Page 1 of 4

"Belief has no place in science"

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 3:27 pm
by ant
Would you agree or disagree with this statement?

Re: "Belief has no place in science"

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 4:11 pm
by Dexter
Doesn't mean much without elaboration.

Are you talking about believing evidence that you read about? Making assumptions to construct a theory? Having an opinion that is not backed by evidence? Inductive reasoning?

Re: "Belief has no place in science"

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 4:31 pm
by Robert Tulip
Scientific knowledge rests in a framework of axiomatic beliefs. The basic axioms of science are existential statements about being in the world. For example, scientists believe that the universe exists, and that rigorous observation that provides consistent, coherent and predictive explanations of reality is trustworthy.

Re: "Belief has no place in science"

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:07 pm
by ant
Doesn't mean much without elaboration.

Are you talking about believing evidence that you read about? Making assumptions to construct a theory? Having an opinion that is not backed by evidence? Inductive reasoning?
Good question(s).

Let me try to amplify a bit more.

When a scientific claim is made, say for instance, any and all copper conducts electricity, it is a universal claim about copper. But our experience and observation of copper is miniscule and nonrandom as compared to universality.
Having said that, how would we falsify this scientific claim to establish confirmation when falsification is dependent on observation and deductive affirmation?

I know about inference to the best yada, yada, yada.., BUT, in this instance, our inductive conclusion is based on what about copper everywhere in existence? Based on conclusive evidence or belief that our theory about copper holds true everywhere regardless of its untestability?

Re: "Belief has no place in science"

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:08 pm
by ant
Robert Tulip wrote:Scientific knowledge rests in a framework of axiomatic beliefs. The basic axioms of science are existential statements about being in the world. For example, scientists believe that the universe exists, and that rigorous observation that provides consistent, coherent and predictive explanations of reality is trustworthy.

See my attempt to amplify for Dexter.

Re: "Belief has no place in science"

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:44 pm
by youkrst
the statement "Belief has no place in science" is pretty wide open, i think i know what you may mean but dont really care to comment without an understanding of which belief and what science if you get what i'm driving at.

but there is a similar statement i would be quicker to agree with. ...and that is

"belief in a literalist orthodox personal god who is concieved of in various ways under such names as yahweh and allah has no place in a rational coherent worldview that is consistent with reason and a healthy state of mind."

that is not to say belief in yahweh or allah makes a person a bad person but that insistence on yahweh as god for example in the literalist sense that you must accept his only son historical jesus or be tortured for an eternity in a literal lake of fire is tantamount to signing up for a miserable insane existence not to mention causing people who care about you to worry a lot and have to suffer a lot of crap preaching.

it's a long winded clumbsy statement for sure but it has more specific content.

Re: "Belief has no place in science"

Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 4:42 am
by Robert Tulip
The copper example illustrates the point I made about the scientific assumption that the universe is self-consistent. This cannot be proved, but is accepted as an axiom. Science assumes that proven inconsistency is evidence of error or incompleteness in scientific theory. Scientists believe the universe is consistent as a necessary principle of science. Consistency means that the laws of physics operate in far galaxies just as they do on earth, that they are universally true.

Atomic structure is a field of science that flows from consistent application of the laws of physics. It means that the copper atom appears to have a universally consistent relation to electricity, as a conductor. If scientists did not make such assumptions, the astronomical study of distant galaxies, looking at redshift, lensing, dark matter, CMBR, etc, would be impossible.

Kant explored this problem of consistency in terms of necessary truth. He argued that logically we should accept as true any statement that is a necessary condition of experience, something without which our life would not be possible as we live it. For example, if matter, space, time and causality did not exist, our experience would be impossible, therefore these phenomena do exist. Science builds upon this framework with the observation, developed through Newtonian mechanics, that the laws of nature appears to work the same everywhere.

Newton’s idea of gravity as universally consistent was refined with Einstein’s discovery of relativity, which now produces highly exact predictions about gravity. Scientists tend to believe that the theory of relativity is true, because of its predictive power. Global positioning systems would not work without the mathematics of relativity, the same mathematics that measures the lensing of distant galaxies. Mathematics is the language of reality.

Re: "Belief has no place in science"

Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 4:28 pm
by johnson1010
Disagree. You SHOULD believe that which is adequately supported.

Faith has no place in science.
When a scientific claim is made, say for instance, any and all copper conducts electricity, it is a universal claim about copper. But our experience and observation of copper is miniscule and nonrandom as compared to universality.
In the case of copper we are talking about the exhaustive study of a material and cataloguing of it’s behaviors. We also understand the atomic structure of copper and the way it bonds with other atoms. It is the underlying structure of the electrons and how they are shared between atoms that accounts for the conductive properties of copper.

There is a thing to recognize about this. Copper has properties A, B, and C. If you find a substance somewhere that has properties A, B, and F… then that’s not copper. And if it has different properties that will be because it has a different nucleus.

But how do we know what is far away is the same as what is close to us? Well, it starts with a guess. Any guess will do and it doesn’t matter how you come up with the guess. What’s important is the follow up.

You could say, “What causes this pencil to fall down is the same thing that causes the planets to circle the sun, and that same thing is responsible for the structure of the galaxy. And those spots we noticed out there, we noticed they look like our galaxy. They seem really small, but that is really the effect of the propagation of light, and actually, they are galaxies just as large as ours. And what holds THOSE together is the same thing that makes this pencil fall to the ground.”

That’s just a guess. How does it become more than a guess? You quantify exactly what you mean by “the thing that pulls the pencil down” into an equation that says something very specific. Not just “pulls down” but “a force toward the center of mass inversely proportional to the square of the distance”. Now you can make calculations and the guess goes from something vague which always leaves you a loop hole to escape the question of whether you were right or not to a very specific and quantifiable prediction, that can be duplicated by anyone (show your work!) to state explicitly what should be observed if your guess about how things work is correct.

Newton’s guess about gravity was really close. So close that people couldn’t tell the difference between his calculation and the actual orbit of mercury for a couple hundred years. Einstein refined that guess and interpreted what it meant in a different way. As a result we’ve not only calculated the orbits of our solar system to such success as to be able to launch a craft from earth and hit every planet in our system, but also to accurately describe the way the galaxy should hold together so that our guess is accurate to a very high degree.

How do we know that those tiny spots are galaxies, and that they are held together by gravity behaving exactly like our gravity behaves? Because when you do the math it describes what you see in a telescope perfectly, so long as you interpret what you see to be just like where we are. If those galaxies behaved differently, then it would be evident that our theory of gravity doesn’t have a full grip on what’s going on elsewhere.

But you’ve got to extend your guesses as far as they go, then CHECK to see if it’s right as best you can.
Having said that, how would we falsify this scientific claim to establish confirmation when falsification is dependent on observation and deductive affirmation?
The statement about copper is dependent on what you are talking about: copper. Copper is made of atoms, which are made of electrons, neutrons and protons. The behavior of these objects is very well understood through a very wide range of environmental conditions, including accelerating and colliding at near the speed of light.

There are certainly conditions these objects can be in that we haven’t been able to study, such as past the event horizon of a black hole, in which case our statements about their behavior might well break down. But in all conditions that we’ve studied these objects it is only reasonable to imagine they behave the same way elsewhere as they do here. Why is that reasonable? Because we see them over a very wide range of conditions, and distances. We can study the light emitted by distant galaxies and the only way to explain the way that light behaves is that it was emitted by matter just like ours. Since our equations continue to explain the behavior of the phenomena then it is evident the equations are still correct at that distance. And it evidently doesn’t change with distance, to the extent we’ve been able to observe. Why should we imagine the rules suddenly stop working when we aren’t looking?

Re: "Belief has no place in science"

Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 4:40 pm
by Interbane
I know about inference to the best yada, yada, yada.., BUT, in this instance, our inductive conclusion is based on what about copper everywhere in existence? Based on conclusive evidence or belief that our theory about copper holds true everywhere regardless of its untestability?


Uniformity of nature is based on induction. It's an axiom that if we decide to do without, we're only left with nihilism.

Re: "Belief has no place in science"

Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:26 pm
by youkrst
string makes a lousy fuse :D

and nylon strings are hopeless on an electric guitar :lol:

and you cant rewire your house with it either 8)

am i jumping to conclusions ?

perhaps in ursa major they have a whole nother thing going on :lol: