From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Oct 24 1999 - 20:43:23 MDT
On Sun, 24 Oct 1999, Clint O'Dell wrote:
>
> When you try something 1000 times and it "accidentally" produces the same
> result all 1000 times then it's not an "accident". No faith involved.
> You still haven't shown me where faith enters science.
>
Faith is involved if you "believe" it will produce a different
result the 1001st time. :-) In science you trust your senses
and rational thought. In religion you trust your beliefs.
In a sense, science involves a "faith" in the honesty
of your senses, your ability to think rationally and
trust other people to do so as well. If you cannot
trust your senses or your own rational thinking (which
to some degree has to do with the complexity of what
you can grasp mentally) or other people, then science
could not work. Science is less "real" (in a personal sense)
than "religious faith" because you have to trust the
process and trust the people involved in the process.
With religion you only have to trust (have faith in) your
own personal beliefs. If you get handed those beliefs
early enough you don't have the ability to judge whether
or not they are valid. Religion never says:
"Trust but verify"
Its interesting to compare concepts of "sin" in religion
(breaking God's "laws") with scientific misconduct.
If you sin you only harm yourself. If you are guilty
of scientific misconduct you have harmed the entire
system in which scientists have "faith" because so
much of it requires believing in the data, experiments
and publications of the other scientists.
Robert
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