On 29-3-2010 20:08, John VanSickle wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Argumentative religious people often seem to comment that science 
>> requires faith. Argumentative non-religious people say that's 
>> nonsense, since there is evidence.  I contend that there are at least 
>> two things most scientists take on faith, without supporting evidence:
>>
>> 1) That reality works substantially in accordance with measurements.
> 
>> 2) Humans aren't special.
> 
> 3) That the world of our experience is the only one.
> 
> 4) That the world of our experience has always operated precisely as we 
> observe it to operate today.

These two are not basic assumptions. They follow from application of 
Occam's razor. But perhaps we can promote the belief in the razor to a 
form faith.

> 
> Many things claimed by the non-religious worldview (such as the age of 
> the earth) demand that things like the speed of light and the decay rate 
> of radioactive isotopes have always had the values we measure them to 
> have today.  They also demand that no major changes have been forced 
> upon the world of our experience by some agency, existing outside of 
> that world, at times where we have been unable to make observations.
> 
> These are no small assumptions.  We measure carbon-14 as having a 
> half-life of ~5000 years, but our claim that it had the same half-life 
> in King Tut's day is not based on observation, but on the assumption 
> that some things about nature never change.  How do we *know* it does 
> not change?  Not in the same way that we know many other things about 
> nature (through observation).

What people do is precisely measure decay rates now and compare it with 
20 years ago. This will give an upper boundary on change. Also these 
figures are compared with independent measurements like tree rings and 
yearly ice deposits. I though that there is no indication that things 
have changed over time yet.
NB we are still puzzled by the fine structure constant. If we don't know 
why it has that value, it might not be a constant.

I do understand what you mean, but for me the assumption that the laws 
of physics were the same 10k or 100M years ago is a much smaller step 
than assuming that someone or something that has no physical presence 
anymore did at some point in time something that was contrary to every 
physical law that now seems to be operating.

> In a like manner, how do we *know* that our world has operated without 
> any interference from any other?  To be honest, we don't.  To know for 
> sure, one way or the other, requires use to have observed nature for its 
> entire duration.  Sure, we observe no such interruptions now, but that 
> in no way proves that none have happened in the part nor will happen in 
> the future.  Perhaps some mad scientist in the next parallel over is 
> about to have an experiment go awry (or has such an experiment go awry 
> at some point in the past), and its effect spill over to where we can 
> see them.
> 
> Compounding the issue with #4 is the scientific concern with 
> repeatability.  We don't control what happens in the next plane over, 
> and therefore cannot rein them into a systematic investigation, not even 
> to verify any reported observations.  Science regards the non-repeatable 
> as unreliable and ultimately negligible.
> 
> This really goes with the territory.  Principle #1 above is absolutely 
> vital to science; if we cannot assume that our sense reliably report to 
> us the state of the world, then we cannot do science at all.  In a like 
> manner, if we cannot assume certain things about the operation of nature 
> to be constant (assumptions 3 and 4), then investigations into the 
> origin of life, and the state of the universe at much earlier periods, 
> are like a blind man trying to find his way across a strange city, 
> unassisted.
> 
> It is not easy to admit that we, in conducting science, have made 
> assumptions that we have no hope of proving; but this by no means 
> justifies the habit of denying that the wrongness of these assumptions 
> remains a possibility.  Even though admitting these assumptions will 
> appear to us to hand a victory to science's enemies, we cannot do 
> science if we deny unpleasant truths.

AFAIC we always have in the back of our minds that we may be wrong. In 
physics the basic assumption is that we are. And I don't think you can 
find a physicist that really thinks that QM or GR is the final word.
Sometimes ( = too often) however, people have other motives apart from 
wanting to know how it all works. Many scientists will loose large sums 
of (grant) money if they are proven to be wrong. In general they will be 
the older people. Big changes in perception therefore often take a 
generation, because the people new in the field have not yet invested a 
lot in the old view.

That is why I am not happy with the current trend of increasing 
dependency on grant money for all scientists working at the 
universities. This money is often awarded (divided) by (among) the 
current top in the field. That is a recipe for stagnation.
It is also why I am in favor of limited lifespans (but we already 
covered that a few months ago).

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