Is blind faith in science any better than blind faith in religion?

I've noticed that many atheists put their faith in science, and put it up on a pedestal, as if it is some sort of replacement for belief in a religion.

But is science worthy of this kind of unquestioning adulation?

The theory of evolution is a primary example. Atheists claim that evolution is proven fact, and that man evolved from some lower life form.

But then there's the "missing link."

There are actually no fossils that provide any evidence of a lower species that evolved into man.

We have monkeys, and apes, and chimpanzees.

And then we have the early forms of man.

But where are the fossils of the "in between" species between ape and man?

Doesn't exist.

And then there is this faith in manmade "global warming", now changed to "climate change" since the Earth is inconveniently no longer getting warmer.

There is considerable evidence that the science behind "global warming" is driven by a leftist agenda to force the industrial capacity of the Western world under government control.

Global warming "dissenters" are treated like the Catholic Church treated heretics during the Inquisition. One professor even suggested that global warming dissenters should be put to death.

Should atheists have faith in science when it is corrupted by a political agenda?

The field of psychology has similarly been corrupted by politics. Psychologists took homosexuality out of the DSM only due to pressure from the homosexual lobby, not because it was scientific truth.

How can atheists put faith in science when the truth is determined by a political agenda and not objective reasoning?

Also, the field of palentology is nothing more than guesswork and conjecture. They really don't know how those bones go together, they're just guessing. One time scientists changed their mind and moved a bone from the head which they thought was a horn to the foot because now it was a claw.

And who is old enough to remember the science textbooks that told us there almost certainly was life on Mars?

Who is old enough to remember when dinosaurs were reptiles?

Who is old enough to remember when Pluto was a planet?

Who is old enough to remember when scientists made doomsday predictions of "global cooling"?

I am old enough to remember all that, and much more.

Science cannot be relied on as some sort of absolute truth to replace religion.

The best science can approach to truth is good hunchwork, educated guesses, and theories that can't quite be proven.

And when science is corrupted by politics, as is the case with meterology and psychology, it isn't even close to the truth.

Discuss.

 

Ironically, the scientific world is doing to global warming dissenters the same thing the Catholic Church did to Galileo.

Are threats and blackmail really the way to find scientific truth?

 

Nobody puts blind faith into science. Science has proven itself to be the most awesome methodology to further knowledge that mankind has ever conceived of.

It isn't a proven fact. It is a fact that things evolved. Scientists don't, or shouldn't at least, claim that they've "proven" something because it confuses people like you. Nothing can ever be 100% certain in science. Nothing. By proven, people usually mean "there is substantial evidence provided for a theory".

No, there isn't. Really, it's a misnomer.

Except these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_evolution_fossils

We are apes, bro.

And what exactly is man's "early form"?

See above. If you want a giant unbroken chain of fossils, you aren't in luck. Fossilization is rare and erosion over millions of years destroys things. Its a tough break for the scientific community.

Where do you get your news, honestly?

There is considerable evidence that climate change is a conspiracy between a cabal of evil scientists and politicians? Please provide it.

The difference is that the Catholic Church actually put people to death. So, no, not at all similar. Additionally, what professor said this?

While ignoring that there were multiple studies that showed it wasn't a mental disorder.

We trust it because its the best bet we have.

Proof. Required for a claim this grand. The entire field of paleontology is a joke? Lol, okay buddy.

What, bro, mad that we make progress in our knowledge? Next time your God teaches us how to build computers, the steam engine, airplanes, modern medicine, etc., get at me.

Science has NEVER pretended to be an absolute truth. Strawman.

 

I know what you're saying about the worship of science. Some people seem to automatically believe anyone who is wearing a lab coat. If they were to see the actual evidence these scientist are finding instead of just listening to the interpretation of it then people might tend to question scientists more.

On the other hand, we can't just dismiss something because a scientist claims it is true. It is kind of hard to debunk global warming. We read thermometers all over the world and the average temperature of our planet keeps rising. Our temperature is rising even though we are in a geological period of cooling. This simple data is what led scientists to question why. Why are we warming when we're supposed to be cooling? You can question the answers scientists came up with but it is ridiculous to believe global warming is some attempt by a boogeyman to take over your precious corporations.

 

Blind faith in science?

Science contains such things as theories supported with evidence, repeatable experimentation, and provable versus disprovable.

Religion requires faith in things that have not been shown ever to have existed, that being gods.

Are there fossil remains between man and earlier forms of man? Of course. We have early human remains going back millions of years, showing a clear evolution of the species. Does this mean it is correct? Not absolutely. There are many unknowns, but we do know that we have evolved into a modern species. The idea of a missing link between humans and apes is a fallacy, because we did not evolve from apes. We had a shared ancestor as apes, and humans are still apes. More intelligent than other apes, with physical features that differentiate us from other apes, but still apes.

Science has replaced religion because we understand what causes tides, we understand that the earth revolves around the sun, and we understand the world we live in, so much so that the notion that a flying man in the sky secretly controlling everything is nothing more than bad mythology, relegated to the dust bin by thought and reason.

 

Blind faith in bad science can be dangerous. We saw that with eugenics and the whole master race pseudoscience that Nazi Germany espoused. More recently we saw that with Siggy Freud who has since been pretty much debunked on many of his theories and even more recently the dealings with string theory. The guy that proposed tectonic plate theory was initially viewed as a fringe lunatic. Scientists just like religious leaders have the same character flaw, they figure they know better than everyone else. Most of the time that is true but many times the general consensus is not correct and it takes a brilliant rogue to pull everyone in a different direction.

I remember watching a TV special on Nova or one of those shows about Venus and its environment and how the land was shaped formed. The general consensus had been that it was a very slow and gradual process (due to lack of techtonic plates or something) unlike earth which can have periods of massive upheaval over short periods of time. The scientist they were quoting was comparing images from the same area over a few years difference in time. There was a large (insert mountain or canyon, I forgot what it was) and he flat out admitted that he simply couldn't believe his eyes at first because that was not the general theory at the time. Only after it became undeniable did he grudgingly admit that it was indeed a very fast change in a very short amount of time.

Scientists are people and just like normal people once they have established a view on a subject it isn't always easy to change. We saw this in psychology, physics and even mathematics where some people to this day still insist on "math being fun" which is incontrovertibly false by any measure.

 

Well, I guess you think your former Pope was either very gullible or in on the ‘leftist conspiracy’ then:

http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/catholic-teachings/vatican-messages/

 

Well, granted that the OP is a heap of nonsense, that statement of yours isn’t quite correct either. To begin with science has more than just one methodology. It has loads. Then most if not all of us, including most if not all scientists, will have to take most scientific statements on a basis of pretty 'blind faith'. I for once don’t have the ability to understand top level scientific discussions, so I’ll have to trust the scientific consensus, just as a top biologist is unlikely to be able to also be a top astronomer and will have to trust the scientific consensus in astronomy. Nobody is an expert in everything.

 

Lock yourself in a room with some Jesuits and see how long it takes before your brain explodes

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And lets remember Catholics have made some pretty impressive contributions to science over the years

 

I can't think of any major religion that believes in a flying man in the sky. The metaphysical idea of God/the Absolute is far from being relegated to the dust bin by thought and reason. It is indeed the product of philosophical thought and reason. And if you employed a little thought and reason you'd see that science seeks the answers for "how" the world came into being while religion occupies itself with the question "why". The two don't contradict but complement each other. It was the abovementioned Jesuits by the way who discovered that the tides were influenced by the moon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus#Jesuits_in_science

 

Faith is belief without evidence.

Science involves zero faith.

BTW, since the OP keeps saying that religion involves "absolute truth" is he seriously arguing that the Bible is absolutely true?

 

Here is the nice thing about science. You don't have to have blind faith in it, you can do the observations and experimentations yourself. Don't believe that two objects of different weights fall at the same speed? Take to balls the same size but different weights and drop them from a tall building and see which one hits the ground first. Don't believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth? Get a telescope and take a look yourself. Don't believe in Mendel genetics? Get yourself some green and yellow peas and start breeding them, keeping track of parentage and offspring.

So now let's do the same with religion. Don't believe that the universe was created in 6 days? It's in the Bible so it has to be true. Don't believe that a man could live inside of a big fish for three days? Hey, it's just an allegory! Don't believe that two of every animal on Earth could fit into a boat only 450 ft long, 75 ft wide and 45 ft high? You just need to pray for the answer. Don't believe that a man, claiming to be the son of God, could walk on water, change water into wine, heal people, raise the dead, and die and then be resurrected himself 3 days later? You are an unbeliever and are doomed to hell.

If religion and science were TV shows, religion would be Once Upon a Time and science would be Myth Busters.

 

Since "science" wasn't really defined in the OP, I'm just going to be equally ambiguous about what it means. I don't have blind faith in science. I trust it based on the track record of tangible, reliable results and history of self-correction. To paraphrase Chris Hardwick (as I've done in the past): science is constantly correcting religion about the realities of the natural world, and the reverse has never, ever happened. So you'll have to forgive me if I stick with team science.

 

Science is also constantly correcting itself when necessary.

 

You are aware that Gregor Mendel was an Augustinian friar?
Don't you think it's a bit unfair to compare the best of science with the worst of theology? Did you ever really occupy yourself with any of its teachings? As Terry Eagleton once so rightly said: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster. (...)" http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/terry-eagleton/lunging-flailing-mispunching

 

Honestly, there probably are people who put blind faith in science, and yes, it's really really stupid to do so.

My aunt, for isntance, once heard about a person who gave birth to a child with no brain. She asked "with all this new medical science they must be able to do something to fix that." There absolutely are people who think science is magic, and that is just as stupid as blind faith in crystal healing, homoeopathy, or miracles.

But then you move on to evolution, and I dont want to get into that because there is scarcely a person alive who could be more wrong about evolution than you just were, and I will probably tear my hair out before you gain a shred of understanding about it so it's best if I throw in the towel early on that one.

 

Science isn't above questioning, in fact, its very essence comes from questioning.

Not everyone knows enough to question scientists. That's why we've put together long lists of people who do and they do peer review.

If what you say was true, Bishadi, who put together some physics nonsense would be just as believable as any scientist, but because we have people who double check things, we could identify the idea as hogwash and it never got to be science.

We've found plenty of missing links. Global warming is still around (even though some didn't realise that global meant all over the world, not just in their personal back yard). "Mental disorder" is definitional, the change in the status of homosexuality is linguistics, not science. There is still a fair chance of life on Mars (only scientists only claim probabilities, it is the popular press that turns it into absolute statements). Dinosaurs are still reptiles (although that is still just semantics). The redefinition of Pluto to be a planet is linguistic and not scientific. Global cooling is attributed to journalists misinterpreting scientific and accurate reports.

I may not be old enough to remember all of it, but I have a basic understanding of a search engine.

Politics does have influence on science and I agree that many value the concept of science more than it should be. However, with a full understanding of it, it is not too hard to tell one from the other.

 

Yes, I am quite aware that Gregor Mendel was an Augustinian friar.

Hey, it was Blackroot that made the comparison, I was merely answering his question. And I have occupied myself with its teachings. I actually took several religion classes in college and have read the Bible. And to be fair, I actually don't have a problem with religion. People can believe what they want, but I do have a problem when people like Blackroot attack science, saying that it is some kind of religion and it is never questioned. That just shows a massive amount of ignorance. Your quote talks about how people shouldn't pass judgement on something they don't understand. Well, I couldn't agree with you more.

 

In the case you highlight it needs to be understood that simply observing something is not enough, the mechanism behind the mechanism is equally important. As soon as good maps where produced the seeming fitting together of so many land masses was obvious, compelling. The question was how? Even the original theory of plate tectonics was wrong, we actually got the answer reversed. We thought mid Ocean ridges were the driver, not so. It is the subduction zones that drive the process.

Now back to Venus - the only other planet we can use as a comparison is Mars. There is zero evidence for fast moving dynamic geology, so by be default Venus must be the same. Then we discovered volcanoes. Lots of them, and some evidence they have still been erupting even up to a couple of years ago. So we have gone from a geologically dead planet to one of the most dynamic landscapes in the solar system.

 

At some point, can you see Blackrook saying "Atheists put blind faith in NOT believing in invisible supernatural beings"?



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Scientists seek out questioning.....while many Religionists seek to end questioning or atleast don't question themselves.

 

I've noticed that some people put their faith in misrepresentations of what "many atheists" say or do, and pretend it has anything to do with theology, as if it is some sort of validation for belief in a religion.

Discuss.

 

Don't be silly.
Blind faith is blind faith. They are equal.

 

We've gone over this already BR and the comparison is absurd.

If I were to list all of the things science has done to prove itself over the course of the last 2,000 years how long do you think that list would be? Now tell me how long the list would be for religion. In fact name one thing religion has done to prove itself as having validity in the last 2,000 years.

It's not faith in science it's a well earned trust.

 

There is no such thing as "Blind Faith in Science"

Science is the antitheses of "Blind Faith".

 

Undoubtedly Blackrook serves as a good example of the worst kind of theology in this forum. Apparently he does not even know what his very own Church, the Roman Catholic one, teaches (theistic evolution for a start).
Where Blackrook is kind of right though is that some people are conflating science with religion and are about to turn 'science' (or rather the weird theological conclusions they draw from it) into their new religion. Richard Dawkins would be but one example for that kind of fool. If you want to know what I mean in more detail:

http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-a...in-the-materialist-conspiracy-in-evolutionary