The difference is usefulness. Scientific models are based on observed behaviour. The model tries to predict the behaviour. If it gets the prediction wrong, t

The difference is usefulness. Scientific models are based on observed behaviour. The model tries to predict the behaviour. If it gets the prediction wrong, then it's not a good model to be using in that situation (but we might still use it in other situations where it does make good predictions). Whether you believe in the model or not is completely irrelevant. What matters is whether or not you can use the model to achieve some goal. Religious people often asks me if I only believe in things that I can prove. I reply that I can prove nothing other than my own existence, and I can't even prove the nature of that existence. I accept things that are useful to me and abandon them when they are no longer useful. I may later come back to accept them if they return to being useful (as they are likely to do). Like most other people in the world, I believe in lots of things. Life is pretty uncomfortable without belief. I don't happen to believe in the things that major religions believe in, but I don't see it as a problem. Believing something, or not believing something is neither here nor there. I am 100% OK with the idea that my beliefs may be wrong. In fact, I rather suspect they are. Why should that worry me? How important is our belief of something vs the acceptance of something that appears to work? Are we invested in the unknowable truth? Does it matter to us if we are wrong? I feel that it's the importance we assign to being right in our beliefs that defines our religions.