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Yeah, pretty much. There seems to be a misconception in some circles that pseudoscientific ideas, religious faith, etc are outright despised by 'scientists' bec
by CM30 7y ago
Yeah, pretty much. There seems to be a misconception in some circles that pseudoscientific ideas, religious faith, etc are outright despised by 'scientists' because they somehow go against some naturalistic order or something rather than because the evidence for them isn't there/happens to be weak. It's basically the basis for the old 'flat Earth atheist' trope, the idea that fictional scientists will turn up their noses at claims of magic or ghosts or gods because they're 'not real', even if said universe has them clearly existing.
But this isn't how science works. A 'scientist' who ignores evidence because they don't want something to be true isn't a good scientist, and doesn't act at all like a real life one would. If clear evidence for Bigfoot or Nessie or whatever else was found, it'd become a normal part of science. If we suddenly saw religious style miracles occur in plain sight with no other possible explanation, the idea of a miracle would become a scientific concept that we'd try and study. And in the worlds of say, the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars or Ghostbusters or the Legend of Zelda or whatever other franchise with things that don't exist in real life, those elements would be scientific in their universes too, with their scientists and academics studying them and their literature treating them like everyday things.
But yeah, despite certain fiction tropes and complaints from certain corners, science is about what the evidence says, not about some hard nosed disdain for anything not seen as 'logical'.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago> If we suddenly saw religious style miracles occur in plain sight with no other possible explanation, the idea of a miracle would become a scientific concept that we'd try and study. I disagree. Even if miracles happened and were observed, I think they'd likely still be outside the realm of scientific study and would therefore remain unscientific concepts. Science is built around the assumptions that mechanistic and predictable processes are being studied, but an actual religious miracle would be preformed by an transcendent agent who is likely aware of all attempts to predict its actions and can react to and influence those predictions, breaking the assumptions. The only secular discipline that could really study them would probably be history. However, if you replace miracles with Harry Potter-style magic, I think your point stands.
- CM30 7y agoHmm, good point. I guess miracles if they happened would be an interesting kind of beast, since they obviously wouldn't follow any sort of standard logic. That might definitely make them difficult to study, especially compared to other, more logical (but non existent) possibilities like the undead or Harry Potter style magic. But I guess scientists would still accept they're a thing that exists if they did provably happen, even if there was no logical framework for explaining or studying it.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago> But I guess scientists would still accept they're a thing that exists if they did provably happen, even if there was no logical framework for explaining or studying it. I think they could, but not as scientists wearing their science-hats. They'd only be able to accept the miracles as individuals with personal experience or as people who trust the historical record.