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> Her argument could be applied to the idea of the Big Bang itself What's wrong with that? The thing about science is that it cannot pretend that it knows. It

> Her argument could be applied to the idea of the Big Bang itself What's wrong with that? The thing about science is that it cannot pretend that it knows. It needs to prove. To which end, I don't think we should be supposing that we're going to know. Otherwise we're doing religion.

necovek 4y ago
Science is, effectively, religion/faith in a particular set of base presumptions (axioms of set theory or logic theory guide all "logical" reasoning). Basically, limits of human mind understanding things come with just having to trust some things are simply so. The biggest difference from things more commonly referred to as "religions" is that science invites you to challenge all these assumptions and look for a better (and smaller, simpler) working set that still explains all the phenomena we observe at least as well as the sets of axioms we currently use. And it knows that all the knowledge we gain is simply the approximation of the real stuff, and that we can only work to improve those approximations.
- lisper 4y ago
  > Science is, effectively, religion/faith No. No no no no no!!! Science is a process. The result of that process is explanations for phenomena. And the reason this matters is that the particular explanations produced by the scientific process turn out to give you the power to make extraordinarily accurate predictions about (certain aspects of) the future, and thus give you a tremendous amount of leverage in becoming the master of your own fate. It is absolutely not a religion, except insofar as it is the only thing mankind has ever come up with that truly gives us the gift of prophecy.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    Not to lend any credence to the antiscience above, but nothing about science being a process or even the falsifiability and other safeguards of that process preclude it from religious adherence. Even if they’re extraordinarily accurate processes, “it” absolutely can be and sometimes is treated as religious. Elevating science as a process of knowledge acquisition does it a disservice too. Scientists make mistakes, have attachments to their areas of study, and have a lot of complicated incentives that nominally would be anathema to the “process” even if they’re following the process … faithfully.
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      How is it anti science to say the science is just our best approximation?
  - necovek 4y ago
    You may see the above as a critique of science: I actually consider it a positive aspect that puts it way above traditional religions. The fact that I recognize there are both faith and religious elements to science only makes it easier to explain how and why science is better than religion. Note that science similarly includes a lot of areas where our predictions are not "extraordinarily accurate" (all the statistics-based science, like medicine, social sciences...) in any particular case, yet it's still science because we recognize the limits (eg. "with a large number of samples, this will mostly happen").
    - lisper 4y ago
      The scientific method lacks two features that distinguish religions from other human activities: 1. A doctrine whose source is authority (usually but not always a deity) rather than observation and 2. Rituals based on that doctrine One might argue that the actual human practice of science sometimes involves the acceptance of authoritative doctrine (e.g. peer-reviewed papers) and associated rituals (e.g. conferences), but that is not quite true because the rituals are not based on the doctrine. Scientific conferences are not held because there is a peer-reviewed paper that says that they should be, they are held because empirically they help to advance the scientific process (or at least did in the past). Religious rituals exist entirely because of authoritative doctrine. There is no reason for (say) communion or baptism other than what is written in the Bible or proclaimed by the church. > science similarly includes a lot of areas where our predictions are not "extraordinarily accurate" Sure. Science isn't perfect. The view it provides us into the future isn't flawless, it's just vastly better than anything else humans have ever tried.
- xabotage 4y ago
  No. Faith is belief without evidence or belief in the presence of contrary evidence. If we were to suppose the "base presumptions" of science were on the same level as religious claims, then they could be arbitrarily ignored without real-world consequences.
  - necovek 4y ago
    I guess you are unacquainted with formal axiomatic basis for the most formal of all sciences (mathematics). Eg. natural numbers are defined by assuming that there exists one, and that there is a successor to one: everything else flows from that (this is an older system, but more approachable than the set theory one). Basically, we never, ever prove that one indeed exists, or that it has a successor: these are assumptions that have so far proven to work well, but we can never tell for sure. In the past, axiomatic systems have been found to be "wrong" when matched against reality (most notably the axiom of parallelism and hyperbolic geometry), so there's nothing to say that any of the other ones are "correct". So we have faith that one exists and that it has a successor. Without evidence, just like you say. Again, none of this makes science useless: it is an approximation of reality that we always work to improve. But some things we can't prove, so we have just assume they are so (otherwise known as faith).
    - xabotage 4y ago
      Numbers are a human construct, just like words in a language. They don't "exist" in the same sense as anything physically real. Nobody has "faith" in the number one, it's just a concept that's proven to be universally useful. If it weren't useful, people wouldn't (and couldn't) conceptualize it. Again, faith is believing in something despite lack of evidence or despite evidence to the contrary.
  - uavals 4y ago
    Disclaimer: not a scientist. Part1: For the sake of the argument: Have you seen evidence of scientific fact-x? (For example x=“water is made of H2 + O”) Since set of “x” is so wast, no matter who you are, for most of “x” the answer will be “NO”. Time, accessible equipment and brain-capability constraints force us to outsource the evidence check to others. (even smartest scientists read papers instead of reproducing all experiments) Part2: I would like to distinguish two meanings/aspects of word “Science” used by in various contexts: - scientific method - hypothesis, experiment, … - “institution of society” -distinct group in society, view/expectation by the rest of society, education, trusted sources and similar Methods of science and religion are very different. But as “institutions”, they do have some parallels. - Both offer basic explanation of reality. - In both cases people trust stuff written by others. - Both have consistency if you accept some basic truths. To sum it up: I (and most) believe that “carbon has 6 protons“ without evidence. The basis of this belief is trust in science (the institution of society) based on its authority, stated principles&process. But in the end laypeople don’t have evidence for that.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  It’s treated that way by the masses but it most certainly isn’t. You aren’t going to find the origin of reality via science but science is used to describe reality. Otherwise I agree. It will always be our approximation and until we meet aliens and do science with them we can’t be sure all of reality isn’t a construct of the human mind.
  - scott_w 4y ago
    Going back to the simplicity statement from the video: you can model the universe as the product of your imagination but it seems surprisingly consistent if it is. It’s clear that the universe continues existing even when you’re not paying attention to it. For this to be true either: * Your brain is storing and processing the entire universe all the time * Your brain is constantly rewriting its own memory on a mass scale to pretend the universe is consistent Both of these seem way more complicated than just “the universe exists and you’re a part of it.” (Yes, I know our brains rewrite history but not on the scale required to make all of reality seem consistent in this way)

necovek 4y ago

Science is, effectively, religion/faith in a particular set of base presumptions (axioms of set theory or logic theory guide all "logical" reasoning). Basically, limits of human mind understanding things come with just having to trust some things are simply so. The biggest difference from things more commonly referred to as "religions" is that science invites you to challenge all these assumptions and look for a better (and smaller, simpler) working set that still explains all the phenomena we observe at least as well as the sets of axioms we currently use. And it knows that all the knowledge we gain is simply the approximation of the real stuff, and that we can only work to improve those approximations.

lisper 4y ago
> Science is, effectively, religion/faith No. No no no no no!!! Science is a process. The result of that process is explanations for phenomena. And the reason this matters is that the particular explanations produced by the scientific process turn out to give you the power to make extraordinarily accurate predictions about (certain aspects of) the future, and thus give you a tremendous amount of leverage in becoming the master of your own fate. It is absolutely not a religion, except insofar as it is the only thing mankind has ever come up with that truly gives us the gift of prophecy.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  Not to lend any credence to the antiscience above, but nothing about science being a process or even the falsifiability and other safeguards of that process preclude it from religious adherence. Even if they’re extraordinarily accurate processes, “it” absolutely can be and sometimes is treated as religious. Elevating science as a process of knowledge acquisition does it a disservice too. Scientists make mistakes, have attachments to their areas of study, and have a lot of complicated incentives that nominally would be anathema to the “process” even if they’re following the process … faithfully.
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    How is it anti science to say the science is just our best approximation?
- necovek 4y ago
  You may see the above as a critique of science: I actually consider it a positive aspect that puts it way above traditional religions. The fact that I recognize there are both faith and religious elements to science only makes it easier to explain how and why science is better than religion. Note that science similarly includes a lot of areas where our predictions are not "extraordinarily accurate" (all the statistics-based science, like medicine, social sciences...) in any particular case, yet it's still science because we recognize the limits (eg. "with a large number of samples, this will mostly happen").
  - lisper 4y ago
    The scientific method lacks two features that distinguish religions from other human activities: 1. A doctrine whose source is authority (usually but not always a deity) rather than observation and 2. Rituals based on that doctrine One might argue that the actual human practice of science sometimes involves the acceptance of authoritative doctrine (e.g. peer-reviewed papers) and associated rituals (e.g. conferences), but that is not quite true because the rituals are not based on the doctrine. Scientific conferences are not held because there is a peer-reviewed paper that says that they should be, they are held because empirically they help to advance the scientific process (or at least did in the past). Religious rituals exist entirely because of authoritative doctrine. There is no reason for (say) communion or baptism other than what is written in the Bible or proclaimed by the church. > science similarly includes a lot of areas where our predictions are not "extraordinarily accurate" Sure. Science isn't perfect. The view it provides us into the future isn't flawless, it's just vastly better than anything else humans have ever tried.
xabotage 4y ago
No. Faith is belief without evidence or belief in the presence of contrary evidence. If we were to suppose the "base presumptions" of science were on the same level as religious claims, then they could be arbitrarily ignored without real-world consequences.
- necovek 4y ago
  I guess you are unacquainted with formal axiomatic basis for the most formal of all sciences (mathematics). Eg. natural numbers are defined by assuming that there exists one, and that there is a successor to one: everything else flows from that (this is an older system, but more approachable than the set theory one). Basically, we never, ever prove that one indeed exists, or that it has a successor: these are assumptions that have so far proven to work well, but we can never tell for sure. In the past, axiomatic systems have been found to be "wrong" when matched against reality (most notably the axiom of parallelism and hyperbolic geometry), so there's nothing to say that any of the other ones are "correct". So we have faith that one exists and that it has a successor. Without evidence, just like you say. Again, none of this makes science useless: it is an approximation of reality that we always work to improve. But some things we can't prove, so we have just assume they are so (otherwise known as faith).
  - xabotage 4y ago
    Numbers are a human construct, just like words in a language. They don't "exist" in the same sense as anything physically real. Nobody has "faith" in the number one, it's just a concept that's proven to be universally useful. If it weren't useful, people wouldn't (and couldn't) conceptualize it. Again, faith is believing in something despite lack of evidence or despite evidence to the contrary.
- uavals 4y ago
  Disclaimer: not a scientist. Part1: For the sake of the argument: Have you seen evidence of scientific fact-x? (For example x=“water is made of H2 + O”) Since set of “x” is so wast, no matter who you are, for most of “x” the answer will be “NO”. Time, accessible equipment and brain-capability constraints force us to outsource the evidence check to others. (even smartest scientists read papers instead of reproducing all experiments) Part2: I would like to distinguish two meanings/aspects of word “Science” used by in various contexts: - scientific method - hypothesis, experiment, … - “institution of society” -distinct group in society, view/expectation by the rest of society, education, trusted sources and similar Methods of science and religion are very different. But as “institutions”, they do have some parallels. - Both offer basic explanation of reality. - In both cases people trust stuff written by others. - Both have consistency if you accept some basic truths. To sum it up: I (and most) believe that “carbon has 6 protons“ without evidence. The basis of this belief is trust in science (the institution of society) based on its authority, stated principles&process. But in the end laypeople don’t have evidence for that.
edgyquant 4y ago
It’s treated that way by the masses but it most certainly isn’t. You aren’t going to find the origin of reality via science but science is used to describe reality. Otherwise I agree. It will always be our approximation and until we meet aliens and do science with them we can’t be sure all of reality isn’t a construct of the human mind.
- scott_w 4y ago
  Going back to the simplicity statement from the video: you can model the universe as the product of your imagination but it seems surprisingly consistent if it is. It’s clear that the universe continues existing even when you’re not paying attention to it. For this to be true either: * Your brain is storing and processing the entire universe all the time * Your brain is constantly rewriting its own memory on a mass scale to pretend the universe is consistent Both of these seem way more complicated than just “the universe exists and you’re a part of it.” (Yes, I know our brains rewrite history but not on the scale required to make all of reality seem consistent in this way)