Why scoff science?

[CoachB]

So, is Gravity a religious belief or a scientific theory?
Hmmmmm?????

 

[Fenixgoon]

simple - they believe that faith and fact are (can be) the same.

 

[Blackjack200]

simple - they believe that faith and fact are (can be) the same.

And when facts diverge from faith, they stick with the faith.

 

[gimmewhitecastles]

What seem lost in all these arguments is that science and religion are in fact trying to explain two separate aspects of our universe.

Scientists are trying to provide a blueprint of the world, whereas creationists are trying to explain that a conscious entity carried out the plans of said blueprint.

The church crossed the line when they tried to take a literal interpretation of the bible.
(The bible was meant to be just a guide to get man from point A to point B. The only part of the bible that covers creation are only the first few verses in the first chapter of the first book and the explanation is simplified at best which is roughly less than .01% of the entire book. People seem to forget the bible is more of a historical record of human events rather than a science textbook.)

Evolutionists crossed the line when after they explained how life occurred, it happened because of random changes. Now all the hypotheses behind the structure of the changes are plausible. But it is nigh impossible to prove whether those changes were random or guided.

Furthermore since most evolutionists choose not to read the bible and most creationists choose not to read the origin of species, arguments from both sides are moot until further notice.

 

[Babbles]

And Modelworks was using the word as a scientist, not the layman "champ". Your were criticizing him using the laymans interpretation vs the scientific one that he was clearly using.

Hypotheses don't have to be "educated" guesses they can be uneducated. Yes, they are based of of observation, but they aren't based off of any sort of data. Anyone can form a hypothesis in 2 seconds, and it can be really quite wild, but it is still a hypothesis. If I get better from an illness, I could form the hypothesis that god healed me. I would not, however, ever claim that to be a theory.

No, not really. Hypothesis are indeed educated guesses and they are indeed based off of data. Somebody notes how event X appears to be correlated to outcome Y (i.e. data) and makes a hunch that the two are connected.

Come on dude, this shit is like fifth grade thinking here.

My opinion is that the majority of people who create this arguments are either religious nutballs or people who think they are "sciencey" but really just read magazines and don't actually "do" science. Granted there are some legitimate science twits who are the atheistic version of evangelical crusaders (e.g. Dawkins) but they are, thankfully, in the minority.

I've been in the science industry for nearly ten years and from my experience the average and typical scientist has no problem reconciling their faith (if any) and their practice of science. What is interesting is that at two different employers in two different states I worked with individuals who left the science field to go to seminary school.

I get irritated with the pseudo-science crowd, who seems to be highly represented here on ATOT, that are tech people and talk about science but are not actually scientists therefore they do not work in the industry. As such these individuals are not aware of the mainstream scientific culture out there, but just make assumptions on what scientists "believe." Of course this assumes that I somehow know everything, which I sure as shit do not. However over the years meeting thousands of scientists I probably have a more realistic grasp than the typical non-scientist person.

Anyhow, my point in the previous paragraph is to note that it is irresponsible for people to make grand assumptions about religion and science without really knowing the context of either. Religion and science can easily go hand-in-hand. Contrary to what most people think, the Catholic Church has been a great supporter of science throughout the ages. They still run an astronomy department and do actual scientific research. Hell the field of modern-day genetics was started by a Catholic monk (Gregor Mendel).

Moving on, in a sense science does require faith. Most scientists will choose never to use that word, but the same concept exists. Effectively we have "faith" in gravity, even though we can not describe or define it very large or small sizes . . . hell according to most applications we have faith that the Earth is perfectly spherically and all experiments are done at sea level where the acceleration of gravity is 9.8m/s^2. My background is in gas chromatography and mass spectrometry and in a sense I have faith that given electron ionization in a stream of helium the mass to charge fragments of chlorine with be ~70% m/z 35 and ~30% m/z 37. Science tells me it should be this so I accept it, but how is that really fundamentally different from faith?

I am not sure if it is genuine religious conviction or just simple fear that drive some people to be afraid of sciencetic research, but in a sense I can see why. If you really think deeply about the vastness of the universe and the complexity of life and just how amazingly complicated things are, I can see how these thoughts would confuse many scientifically illeterate people. As alluded to above, many hard-core science people do not help the situation either. As Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke to Dr. Dawkins, and I paraphrase, "You can't call people stupid and expect them to believe in your opinion." I think that is a fair assessment and a criticism of some of the pro-scientific crowd.

 

[Modelworks]

All theories have been tested. There is no test for the existance of God. Actually, when they have tested for God (prayer studies etc.) they've found no effects, which is arguably evidence that God doesn't exist.

All theories have not been tested. The one I cited earlier has never been proven.
http://news.discovery.com/tech/black-hole-simulation.html

No matter how the black hole analog is produced, any findings that result will not be definitive.
Direct observation of Hawking radiation from a true black hole will still be required to prove Hawking's theory.

If a black hole analogs is able to demonstrate Hawking radiation, "it will give scientists a lot more faith that we are on the right track," said Unruh, who expect someone will eventually detect analogous Hawking radiation. "If people do these experiments and find nothing, it will be a real shock to the system."

There is that faith word and it is talking about science.

 

[JTsyo]

What seem lost in all these arguments is that science and religion are in fact trying to explain two separate aspects of our universe.

Scientists are trying to provide a blueprint of the world, whereas creationists are trying to explain that a conscious entity carried out the plans of said blueprint.

The church crossed the line when they tried to take a literal interpretation of the bible.
(The bible was meant to be just a guide to get man from point A to point B. The only part of the bible that covers creation are only the first few verses in the first chapter of the first book and the explanation is simplified at best which is roughly less than .01% of the entire book. People seem to forget the bible is more of a historical record of human events rather than a science textbook.)

Evolutionists crossed the line when after they explained how life occurred, it happened because of random changes. Now all the hypotheses behind the structure of the changes are plausible. But it is nigh impossible to prove whether those changes were random or guided.

Furthermore since most evolutionists choose not to read the bible and most creationists choose not to read the origin of species, arguments from both sides are moot until further notice.

Why the Bible and not the hindu version? That seems to line up more with the science theory of the universe expanding and contracting in cycles.
That's the thing with faith, how do you know what to faith in? Whatever your parents believed in?
It's my opinion that people choose to stick with the old views because it's easier to explain. It takes no effort or understanding of the the subject.

Why is the sky blue? Because God made it that way.
Why does a giraffe have a long neck? Because God made it that way.
What is a rainbow? Something that shows God's glory

 

[sandorski]

No, not really. Hypothesis are indeed educated guesses and they are indeed based off of data. Somebody notes how event X appears to be correlated to outcome Y (i.e. data) and makes a hunch that the two are connected.

Come on dude, this shit is like fifth grade thinking here.

My opinion is that the majority of people who create this arguments are either religious nutballs or people who think they are "sciencey" but really just read magazines and don't actually "do" science. Granted there are some legitimate science twits who are the atheistic version of evangelical crusaders (e.g. Dawkins) but they are, thankfully, in the minority.

I've been in the science industry for nearly ten years and from my experience the average and typical scientist has no problem reconciling their faith (if any) and their practice of science. What is interesting is that at two different employers in two different states I worked with individuals who left the science field to go to seminary school.

I get irritated with the pseudo-science crowd, who seems to be highly represented here on ATOT, that are tech people and talk about science but are not actually scientists therefore they do not work in the industry. As such these individuals are not aware of the mainstream scientific culture out there, but just make assumptions on what scientists "believe." Of course this assumes that I somehow know everything, which I sure as shit do not. However over the years meeting thousands of scientists I probably have a more realistic grasp than the typical non-scientist person.

Anyhow, my point in the previous paragraph is to note that it is irresponsible for people to make grand assumptions about religion and science without really knowing the context of either. Religion and science can easily go hand-in-hand. Contrary to what most people think, the Catholic Church has been a great supporter of science throughout the ages. They still run an astronomy department and do actual scientific research. Hell the field of modern-day genetics was started by a Catholic monk (Gregor Mendel).

Moving on, in a sense science does require faith. Most scientists will choose never to use that word, but the same concept exists. Effectively we have "faith" in gravity, even though we can not describe or define it very large or small sizes . . . hell according to most applications we have faith that the Earth is perfectly spherically and all experiments are done at sea level where the acceleration of gravity is 9.8m/s^2. My background is in gas chromatography and mass spectrometry and in a sense I have faith that given electron ionization in a stream of helium the mass to charge fragments of chlorine with be ~70% m/z 35 and ~30% m/z 37. Science tells me it should be this so I accept it, but how is that really fundamentally different from faith?

I am not sure if it is genuine religious conviction or just simple fear that drive some people to be afraid of sciencetic research, but in a sense I can see why. If you really think deeply about the vastness of the universe and the complexity of life and just how amazingly complicated things are, I can see how these thoughts would confuse many scientifically illeterate people. As alluded to above, many hard-core science people do not help the situation either. As Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke to Dr. Dawkins, and I paraphrase, "You can't call people stupid and expect them to believe in your opinion." I think that is a fair assessment and a criticism of some of the pro-scientific crowd.

Trust is the word you're looking for, not Faith.

 

[Blackjack200]

As Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke to Dr. Dawkins, and I paraphrase, "You can't call people stupid and expect them to believe in your opinion." I think that is a fair assessment and a criticism of some of the pro-scientific crowd.

I think some of it is legitimate frustration though. We are an affulent, educated society. It's one thing to be henotheistic (maybe the wrong term) but we need to get past this destructive fundamentalist stuff. I do agree that many, including me, go about it wrong sometimes.

 

[Modelworks]

You're praising people with no understanding of a subject for being skeptical, and criticizing those with expertise for the same quality.

Not praising anyone. Someone who does not understand something will be skeptical of it no matter how much someone claims to be telling the truth. Unless you provide proof that people can understand on their level they will always be skeptical.

 

[Gibsons]

All theories have not been tested. The one I cited earlier has never been proven.
http://news.discovery.com/tech/black-hole-simulation.html



There is that faith word and it is talking about science.

Completely different meaning - "more faith" in this case, means a higher degree of certainty. Not absolute certainty, which is what is usually meant by "faith" in the religious arguments.

If you want to get formal about it, all scientific theories are unproved and unproveable. Evidence can be accumulated which supports them, but it only takes one legitimate contrary observation to overturn a theory. Good science involves looking very closely for that contrary observation, and that's apparently what your link is, in part, describing.

 

[gimmewhitecastles]

Why the Bible and not the hindu version? That seems to line up more with the science theory of the universe expanding and contracting in cycles.
That's the thing with faith, how do you know what to faith in? Whatever your parents believed in?
It's my opinion that people choose to stick with the old views because it's easier to explain. It takes no effort or understanding of the the subject.

Why is the sky blue? Because God made it that way.
Why does a giraffe have a long neck? Because God made it that way.
What is a rainbow? Something that shows God's glory

From the wiki link Hindu's have no problem with evolution. Since the majority of the creation debate come from Christian fundamentalists, I'm using the bible since it directly applies to the topic.

It is true that a lot of people will stick to the belief that they grew up with but that doesn't necessarily mean all follow this pattern. A good portion of the population will eventually make an informed decision after going through an extensive education and interactions with others that are from other cultures and fields in life.

 

[MJinZ]

How can you call yourself an educated person with a background in science yet you're merely "leaning" on the side of evolution. Are you serious? Have you even read Origin of Species yet?

Many people, especially in Chemical or Biological sciences, are not so easily swept by the premise of evolution.

I am a Chemistry and Biochemistry graduate, and have no doubt about the mechanisms of evolution, but that has little to do with actual creationism.

 

[Modelworks]

Completely different meaning - "more faith" in this case, means a higher degree of certainty. Not absolute certainty, which is what is usually meant by "faith" in the religious arguments.

Certainty has no degrees ,that would be faith or belief. Being sort of certain is like being sort of positive. The same is true for someone at the horse races betting on a horse because it ran a race before. They don't know it will win, but based on the idea that it won before they have increased faith in the horse winning.

Faith in religion has never meant absolute belief, religious text mention many times that nobody has absolute faith .

Some of the books written by great scientist , not the scientific theories but their personal thoughts often comment how pursuing a theory was extremely difficult . Not because the work was hard, but because of other scientist around them making their life hard because of what they believed , not what was accepted. They endured with their belief that they were right and others were wrong. They had faith in what they believed to be true.

I am not trying to take sides of whether science or religion is right or wrong. I'm just pointing out why as the OP asked, when confronted with evidence do some people not believe it.

 

[Cogman]

No, not really. Hypothesis are indeed educated guesses and they are indeed based off of data. Somebody notes how event X appears to be correlated to outcome Y (i.e. data) and makes a hunch that the two are connected.

Come on dude, this shit is like fifth grade thinking here....

Hypothesis = theory without sufficient data to call it a theory. IE, a guess. If it had enough data to be backed up then it would be a theory. I miswrote when I said they aren't based off of any sort of data, as observations are indeed data. What I was trying to say is that they haven't been rigorously tested or correlated by the collecting of data trough many observations and experiments (that's a theory).

Again, my example,

"I was sick and got better, god must have healed me"

that is a valid hypothesis. It cannot, however, be easily tested or proven, hence it will never be more then a hypothesis. I struggle to call that an educated guess. Some are, not all are.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Religion has traditionally made its mark by knowing the unknowable, or at least inserting an explanation into unexplained areas of knowledge. Since the people who came up with the religious ideas that have been inserted into these blank areas really had no better idea what actually was there than anyone else, the chance that they are correct is astronomically small. I'd liken their chances of being right to my chance of imagining something completely outlandish, like a 2 inch tall giraffe/coffee mug hybrid that lives on maxi pads, and then discovering it in my pocket.

Creation, or the way the universe came about, was once considered so unknowable that it was a safe stomping ground for religion. I imagine they'd have stayed well clear of it if they'd somehow known that even a tentative explanation for the beginnings of the universe was possible through a tried and true, comprehensive, exhaustively rigorous methodology like science. But how could they have known? So what religion has done is tie its trustworthiness and validity to things that it thinks can never be challenged. Fundamental aspect of religion are based on how the world and the life on it came about. It makes clear and unmistakable proclamations about these things. If it is proven wrong on such a basic level, then the rest of its tenets must be shadowed in doubt as well. Would you not doubt something a friend, even a good one, says if he has been known to lie about important things?

So you see, it isn't strictly science that is attacking religion. Religion set itself up to fail when human knowledge inevitably pushed into realms previously thought unknowable. The reason people deny these proofs so vehemently is because Religion is filling the role in their lives that it was designed by people to fill. They don't want to let it go. It has become necessary to them, and the dark things that lie at the corners of their minds rush forward to terrorize them whenever they entertain any serious doubt. Religion does indeed serve a purpose for the first creature on this planet intelligent enough to contemplate its own death and what comes after. However, it can only serve that purpose if we believe it. Too bad that the thing that was once its strength, the holding of knowledge that is thought to be unknowable through normal means, is also the thing that will bring it down. When a greater percentage of the contiguous whole of religious claims is shown to be false than is still unknown, then any rational person can make an educated guess about the remainder.

 

[Babbles]

Hypothesis = theory without sufficient data to call it a theory. IE, a guess. If it had enough data to be backed up then it would be a theory. I miswrote when I said they aren't based off of any sort of data, as observations are indeed data. What I was trying to say is that they haven't been rigorously tested or correlated by the collecting of data trough many observations and experiments (that's a theory).

Again, my example,

"I was sick and got better, god must have healed me"

that is a valid hypothesis. It cannot, however, be easily tested or proven, hence it will never be more then a hypothesis. I struggle to call that an educated guess. Some are, not all are.

You seem to have a very simplistic understanding of this. Additionally your example is not a "valid hypothesis" as it is not testable, which a hypothesis must be. Or at least in the scientific sense, which is relevant to the context of this discussion. A more valid attempt at your simple hypothesis would be "I was sick, I prayed, and I got better. God must have healed me." in which the prayer part is the action which can be tested.

Also I think your concept of data is weakly understood. Quite often data is collected on a set of experiments which may be extraneous to the primary experiment. However sometimes that "extra" data may be evaluated for a trend from which a hypothesis could be formed. As such a hypothesis can come from data. Something which you seem to imply is not plausible since you preclude the use of data in forming a hypothesis.

Hey what do I know, I am only a card-carrying scientist - two in fact, American Chemical Society and American Society of Mass Spectrometry - with ten years of experience. But I never tutored math in college, so maybe I don't know what's going on.

 

[Gibsons]

Certainty has no degrees ,that would be faith or belief. Being sort of certain is like being sort of positive. The same is true for someone at the horse races betting on a horse because it ran a race before. They don't know it will win, but based on the idea that it won before they have increased faith in the horse winning.

Faith in religion has never meant absolute belief, religious text mention many times that nobody has absolute faith .

Some of the books written by great scientist , not the scientific theories but their personal thoughts often comment how pursuing a theory was extremely difficult . Not because the work was hard, but because of other scientist around them making their life hard because of what they believed , not what was accepted. They endured with their belief that they were right and others were wrong. They had faith in what they believed to be true.

I am not trying to take sides of whether science or religion is right or wrong. I'm just pointing out why as the OP asked, when confronted with evidence do some people not believe it.

Semantics... You're arguing the same points I am, but with different words. If you don't like "degrees of certainty," try "degrees of confidence."

But I do think faith in religion does mean absolute certainty. Many religious types believe something regardless of any possible data and will not be swayed. That seems absolute to me.

 

[Cogman]

You seem to have a very simplistic understanding of this. Additionally your example is not a "valid hypothesis" as it is not testable, which a hypothesis must be. Or at least in the scientific sense, which is relevant to the context of this discussion. A more valid attempt at your simple hypothesis would be "I was sick, I prayed, and I got better. God must have healed me." in which the prayer part is the action which can be tested.

I can see how your example demonstrates more of an educated guess going on... Oh wait, it doesn't!

Also I think your concept of data is weakly understood. Quite often data is collected on a set of experiments which may be extraneous to the primary experiment. However sometimes that "extra" data may be evaluated for a trend from which a hypothesis could be formed. As such a hypothesis can come from data. Something which you seem to imply is not plausible since you preclude the use of data in forming a hypothesis.

Data is information. Period. Hence the reason I said that I mispoke, an observation is data. Good scientist record data, bad ones don't. Extra data MAY be used, you said it yourself, it doesn't HAVE to be used.

Hey what do I know, I am only a card-carrying scientist - two in fact, American Chemical Society and American Society of Mass Spectrometry - with ten years of experience. But I never tutored math in college, so maybe I don't know what's going on.

And this is, IMO, the reason the general public doesn't like scientists. A fair amount have the "I'm smarter then you, everyone else is a retard" sort of attitude, and don't even try to hide it.

My math tutoring experience was to point out that some people have different learning capabilities then others. It was suggested in this thread that people are willfully ignorant and just lazy, that they didn't want to learn. I was pointing to that experience to try and say that I've dealt with people that have learning difficulties, and it isn't completely "Well, their just to lazy to know any better".

But hey, I liked your straw man, very effective. Next time, focus less on trying to insult and more on building falicious arguments.

 

[Blackjack200]

And this is, IMO, the reason the general public doesn't like scientists. A fair amount have the "I'm smarter then you, everyone else is a retard" sort of attitude, and don't even try to hide it.

Oh, kind of like when you told me to stop "spouting out stupid crap"? Is that what you're getting at?

 

[Modelworks]

But I do think faith in religion does mean absolute certainty. Many religious types believe something regardless of any possible data and will not be swayed. That seems absolute to me.

You are talking about blind faith . Blind faith is when you are told to believe something and without questioning believe it. Like when cult leaders declare themselves God and people accept it without question. Even priest that have been with the church for decades will admit that their faith wavers from time to time, that they sometimes doubt God.

The fact that God doesn't appear and announce himself to everyone is an important issue , I think that if God did appear to everyone and give them all the answers it would defeat the purpose of life. People would not act like they normally do, they would change their life to match what God wanted because they knew he was watching. Everyone would start trying to please God. It would be like an office when the CEO walks in , everyone acts like they are hard workers , pleasing the boss, not because that is the right thing to do , but because they know the CEO is there.

If people believed 100% God was watching they would never harm anyone, never say a bad word, they would try to be perfect , but for all the wrong reasons.

 

[FelixDeCat]

You are talking about blind faith . Blind faith is when you are told to believe something and without questioning believe it. Like when cult leaders declare themselves God and people accept it without question. Even priest that have been with the church for decades will admit that their faith wavers from time to time, that they sometimes doubt God.

The fact that God doesn't appear and announce himself to everyone is an important issue , I think that if God did appear to everyone and give them all the answers it would defeat the purpose of life. People would not act like they normally do, they would change their life to match what God wanted because they knew he was watching. Everyone would start trying to please God. It would be like an office when the CEO walks in , everyone acts like they are hard workers , pleasing the boss, not because that is the right thing to do , but because they know the CEO is there.

If people believed 100% God was watching they would never harm anyone, never say a bad word, they would try to be perfect , but for all the wrong reasons.

God is everywhere and God is watching. I never harm anyone, try very hard not to say a bad word (really), and all for the right reasons.

Christianity. Try it sometime.

 

[MJinZ]

God is everywhere and God is watching. I never harm anyone, try very hard not to say a bad word (really), and all for the right reasons.

Christianity. Try it sometime.

Harming each other is the law of nature. Do all the poor Tiger and Lion kitties go to hell? 🙁

God is nice and all, and it's nice be an optimistic Christian. Most Christians cringe at the thought of a big bad God though. So that that thought is a big no no.

 

[JulesMaximus]

And this is, IMO, the reason the general public doesn't like scientists. A fair amount have the "I'm smarter then you, everyone else is a retard" sort of attitude, and don't even try to hide it.

That doesn't make them wrong though. Does liking someone somehow give them credibility? Well, outside of politics and religion anyway?

 

[Muse]

It's very hard for me to imagine someone who believes the creationist theory (i.e. I guess what's called "intelligent design") could be well grounded in the science behind the big bang and evolution. I think the gap between the camps might have something to do with the way the brain works, the whole "left brain right brain" thing. If you give in to the right brain you go "oh, screw that stuff, I want to believe this" and I will, goddamn it! People are like that, well a lot of them are. It's way easier to cite scripture than advance in a course of scientific study. People, most people are pretty lazy. How much TV does the average American watch on an average day? 6 hours, I heard?

Personally, I would avoid anyone who scoffs science (in most contexts, anyway).