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.
1A) We're not in the Matrix, nor other jar-in-a-brain situations.
1B) We're not wholly simulated entities created by an uber-programmer,
     a dreaming deity, etc.
1C) There is no supernatural entity attempting to mislead us. (E.g.,
     Satan is not intervening in the studies on how well prayer works
     in order to discredit its effectiveness.)

2) Humans aren't special.
2A) Humans aren't at the center of the universe, in spite of everything
     moving away from us.
2B) Humans aren't the first intelligent life forms, in spite
     of the Fermi paradox.
2C) Humans aren't in a region of space whose physical laws and/or constants
     are significantly different than elsewhere. (E.g., red shift is caused
     by galaxies moving uniformly away, rather than humans happening to be
     in a place where the speed of light is at a universal minimum or
     maximum.)
2D) There is no advanced or supernatural entity(ies) guiding evolution, etc,
     such that humans come out on top. (E.g., the meteor strike that wiped
     out the dinosaurs was accidental.)
2E) Most contradictions to this can be explained by the Anthropic principle.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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Darren New wrote:
> I contend that there are at least two things 
> most scientists take on faith, without supporting evidence:

Oh, one more:

3) Reality is consistent.
3A) The physical laws don't change. To the extent they change,
     there is a physical law telling you how the laws change.
3B) The physical laws are consistent. (E.g., There *is* an
     as-yet-undiscovered scientific theory unifying QM and GR.)
3C) What we think we know about reality does not change how
     reality behaves. I.e., Truth is true regardless of whether
     you believe it.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4baf96d7@news.povray.org...

> 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.

That doesn't need to be assumed to be a "truth". If operating under the
above assumption can be assumed to be better than the alternatives, that's
good enough. Subtle difference maybe, but one assumption is metaphysical,
the other pragmatic/operational.

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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 don't know about scientists, but one might contend that *normal 
people* take science on faith.

For example, I'm pretty sure that green light is a wave with a 
wavelength of about 550 nm. But it's unlikely that I'll ever have access 
to the sophisticated scientific equipment necessary to precisely measure 
the wavelength of green light. So I have to take it on faith.

> 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.

If you mean "the universe is deterministic", well if that isn't the 
case, it is impossible to know anything, and we can stop now. There, we 
just explored every possible consequence of that hypothesis. Now if we 
assume that the universe *is* deterministic, we have quite a lot of 
consequences to explore - hence, science exists.

> 1A) We're not in the Matrix, nor other jar-in-a-brain situations.

That would still be a deterministic universe. (Although in principle its 
creator could change the rules at random if they wished.)

> 1B) We're not wholly simulated entities created by an uber-programmer,
>     a dreaming deity, etc.

This is the same argument.

> 1C) There is no supernatural entity attempting to mislead us.

Again, if you assume that some all-powerful entity is trying to mislead 
us, we can stop now. So it's more interesting to assume that there isn't.

> 2C) Humans aren't in a region of space whose physical laws and/or constants
>     are significantly different than elsewhere.

If this isn't the case, it's almost impossible to prove it.

> 2D) There is no advanced or supernatural entity(ies) guiding evolution, 
> etc, such that humans come out on top.

Same as above.

Science is, by definition, only concerned with that which is provable. 
This isn't necessarily what is true, just what you can prove.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> 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.

  Science doesn't claim to know the truth (unlike many religions). Science is,
more or less by definition, the study of what can be observed and measured.

  It's based on reason and logic. There's no reson to believe that reality
doesn't work in accordance to measurements. When something is measured in
different ways and all these measures give consistent (ie. non-contradictory)
results, and there's no evidence to show that what is being measured is not
reality, there's no logical reason to believe it isn't reality.

  One could argue that one doesn't have to *believe* something is reality
if all evidence seems to show that it is. It's not a question of faith.
It's just a question of reason.

  Maybe you could argue that science makes the *assumption* that measurements
correspond to reality, but as long as there's no evidence of the contrary,
there's no reason to think otherwise. Someone could argue this *is* faith.
However, it's a kind of "faith" that is based on reason, not on wishful
thinking.

> 2) Humans aren't special.
> 2A) Humans aren't at the center of the universe, in spite of everything
>      moving away from us.
> 2B) Humans aren't the first intelligent life forms, in spite
>      of the Fermi paradox.

  Well, hypotheses are not necessarily taken for fact in science. It's
hypothesized that humans aren't the first intelligent life form in the
Universe. However, it's just that: A hypothesis. The negative of the
hypothesis (ie. we are the first) is impossible to prove (to such an extent
that it would become a theory). For example the cosmological horizon makes
it physically impossible to prove it (if current understanding of astrophysics
is even remotely correct). Only the positive could be proven, if we can find
older intelligent life inside the observable Universe.

  One could also hypothesize the opposite: If there exists intelligent life
in the Universe, then some of that life had to be the first. We could as
well be that first.

> 2D) There is no advanced or supernatural entity(ies) guiding evolution, etc,
>      such that humans come out on top. (E.g., the meteor strike that wiped
>      out the dinosaurs was accidental.)

  It's not so much belief as much as observing the evidence: As long as
there is no evidence, there's no reason to believe otherwise.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> 3) Reality is consistent.
> 3A) The physical laws don't change. To the extent they change,
>      there is a physical law telling you how the laws change.
> 3B) The physical laws are consistent. (E.g., There *is* an
>      as-yet-undiscovered scientific theory unifying QM and GR.)

  Well, that is the theory. There's no reason to think otherwise so far.

  Science is open to alternatives, though.

> 3C) What we think we know about reality does not change how
>      reality behaves. I.e., Truth is true regardless of whether
>      you believe it.

  Some things in quantum mechanics behave so oddly that it's hard to say
what is and isn't dependent on what we "know"... :P

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:

>   One could also hypothesize the opposite: If there exists intelligent life
> in the Universe, then some of that life had to be the first. We could as
> well be that first.

As I understand it, General Relativity means that at cosmological 
scales, the idea of "first" is no longer valid due to the weirdness of time.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Warp wrote:

> >   One could also hypothesize the opposite: If there exists intelligent life
> > in the Universe, then some of that life had to be the first. We could as
> > well be that first.

> As I understand it, General Relativity means that at cosmological 
> scales, the idea of "first" is no longer valid due to the weirdness of time.

  But from our point of view we may well be the first intelligent life in
the universe.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>>>   One could also hypothesize the opposite: If there exists intelligent life
>>> in the Universe, then some of that life had to be the first. We could as
>>> well be that first.
> 
>> As I understand it, General Relativity means that at cosmological 
>> scales, the idea of "first" is no longer valid due to the weirdness of time.
> 
>   But from our point of view we may well be the first intelligent life in
> the universe.

Ah, yes. That's possible...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> 1) That reality works substantially in accordance with measurements.
> 
> If you mean "the universe is deterministic", 

No. I mean that our measuring devices measure something called reality, and 
they're not conspiring to confuse us.

> This is the same argument.

That's why it's "A" and "B" and "C", you see. ;-)

>> 1C) There is no supernatural entity attempting to mislead us.
> 
> Again, if you assume that some all-powerful entity is trying to mislead 
> us, we can stop now. So it's more interesting to assume that there isn't.

I didn't say it was a bad assumption. I simply said it was something taken 
on faith. I don't know of many actual scientists who try to measure the 
affect of Satan on their experiments. The assumption is that if something 
doesn't jive, it's because the experiment was done wrong.

>> 2C) Humans aren't in a region of space whose physical laws and/or 
>> constants
>>     are significantly different than elsewhere.
> 
> If this isn't the case, it's almost impossible to prove it.

Well, yes. That's why I'm saying it's taken on faith. For example, the 
measurement of the hubble expansion is predicated on the idea that stars far 
away behave like stars up close, etc.

> Science is, by definition, only concerned with that which is provable. 
> This isn't necessarily what is true, just what you can prove.

Prove, based on certain articles of faith, like that your measurements 
aren't consistently corrupted by evil forces. Which you wouldn't, by 
definition, be able to prove.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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