Science and Belief
At the moment, the only thing that I really believe in is essentially that of the scientific method. Explanations must fit reality. If reality disagrees with what you expected to happen, then you must improve your explanation. I believe this in the sense that I hold it to be self-evident.
Reality is Everything
I truly don’t understand any point of view that wishes to ignore reality, and rejects the most likely explanations for things. I try to accept that people can believe different things, but like everyone else, I reach a limit. That’s not to say that I don’t accept such people for who they are, simply that I don’t *get* them.
To me, reality is everything, and the simplest (not necessarily the easiest) explanation wins every time.
The Simplest Explanation
What is the simplest explanation?
Now this is an interesting question. Broadly speaking, I find the simplest explanations to be the scientifically accepted ones. They are generally open to repeatable experiments and don’t rely on the supernatural - things which in my book, are good.
Someone else may disagree with my chosen explanation, especially when there isn’t a conclusive scientifically accepted one, and that’s just fine. Other people may be happy with explanations that rely on the supernatural. I disagree that they are the simplest - an explanation that requires belief, doesn’t seem to me to be much of an explanation. But, if they fit reality, and are pretty simple, then they’re ok.
Belief
There are a lot of people who think as I do. They hold the need for explanations to agree with reality as self-evident and the scientific method as the best way of determining the simplest possible explanation. Does this constitute belief?
I don’t know that it does in the usual meaning of the word belief, any more than holding as a self-evident truth the statement “all men are equal” and acting upon it.
I can be offended when people say that science is a belief. It tends to imply that there are many equally useful alternatives, and that it is somewhat irrational - both things that I disagree with. Science is more of a way of looking at the world than a belief system. In terms of creating useful things, it is unequalled. It is strictly rational in its use and application, although as a human, anyone that uses science is likely to be irrational at times.
What do you think? Is the scientific point of view something you agree with? Do you think it is a belief system?
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3 Responses to “Science and Belief”
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Is the belief that “life comes from non-life” rational? Is it observable? The idea upon which all of modern science rests: evolution, requires more faith than most people think. No one has yet observed a dead, inanimate object become alive, yet most of the world has “faith” in this “absolute truth”.
I question it. http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/spontaneous-generation.htm
nice blog
It’s stretching it more than a little to say that modern science rests on the evolution. Modern biology - yes quite a bit. Modern physics, not so much.
Good scientists would never define anything as the absolute truth, there is simply the best explanation that we currently have. And as I’m trying (but clearly not succeeding) to say, I think that the scientific method is more of a way of looking at the world. Making explanations fit with the facts, rather than the other way around, is what is important.
I’m glad you like my blog. I might have known you’d be the first to comment
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A hypothesis could be considered a belief, but that’s about the extent that Science could be considered a “belief” system.
Unlike other belief systems, science requires the testing of the hypothesis before accepting it as true.
You’ve restated Occam’s Razor; Of the possible solutions to a problem, the one with the least significant assumptions is most likely correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam’s_Razor