<p>
</p>
<p>Prove it. Your personal convictions are as scientifically invalid as a religious person’s personal convictions. EDIT: Note that I am not saying that science doesn’t prove anything, I am just saying that it makes no statements about absolute truth.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Huh?</p>
<p>I also don’t get what you meant when you said “Still didn’t come close to referring to my post.”</p>
<p>Wow Harvey, you sure got me there. Glad you set me straight. And @Mosby, my mistake.</p>
<p>^Anytime, mon cher.</p>
<p>"For the record, this forum was started by Adenine, one of the most vicous anti-religion people on these boards. "
I find it funny, actually - (s)he starts this thread and then tells all the religious side posters to shut up.</p>
<p>^Anytime, mon cher.</p>
<p>"For the record, this forum was started by Adenine, one of the most vicous anti-religion people on these boards. "
I find it funny, actually - (s)he starts this thread and then tells all the religious side posters to shut up.</p>
<p>I never said “Scientists are trying to prove things”. I said “Scientists have proven things”. I’m not sure what you mean by “it makes no statements about absolute truth.” Sure, most scientists come up with THEORIES, if that’s what you mean… But these theories have a much stronger foundation than religion. There are things that we see and experience in our every day lives that have scientific explanations. If one wants to believe that god somehow played a role in the science that exists in the universe, that’s his or her choice.</p>
<p>Both are very faith based at their core. And both give us important contributions to society. I’d say they’re equal.</p>
<p>Select count(*) From ThingsProven where Prover=‘Scientist’;
Result: 0</p>
<p>Select count(*) From ThingsProven where Prover=‘Mathematician’;
Result: Error, integer overflow error.</p>
<p>Mathematicians are Gods.</p>
<p>I’m still baffled as to how one can say that “Science has never proven anything”.</p>
<p>Well, what do you mean “proven?”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If you are using the scientific method as the methodology behind judging that foundation, then, duh.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Science does not “exist in the universe.” Science is a man-made concept used to investigate natural phenomenon.</p>
<p>^^ Because science is nothing but the prediction of future events from past observations. If I observe that every time I roll a die, the result is 6, then using science I can propose the theory that the die has 6 on every side. After I collect data on many, many die rolls and the result is always 6, my theory becomes quite strong, and I can use it to predict that future rolls will also be 6.</p>
<p>But there is always the chance, however small, that one side is really a 4 and just hasn’t come up yet.</p>
<p>Mathmatics is different. Here, we start with a set of assumptions, and then use the rules of logic to prove that IF the assumptions are true, then some other thing must be true.</p>
<p>For example, mathmatics allows me to say that if I assume that 5 sides of the die are 6 and one is 4, then the probability of getting all 6s after 1000 throws would be 6.588005489477231939694442395738e-80.</p>
<p>Science is about finding out is the asumptions are reasonable, something that can never be completely proven.</p>
<p>When we say “science has proven X” we really mean “science has shown X to be probable enough that we are willing to discount the risk of it being false.”</p>
<p>Another way to define “willing to discount the risk of it being false” is faith.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Pshh, if you had included proper exception handling like a good programmer, you wouldn’t be having these errors. </p>
<p>Also (to other people), please don’t just chalk up the scientific method as mere faith. A credible team or teams of scientists must carry out multiple meticulous experiments in numerous interrelated fields of science and mathematics in order to verify or reject a falsifiable hypothesis based on their observations. Then their hypothesis, experiments, observations, and conclusions need to be replicated and confirmed by many other teams of scientists. Only after all of this have been completed can a scientific hypothesis be accepted as a credible theory, one which of course will still be subject to scrutiny. Should later studies prove parts or all of a theory wrong due to more advanced equipment etc., then the theory will be improved upon or scrapped entirely. </p>
<p>The common person doesn’t need to personally verify a scientific theory, although it is always a good learning tool, because he or she knows that multiple other scientists over a long enough period of time with far more knowledge and resources have confirmed the experiments themselves. The public takes not the lone scientist’s claim, but the scientific community’s affirmation, as reason to believe in current knowledge of the physical world as far as we know at that moment. </p>
<p>Point being that one does not accept anything in science on the basis of faith, as defined as faith needed to believe in a God, and that religion and science are operating on two completely different planes when it comes to acceptance.</p>
<p>Mosby, that’s a weak analogy. A good scientist would have checked all sides of the die before forming any conclusions. Physics, chemistry, and all of the sciences are based on foundations in mathematics, and so if the math says it’s wrong, then the science is wrong as well despite whatever observations may yield. In fact, many theoretical scientific theories are made based on the mathematics behind an unobservable event.</p>
<p>^ In the vast majority of real-life problems, we can’t check all sides of the die. This is especially true of questions concerning the past.</p>
<p>If a scientist can check all sides of the die, then he’s probably not working on something worthwhile.</p>
<p>For example, I can check all sides of the die to know what ratio of people in my family are left handed. But if I want to know what ratio of the entire world population is left hands, I have to check some and extrapolate the rest. Statistics allows me to say how confident I am that I am right, but I can never be 100% certain of the true ratio unless I really do “check all sides of the die” by checking every single human being’s handedness.</p>
<p>It seems as though this has gotten rather heavy. Perhaps this will lighten it up (sorry if already posted):</p>
<p>[Miscellanea</a> Archive Science vs. Faith](<a href=“http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2007/01/15/science-vs-faith/]Miscellanea”>http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2007/01/15/science-vs-faith/)</p>
<p>Well, that’s true about the die. But my point was that your analogy simplified things, and that scientists must subject their claims to rigorous tests before concluding that they are indeed true or not, and that theories can be enhanced or disproved completely and that it wouldn’t change the dynamics of the scientific theory at all because scientists seek to both accurately describe the physical world and create useful, usable theories that will have real-world applications, among other things. You spoke only of observations; scientists need much more than simple observation to make a verified conclusion and that’s where the math comes in.</p>
<p>You’re using the colloquial definition of faith and comparing it to the religious definition of faith required to believe in God. You might need faith in physics in that you’ll hope that the plane you just built works the way it was planned to based on mathematics that has proven itself for an adequately long enough period of time but may nevertheless contain unknown forces great enough to affect it which for some reason have not yet been discovered. To have faith in God, you need to unequivocally believe that God exists and that He is everything you believe Him to be.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not merely faith; it is largely based on faith, however. Also, there is no explicitly, formally defined “The Scientific Method.” Again, see [Demarcation</a> problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem]Demarcation”>Demarcation problem - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Thanks for the description of one particular scientific methodology, though.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Then, one has to have faith in the collective scientific community. Multiple people confirming that something is right does not mean that it is Right. The scientific community has held incorrect theories as truth in the past.</p>
<p>
My definition of faith did not have anything explicitly to do with God or religion.</p>
<p>
I can probably agree with that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>QFT. That’s why we have no “Pizza-Mountain Dew. Which Wins?” thread</p>
<p>
replace “true” with “very likely,” unless “very likely” is your definition of “true.”</p>
<p>
Well, then science should not be used as a political tool in order to mitigate religion, nor should people be forced to replace religion as a philosophy, with science. It encourages people to fight against the use of science when they should be supporting it as a means of enhancing our earthly lives.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If the observations are wrong and the math is right, the conclusions are still wrong.</p>
<p>@Null: Not bad. Here’s mine:</p>
<p>
ref class Evolutionist
{
public: Theory^ m_Theory;</p>
<pre><code>Evolutionist(void);
void AddEvidence(Evidence^ e);
</code></pre>
<p>};</p>
<p>Evolutionist::Evolutionist()
{
m_Theory = Academia::PHDs::GetCurrentGrantMoneySource().Theory;
}</p>
<p>Evolutionist::AddEvidence(Evidence^ e)
{
if(e->Source.Worldview != (Worldview^)m<em>Theory) break;
else if(e->IsCompatible(m</em>Theory)) Academia::Paper::Write(e);
else
{
while (!e->IsCompatible(m<em>Theory))
{
Assumption^ a = CreateCompatibleAssumption(e, m</em>Theory);
e->Add(a);
}
Academia::Paper::Write(e);
}
}
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You win at life, CPA.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not sure where that requirement comes in… I have faith in God yet I don’t “unequivocally believe that God exists and that He is everything I believe Him to be”.</p>