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So religious people can be very uncertain and scientists can be very certain. Except this is not the case, at all. It's a false sense of certainty drawn from

by kirse 17y ago

So religious people can be very uncertain and scientists can be very certain. Except this is not the case, at all. It's a false sense of certainty drawn from the solid roots of empirical science, especially for the existential (or unempirical) topics of disagreement between science and religion. I am a huge advocate and fan of empirical science and all that has brought us, but when people go clobbering religious believers with the science bat as if they're somehow "more certain" about that which cannot be empirically experienced, nor empirically reproduced, then that's when I call BS. On existential issues (the only legitimate grounds of disagreement between science and religion), Science and Religion are equal. They are equally uncertain, although many people can't understand that. Both have a mountain of faith-based assumptions about things we cannot EVER determine empirically. Faith, after all, is being certain of what one cannot see. I love robg around here not only because he finds great articles, but because he's a damn smart neuroscientist and backs me up entirely on this: The problem of course is that naturalism has it's own limit or else it too becomes dogmaticism. There's stuff we just can't know from empirical observation. Indeed, I'd argue the question "why" has a genesis just beyond rational thought. Empiricism might help to explain away those urges but I don't see how it will ever address their origin. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=396215 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=396215 To sum up, both Science and Religion will never answer the question "Why?" with ANY logical degree of certainty greater than the other. It's not empirical and never will be, period. In that case, I choose to embrace only solid, logically grounded empirical science yet address the intuitive questions with a faith in God that never fails me.

barrkel 17y ago
The best critique I know of the existentialist position you put forward is the Turing Test. If we had a machine, built by human hands, which appeared by its operation to be no different to a human, what reason would you have to believe that it has no "soul" or sensation of internal existence? It seems self-evident to me that all life are also physical machines, and as such may one day be constructed, or emulated in software, etc. This is a position which is directly accessible to science, too. For if there were something special about the human experience, or the conscious experience, it must either exist somewhere in the physical laws, or else it must also be true for man-made contraptions and there is nothing particularly special about people (in this respect).
btilly 17y ago
I am a huge advocate and fan of empirical science and all that has brought us, but when people go clobbering religious believers with the science bat as if they're somehow "more certain" about that which they cannot empirically experience, nor empirically reproduce, then that's when I call BS. On existential issues (the only legitimate grounds of disagreement between science and religion), Science and Religion are equal. They are equally uncertain, although many people can't understand that. Both have a mountain of faith-based assumptions about things we cannot EVER determine empirically. Faith, after all, is being certain of what one cannot see. By your argument you should personally be equally uncertain about whether gravity works on the surface of Pluto and whether I am a giant octopus. After all you are unable to travel to Pluto, and you are unable to track me down and verify that it was not a giant octopus who wrote these words. In your words, both are claims about things that you "cannot empirically experience nor empirically reproduce." Yet despite your inability to empirically experience or empirically reproduce either gravity on Pluto or any data pertaining to my octopus-hood, I confidently assert that you do not find your uncertainty on those two issues to be even remotely equivalent. Why not? Because you have established mental models of how the universe work that make it difficult to believe that gravity doesn't work on Pluto and make it difficult to believe that there are giant octopuses posting on HN. Yet this is exactly the type of certainty that you say you'd call BS on in others. And if you met someone who strongly believed that I am a giant octopus, and expected you to accept it, I'm sure you'd be rather flabbergasted. Science is nothing less or more than the distillation of the successes of several centuries of work on producing and testing better mental models of how parts of the universe exist. Mental models exactly like the ones you used to tackle the data points I gave you. (In fact every part of the mental model you'd use on the Pluto question, including belief in the existence of Pluto, came out of that scientific process.) Please think about this example carefully. Then try to apply modern mental models of the universe to questions such as whether people get possessed by demons, water can turn into wine, and people can come back from the dead. You should find that those questions all look far more like the giant octopus claim than gravity on Pluto. Whether or not this list of dubious factual claims in the Bible changes your belief system any, I think it is sufficient to make concrete why it is not just BS for people with a strong science background to look at a concrete religious tradition (Christianity in this case) and dispute specific claims that religion makes. Even though it involves reasoning about events that you "cannot empirically experience nor empirically reproduce". And once someone has disputed the basic facts of the central story, what grounds are left to accept the other beliefs of the religion?
ThomPete 17y ago
As if claims made in science about quantum physics is exactly the same as claims made in sunday church school. As if religious belief is based on years and years and years of research, experimentation and the creation of predicable models. If religion and science where the same then by definition we would still have large parts of the world believing in copernicus as the one and only true scientist, or Aristotle, or Newton or Einstein. Why? Because most religious people end up having exactly the same faith as their parents had and never do anything close to investigating their beliefs. You are assuming that there is a "Why" to answer and that is exactly why your argument is invalid. Just because there isn't any meaning WITH life does not meant there isn't any meaning IN life.

by kirse 17y ago

barrkel 17y ago

The best critique I know of the existentialist position you put forward is the Turing Test. If we had a machine, built by human hands, which appeared by its operation to be no different to a human, what reason would you have to believe that it has no "soul" or sensation of internal existence? It seems self-evident to me that all life are also physical machines, and as such may one day be constructed, or emulated in software, etc. This is a position which is directly accessible to science, too. For if there were something special about the human experience, or the conscious experience, it must either exist somewhere in the physical laws, or else it must also be true for man-made contraptions and there is nothing particularly special about people (in this respect).

btilly 17y ago

I am a huge advocate and fan of empirical science and all that has brought us, but when people go clobbering religious believers with the science bat as if they're somehow "more certain" about that which they cannot empirically experience, nor empirically reproduce, then that's when I call BS. On existential issues (the only legitimate grounds of disagreement between science and religion), Science and Religion are equal. They are equally uncertain, although many people can't understand that. Both have a mountain of faith-based assumptions about things we cannot EVER determine empirically. Faith, after all, is being certain of what one cannot see. By your argument you should personally be equally uncertain about whether gravity works on the surface of Pluto and whether I am a giant octopus. After all you are unable to travel to Pluto, and you are unable to track me down and verify that it was not a giant octopus who wrote these words. In your words, both are claims about things that you "cannot empirically experience nor empirically reproduce." Yet despite your inability to empirically experience or empirically reproduce either gravity on Pluto or any data pertaining to my octopus-hood, I confidently assert that you do not find your uncertainty on those two issues to be even remotely equivalent. Why not? Because you have established mental models of how the universe work that make it difficult to believe that gravity doesn't work on Pluto and make it difficult to believe that there are giant octopuses posting on HN. Yet this is exactly the type of certainty that you say you'd call BS on in others. And if you met someone who strongly believed that I am a giant octopus, and expected you to accept it, I'm sure you'd be rather flabbergasted. Science is nothing less or more than the distillation of the successes of several centuries of work on producing and testing better mental models of how parts of the universe exist. Mental models exactly like the ones you used to tackle the data points I gave you. (In fact every part of the mental model you'd use on the Pluto question, including belief in the existence of Pluto, came out of that scientific process.) Please think about this example carefully. Then try to apply modern mental models of the universe to questions such as whether people get possessed by demons, water can turn into wine, and people can come back from the dead. You should find that those questions all look far more like the giant octopus claim than gravity on Pluto. Whether or not this list of dubious factual claims in the Bible changes your belief system any, I think it is sufficient to make concrete why it is not just BS for people with a strong science background to look at a concrete religious tradition (Christianity in this case) and dispute specific claims that religion makes. Even though it involves reasoning about events that you "cannot empirically experience nor empirically reproduce". And once someone has disputed the basic facts of the central story, what grounds are left to accept the other beliefs of the religion?

ThomPete 17y ago

As if claims made in science about quantum physics is exactly the same as claims made in sunday church school. As if religious belief is based on years and years and years of research, experimentation and the creation of predicable models. If religion and science where the same then by definition we would still have large parts of the world believing in copernicus as the one and only true scientist, or Aristotle, or Newton or Einstein. Why? Because most religious people end up having exactly the same faith as their parents had and never do anything close to investigating their beliefs. You are assuming that there is a "Why" to answer and that is exactly why your argument is invalid. Just because there isn't any meaning WITH life does not meant there isn't any meaning IN life.