forget religion. This topic ain't got nowt to do with religion! :roll:

Also, in a philosophical thread, you need to be very careful with your language. You are using terms like proof, and provable very loosley. See previous threads. :wink:

Kilopi. I maintain that my definitions of belief, and following on from that, belief systems, are perfectly reasonable. In no way have I manipulated them to suit my arguments. I have merely summarised the dictionary definitions, without stretching their meaning. If anything I have narrowed their meaning.

If you are still not happy with my definitions, construct an argument against them. It is not acceptable to simply state that I need to change my definition because you do not agree with the contention that science fits into it. This is illogical.

The fact that people transgress, whatever their discipline, is neither here nor there. It doesn't necessarily reflect badly on their school of thought. To claim as much is to sin against reason.

Science is not a belief system anymore than a recipe or instruction manual. You might have a good recipe for, say, pancakes, and you might trust it whenever you have to make a good breakfast. In fact, you might ignore any other method of making pancakes because you like this particular recipe the best, but you would be hard pressed to call it a "belief system". In the same way science is a method, a process, it doesn't matter if you think it's a good process or not, it doesn't care.

The quote "always trust the manual" can be part of a personal belief system, but the manual itself can't.


Well, that's just my opinion. :wink:
[/i]

Interesting opinion skeptED56. I have two problems with it.

1. The manual analogy is kind of cool, but a bit simplistic for a subject as huge and varied as science? Choosing a particular manual is surely more about a personal preference; something that you have a say in. Faith I think is something more profound, as per my BS definitions.

A science manual, for example, would almost certainly reflect attitudes consistent with a BS, however well intentioned. How would the writers divorce themselves from prejudices based on prevailing theories and speculations. Imagine trying to write a manual for novice astronomers without mentioning the Big Bang theory. A 'theory' that, nonetheless, has wide acceptance; people have faith in it. And it is a also a building block on which other theories rest.

2. I think the method and process arguments have already been covered in previous posts relating to the ideals of science as opposed to the practice, in addition to the paragraph above.

No, I was happy with your definitions. As I, and some others, pointed out, by your definition, science is not a belief system.

It was only after that, when you still insisted that science might be a belief system that I said in order to conclude that you'd have to change your definition, and I warned that changing the definition would not be scientific.

As near as I can tell, you're stuck with the conclusion in the negative.

Not necessarily, no. There are many hypothesis that once tested are found to be wrong with no alternative. You just don'e hear much about the failures. No. Faith is belief WITHOUT EVIDENCE. There is a mountain of evidence that supports Newtonian physics. And Newtonian physics still works. It just has limitations.


Nonsense. You can't discuss beliefs and faith without using the primary example.

SETI and the the US missle defense system.
Aren't these two instances where scientists are working toward an ideal, without any shred of proof?

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The writers would not have to prevent themselves from mentioning the Big Bang, they could simply describe the theory objectively. Surely a discription of the theory itself and phrases such as "It is the leading theory for the origin of the Universe" wouldn't constitute faith in it, they are just describing the current state of affairs. For example, an anthropologist can write about an ancient's peoples(or modern for that matter) religous practices without believing it themselves or promoting it.

Whether people have faith in something is irrelevant, just because people have faith in the Big Bang doesn't mean that every paper written about it is now subjective any more than a paper written about an ancient religion is. Scientific results are always to open to be disproven, someone may think that the Big Bang theory, for example, is the most probable(but not definite) origin for the Universe, but still look at contrary evidence objectively. If there is sufficient evidence against a theory it gets thrown away; the scientists move on.


Science is really just making observations and conclusions/theories bases on those observations, keeping in mind that those conclusions/theories are always up to be disproven.
For example, Joe lives near a bus stop and observes the bus arririve at 7:00 AM on monday, it does this on tuesday, wendsday and thursday and theorizes that the bus always arrives at its stop at 7:00 AM. He tests his theory on Friday morning, and to his disappointment finds that the bus arrives at 7:15 AM. He finds several possible reasons for this: the bus was late, and the schedule will continue as normal the rest of the week, the bus always arrives at 7:15 AM on fridays, and most unlikely but still plausible the bus's time is completely random either the entire week or just on friday. Realizing that there are many, many, possiblities Joe observes for a month and finds that the bus arrives at 7:00 AM modays through thursdays, 7:15 on fridays, and times from 7:00-9:00AM on weekends. He also observes that the bus may be late sometimes and Joe then uses these observations as a working theory to predict when the bus will arrive. However, he is always aware that his theories might not accurately predict the next arrival and he will have to find a new theory, for example the bus schedule was only as he predicted during two months out of the year, etc. In this way Joe might use his theory, even trust it, while remaining ever vigilant that it may not be the best theory, and it may not work all the time. Does Joe's obervations/theory resemble a belief system? I look at it as the best available way to predict when the bus comes next. (sorry for the long and boring example :roll: )

[added] Although maybe everyone's definition of belief system, or any word of that matter, is in of itself a part of a belief system, in which case we are getting nowhere fast] :roll:

Not sure. Proof of what?

Star Wars is an engineering problem, not a scientific one. Certainly science has contributed but the system itself isn't a scientific theory.

Seti would better be described as an hypothesis. Seti is based on one main fact - there IS intelligent life in the universe (here). So the hypothessis would be if there is intelligent life here, there could be intelligent life elsewhere. And to find it we may be able to passively detect radio transmissions. Its a binary hypothesis though, so no theory will come of it - just one possible fact.

The SETI acronym is a pretty good indication of what it is-a search. It is by no means a foregone conclusion. If after a thorough investigation no signs of extraterrestrial intelligent life are discovered, scientists would have to conclude that no strong evidence exists. In what way is this an example of a belief system at work?

Wouldn't that make organized religons a search for a god? We are capable of modifying life, why not search for beings that may have modified ours? They may be able to detect our faith as a transmission.

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Proof that ETI exists, and proof that death rays are capable of destroying a missle on the fly.

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No, organized religions teach the existence of a god. God's existence is assumed. God(s) are not deduced through volumes and volumes of empirical evidence. Holy books and scriptures take the place of that.

As to the rest, I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

But don't "holy books and scriptures" refer to the empirical evidence of saints, prophets, and witnesses of the past? They did not have any device for recording their findings, so they had to be taken at their word.

As for creating a beam to shoot fast things out of space, I have yet to find any evidence that laser, maser, mesons etc. can ever be built to do such; without 'discovering' new, more efficient power sources and wavelengths.

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I see that russ_watters has answered the first one--our own existence is a "shred" of the evidence that intelligent life does exist. Not all of the missile defense system is predicated on death rays, but regardless, you're right that attempts to defend oneself sometimes are irrational and unscientific--and unnecessary, or, at worst, ineffective.

Wouldn't that back up another point of mine; since we can modify life, then why couldn't ours' have been modified?

And whether it be SF rays or anti-missle missles, it still is quite impossible to hit a bullet with a bullet. (snowcelt, I think, mentioned this on another thread)

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Impossible in practice, isn't it? Hasn't it been done?

What you mean bullet with bullet...isn't it suppose to be a kind of "wall of force"...a kind of microwaved area?
Possibly the same "mean" that burn crop circle everywhere...

And i dont think they'll build it in space...too expensive for nothing,since they're working on "ionosphere" down here in Alaska...and elsewhere.


Another thing...since we can prove real or false almost what we want with science...who's an expert to say climatik devise and mind-control devise are impossible and not created yet?

Let's see - science is considered a process, yet people rely on science to live by.

Science is supposed to run by the scientific method, yet my science methods education teacher has been saying that we should not stress the "scientific method" in classrooms so much because classrooms are the only places it is actually used. "Real scientists don't use the scientific method." (Or at least as is laid out in the classrooms, I suspect.)

Just some rambling thoughts from a stressed-out student....

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I'm interested. What do they use, then?

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According to whom!?!?!? Egad... I knew there were some crappy science teachers out there, but this really takes the cake.

As to the "scientific method", ever decent scientist uses it. It's central to the tool. When I was doing my dissertation research I used the method daily. I was working on investigating the decomposition pathway and mechanism of a hydrated salt with a polyatomic anion. I ran one experiment that suggested one decomposition scheme. I ran other experiments which would show fault in that scheme. If they didn't show fault, they would verify the scheme, etc. In the end I was left with a pathway explored using several independent methods that all said the same thing. I could therefore conclude that I had worked out the correct pathway for this compound.

A clever researcher could, however, design another experiment to cast doubt on that work. They would then run experiments to test their hypothesis. Depending on the results of that work, either my conclusions would be supported or they would have to be modified.

Yes, it has. We've shot down 4.5 inch shells in the air. Wasn't very hard either. Actually, this "hitting a bullet with a bullet" analogy to missile defense is a classic example of a pseudoscientific belief that is continually repeated despite the fact that it isn't founded in reality. Its an article of faith amongst the anti-BMD people that "it can't be done" despite the fact we've done it. We shot down the first missile using another missile back in 1962 and we've been doing it regularly ever since. The PAC-3s deployed to Kuwait had a great record in nailing inbound ballistic missiles - we got the lot (the one that got through was a sea-skimmer). We've shot down SAMs as well and they are much harder targets than ballistic missiles.