tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1129504587589508868.post693906941110652677..comments2008-02-23T17:42:30.706-08:00Mister Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199391221220679385noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1129504587589508868.post-4894653555777199572008-02-23T17:42:00.000-08:002008-02-23T17:42:00.000-08:00Anonymous,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for stopping by!<BR/><BR/>I will offer a counter-quibble. First, indeed science is based on some axioms, particularly one regarding an objective reality. It's an axiom. Call it faith if you like. But... so? I fail to see how it is in any way relevant to any conversation regarding religion and science.<BR/><BR/>Until the very end of your post, I'm afraid I must most strongly disagree.<BR/><BR/>a) Quantum physics is one of the foundations of modern physics. In many ways it's counter-intuitive, but that is not in any way related to the notion of an objective reality. (Someday I may post more extensively on this topic...) The process of observation is certainly poorly understood at the current time, but in many ways the idea that "observing something changes it" is incredibly obvious. Quick example: if you want to "observe" an electron, then you'll need at least to send in a photon, more-or-less bounce it off the electron, and record the photon in an appropriate device. The photon will transfer some of its momentum to the electron, which means you won't know any more quite where the electron is. Change-by-observation is inescapable in quantum theory, but is not a particularly remarkable property.<BR/><BR/>b) Faith in other scientists... yes, and no. First, I trust no one in my own research. And if I trust them, it's only temporary. Your point is well-taken only if some particular piece of knowledge is obtained through one experiment. This is unusual and highly improper. Errors and frauds certainly occur (I suspect more than we'd like to admit), but won't affect scientific knowledge that has been developed conservatively.<BR/><BR/>If one had based an entire theory on a single fossil, well, yeah, that is a theory based largely on faith. <EM>Multiple independent</EM> lines of evidence -- that's what you need to do good science. In that case, you aren't putting your faith in one scientist, or one result, or one scientific theory.<BR/><BR/>Furthermore, scientific knowledge is always <EM>revised</EM> upon further evidence. Who exposed the frauds that you mentioned? Scientists.<BR/><BR/>c) You specifically mentioned archaeology. Like any other science, archaeology is based on the testing of hypotheses. (This is sometimes called the New Archaeology, which was developed in the 60s -- I'd offer a link, but wikipedia fails to do the topic justice). If one isn't fundamentally generating or testing hypotheses, then I agree: it's not science. But archaeology is science.<BR/><BR/>d) Your example from psychology refers to cause-and-effect. The phrase I use when teaching this is "Correlation does not imply causation." This is all-too-rarely realized by the media, and very very sadly overlooked in a lot of scientific work. Finding correlations is quite scientific (it can -- or <EM>should </EM> -- be about testing hypotheses), but the conclusions reached are not warranted by the data.<BR/><BR/>Scientists make mistakes. Sometimes it's at the level of individuals, or groups, and sometimes the entire discipline can screw it up. Scientific knowledge is not the same as <EM>true</EM> knowledge.<BR/><BR/>d) Your final point I must agree with. Phenomena that cannot be repeated are almost certainly beyond the pale of science.<BR/><BR/>Could one imagine natural phenomena that are not repeatable? Suppose the laws of physics "hiccuped" - gravity goes wonky for thirty seconds, but only once in the entire lifetime of the universe. Could scientists figure out why? Beats the heck out of me.Mister Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199391221220679385noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1129504587589508868.post-26512519436712815292008-02-23T16:51:00.000-08:002008-02-23T16:51:00.000-08:00All in all, a very good commentary on science and religion. Just a quibble or two: First, science is also based on faith. There are certain axiomatic beliefs that underlie science and cannot be tested. For instance, the belief that all that we observe is objectively there and not an illusion. And quantum physic says that just the act of observing something changes it, which gives some scientists the willies. <BR/><BR/>Science also relies on faith in other scientists. That is, scientists trust that whoever they are basing their work on did their work properly and recorded the results accurately. They also have to trust that nobody committed fraud as in the Piltown Man or in the recent Korean scandal over cloning. When that faith is betrayed, years of work must be rethought or abandoned. <BR/><BR/>Secondly, there are different kinds of sciences, depending how hard or soft they are. Hard sciences tend to be math based, like physics. They also focus on phenomena that are measurable, and either frequent or repeatable under lab conditions. <BR/><BR/>But there are sciences (like archeology) that aren't really about experimentation but are mainly about ordering, categorizing, correlating things and making interpretations, which can and are debated by other scientists. Finally, you get to very soft sciences like psychology and sociology, in which findings are quite open to interpretation (recently, it was found that the kids of families that eat dinner together do a lot better. Does eating together make a family less disfunctional or do more functional families tend to eat together?) <BR/><BR/>The sciences are excellent at learning about certain aspects of the universe. But for those aspects that are not measurable, irrepeatable, rare and widely open to interpretation...not so much.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1129504587589508868.post-60103206042241772832008-01-26T14:51:00.000-08:002008-01-26T14:51:00.000-08:00Religion may be tough to deal with. Or maybe not. There's a lot of "normal" literature which has religion sort of in the background, but not really such a major part of the novel. It's just acknowledged that people are religious. And sci-fi rarely has the same.<BR/><BR/>Part 3 of this series should be up in a few days. Thanks for stopping by!Mister Trollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12199391221220679385noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1129504587589508868.post-80700951379657548092008-01-25T17:05:00.000-08:002008-01-25T17:05:00.000-08:00Wow-this was a great post!<BR/><BR/>My only comment would be that I think the reason that authors don't touch it is that it's tough. It would take a science fiction piece up a notch. And would an publisher go for it?<BR/><BR/>And would a reading audience read it? <BR/><BR/>It's a thinking man's question for a thinking man's science fiction work. <BR/><BR/>Is there one out there like that?aspiemomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18119718461267453386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1129504587589508868.post-13064591800090741662008-01-21T10:14:00.000-08:002008-01-21T10:14:00.000-08:00Great article, Mister Troll! I am impressed by the number of informative links you have provided, as well!Billy Goathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11443066073315771866noreply@blogger.com