I don't really see the point of a show trial in this case. The guy had declared war on the US, and done everything he could to kill as many as possible, so whether we kill him there or here doesn't make a lot of difference. There's no dispute about his guilt, by him or anyone else, and there's really no dispute about the consequences for it. Any trial would be simply for show. I'd rather not give him a platform for spreading any more of his message, which is exactly what a trial would do.
No, the real question is how history will judge this assassination. We are outraged about what he took responsibility for, and likely blinded by it, justifying our blood thirst by having lived through his.
Future generations might not be so biased, and think that the right to a trial is universal and should be stronger protected the more atrocious the acts were, and the surer we are of the guilt.
That's ridiculous. When you gloat about killing 3000 people and promise to kill more, your life is forfeit and you can expect to be dead as soon as those you've attacked get their hands on you. I couldn't care less how history judges it.
This was a class action suit against *NVIDIA*, not the laptop manufacturer. Do you sue Kenmore for the full value of your house because your stove doesn't work, or Kwikset because someone broke into your house?
I don't see why not, if the Kwikset lock was defective, thus allowing the thief into my home. Seems like their defective product was directly responsible for the situation. If a Kenmore stove was somehow preventing my house from serving its intended purpose, such as it exploding and rendering the place unlivable, then sure. They're responsible. The defective Nvidia part prevented the computers from working, so yeah, I'd say they are responsible. They can take the defective laptops back and give me a new one. I don't need a 3-year old laptop when I paid for a brand new one and didn't get it. Instead I got a worthless brick that did nothing.
I mostly agree with you, but there is still something to be said for class actions: they are one of the only things encouraging corporations not to take more advantage of people than the law allows. This way, NVIDIA's costs for selling a faulty product are higher, which gives them more reason to make sure that they don't. Think of it as quality control.
We just need a way to ensure that the people who got screwed over by the company being sued don't get screwed over even more by the attorneys on the case. They tend to walk away with millions, while the people who actually lost something tend get a ridiculously paltry sum to compensate them, often with strings attached, such as being required to purchase from the same company again in order to take advantage of it.
You use oblivious. Why do you assume it is being oblivious vs. apathetic? Maybe the US doesn't care.
The people paying for this agenda to be pushed certainly care. I doubt that more than a very tiny fraction of the public at large has any idea what ACTA is.
No, science takes everything fundamental on faith.
For example:
1. The uniformity of nature. Can science PROVE that nature behaves the same here as on the moon, or on Mars, or in a distant galaxy? No, it is taken on FAITH.
2. The existence of other minds -- can science prove that we are not brains in vats or in the matrix? No, of course it cannot, thus it is taken on FAITH.
3. Science assumes the universe was not created 5 minutes ago with the appearance of age. Can it prove it was not? No, it is a FAITH statement.
Stop worshipping the tool (science) and worship the creator of science instead:-)
1. You fail at understanding science. Science does not seek to PROVE anything. It forms theories based on evidence, so at best it will tell us what is most evidently correct. It is quite good at this, which is why it has provided us with so much incredibly useful stuff, like the computer I'm typing this on.
2. Solipsism is useless as an explanation for anything.
3. Same as number 2.
You've provided no evidence of a creator, let alone a reason to worship him/her/it/them, so what reason is there to do so?
I may be able to specialize enough to understand the science of one field like say, particle physics, but things like rocket science or material engineering would have too little overlap and have too steep a learning curve for me to master and understand in any meaningful way. That's the whole point of TFA. Laziness has nothing to do with it. No one can learn everything in a lifetime, no matter how talented or long-lived.
The type of faith you describe bears no resemblance to the type of faith required for religion. Implying that it's even close to the same is dishonest. Science produces results. Religious faith produces rationalization.
Keep in mind two things. One, Science is a construct of man and is inherently lacking in ability to measure Deity. Two, Having faith does not make a person less credible in scientific matters.
Yes, it lacks that ability by definition. If there was actual evidence of the existence of Deity, however, then it would fall in the realm of science.
Having faith certainly doesn't make you less credible in scientific matters, so long as you're engaging in science. The point of science is to remove your biases and flawed perceptions from the equation so that only the facts are recorded. The point of faith is to rationalize your perceptions in the attempt to conform to your biases, thus you see miracles where only a medical error (which are alarmingly common) actually exists. Now it's absolutely no wonder at all that you claim to have seen dozens of miracles.
Don't let the presence of a thousand religions dilute the reality that there is a God. Just because man does not understand God doesn't mean he isn't understandable in meaningful ways. I get that you and I disagree on that point, but I can't help but feel you have a lot of prejudices when it comes to faith.
Why not? They all describe him/her/it/them differently. Which one is correct? Are they all equally valid?
Neither do I, but I don't ascribe superstition to things which have a rational explanation in my mind (regardless of what your mind or anyone else's mind sees it as). Do I understand why the hypothetical person died in your example but the other did not, no. But I do have faith in the creator of both people and what I perceive is his plan for us. And I believe that dead or not, we are his children and he desires our happiness. I'm glad you have found happiness with your current belief (or lack thereof).
Just like your hospital example, your perception is clouded by your preconceptions that you've established without any evidence. You see miracles, even in places where there are many much more likely mundane reasons. Is a screwup on an x-ray that later is corrected really a miracle, or just a relief to that patient and their family? If you jump directly to the miracle explanation without considering other far more common explanations, then you're willfully choosing to see only what you want to see.
Religion assumes that there is a purpose to life to the same degree that Science assumes that there is order to the Universe.
Science doesn't assume order, it just looks for explanations for phenomena and tests those explanations against the observations and evidence we accumulate.
In addition, we should avoid conflating "purpose of life" and "purpose in life". Religion attempts to explain the purpose OF life (i.e. not one's own life, but life in general). But even if one fully understands the purpose of life, they still need to find their purpose IN life. They are two distinct questions and often have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
The existence of a purpose OF life is assumed. A purpose IN life is what we choose.
Two examples of this: A person may fully understand the game of basketball, but may not know what their role in the game is.
I'm thinking this is a bad example. The person's role depends on the position they play and the game strategy laid out by the coach. If they have a complete understanding of the game, then they should know exactly what to do.
Or, we may say that there is no real purpose for war/chaos/natural disasters, but even absent a general purpose a person may nevertheless find deep meaning and purpose for their own existence in such chaotic and meaningless times.
Right, the purpose we choose. No need for religion, although some may choose religion as a purpose unto itself.
Do you verify most findings you "trust"? No. That's my point. You have faith that they're reliable. Trust and faith have overlap, and I'm pointing out that you probably use more of the faith than you admit.
Most of what I trust has been proven out through application. That which has not, I either have little opinion or feeling about, or I accept that the other researchers who have verified it have used the same kinds of scientific methods that are used throughout science. So while it may not be completely correct, it's at least the best we've got for now. When it comes to the newer theories and those that don't have a lot of evidence behind them, I'm hardly going to be out there defending their honor to the death anyway. That stuff tends to be more about curiosity and potential rather than something I'm going to find convincing. You know, the kinds of bleeding edge stuff you see in Popular Science and similar magazines.
Danse,
The problem isn't that faith can't measure up to (or be measured by) science. The problem is that faith is harder to obtain than man's knowledge. A lack of faith does not mean 'more credible' just as having faith is not the same as irrational. What you call rationalization I call understanding. Faith is useful to me and provides me with happiness in this life, regardless of the existence of an afterlife. In the end, I have not harmed you because of my faith and you have not harmed me because of your lack of it. What matters in both perspectives is how we treat each other now, in this life. Does it not?
The problem is that whatever qualities you attribute to faith, you're doing it without any substantive reason for doing so, and I could find a hundred other religious people that would attribute somewhat different qualities to it, equally unsubstantiated. You call it understanding, but that's really not true. You don't understand why anything happens. You don't understand why two good people can get into an accident and one dies and another is hardly injured. You rationalize it within the teachings of your particular flavor of religion. There's no other word for it but rationalization. Understanding implies the ability to explain something. Faith does not provide that.
I'm not arguing that it can't provide you with happiness, but that could be said about all kinds of beliefs. I'm quite happy with my beliefs too. Sure, it means that I have to accept that there's much in this life that I will never be able to understand or explain, but I can accept that. I don't need to apply an explanation or cause to everything, especially if those explanations are just superstitions or myths.
You might be much more informed, but you're probably not even close to an authority on some subjects you've argued over. You just trust that the findings are evident... or that they "exprerts" are even competent enough to say a finding is evidence for something. I just call it faith... you call it trust. If you look at faith or trust in the dictionary, they are synonyms for each other.
Each word has multiple meanings. Some may be the same, but those aren't the meanings that we're using in this case. Again, trust can be verified. Faith cannot. I can trust science to produce results that are verifiable, explanatory, consistent, and predictable. Faith (in the religious sense) produces none of these things.
Saying that religion is a valid method of understanding our purpose in life assumes that there is a purpose for our lives that we must find, rather than being something that we create for ourselves. I don't know of any evidence to support that assumption. You can certainly choose religion as a purpose in itself, or as an inspiration for a purpose in life, but I don't see any reason to consider it any more useful or valid than any other choice.
Fair enough. I can't fully explain how someone who had a traumatizing brain injury seen on an X-ray taken at one hospital and then a blessing [wikipedia.org] was performed, the patient shipped to another hospital and all trace of the injury vanished on the next X-ray, but it happened. Just because it hasn't happened to you, doesn't mean faith-based healings or other miracles aren't real and repeatable. Maybe I don't have the theological training required to explain it, but I don't need to. It's something useful that happened to me and millions like me.
Can you reproduce it? Consistently? We have hundreds of millions of microprocessors working all over the world. They work consistently, predictably. That is science. Religion is an attempt to attribute that which we haven't been able to explain to a supernatural cause. It explains nothing, provides no consistency nor predictability. It's just an explanation that explains nothing.
In your example, there's two main issues raised that I would look to. Number one would be a screwup on the part of the x-ray technician, or the doctor reading the x-ray. Number two would be the fact that we still don't have anything like a complete understanding of the brain or it's capacity for recovery from injury. It could have been a simple misdiagnoses. It could be that the x-ray was botched and the x-ray at the other hospital was done correctly. Without an investigation, we can't know.
The key difference between science and religion isn't testability, it's the subject of TFA: Faith. In order to experience miracles, you have to first believe in the power behind the miracle. Yeah, it's a paradox, but I didn't set the system up. People who bandy about the "it's science if it's testable" line don't care to understand faith-based workings because it requires them to give something up -- their pride.
The great thing about science is that you don't have to believe anything. You can start with the basics and learn about whatever you want. I'm not sure where pride even enters into the equation in science. The more I learn, the more I realize how much more there is that I don't know. I've accepted that there are vast stretches of knowledge that I will never be able to incorporate in my life. Scientists understand this as well, which is why we see more and more specialization. As the amount of information we uncover in each area of science increases, it takes someone that much longer to learn everything we currently know in that area. They can't afford to learn as much about too many other areas, so they will remain necessarily ignorant in those areas as a sacrifice to their ability to have a much deeper understanding of only a few areas.
Next time you are in a car accident or get a major illness and feel like testing your faith, let me know and I'll be glad to perform a demonstration.
What's the point? I can already tell you what the results would be.
I recover beyond expectations, and you claim it's a miracle.
I don't recover, and you claim it's because I didn't have faith.
I partially recover, and you claim that everything happens for a reason.
Ultimately it's just rationalization with no predictability or consistency, and certainly without evidence.
At this point it is only faith as in the way the article intended it to mean. A lot of science is understood in the same way by a lot of people which is why some are drawing the connections between science cults and religions so strongly. The concept and thought process in believing one is right or more right or whatever is almost exactly the same.
It's not at all the same. While some scientific theories have less evidence to support them, science works the same as it always does. We understand the method and how it gets results. We see those results all the time. Knowing that the same methods are being used is what allows us to have a fairly high degree of trust. It's not faith, and certainly not the essentially blind faith or circular rationalization that religion requires.
Science isn't just about reproducing anything we see. It's about explaining how things work. We come up with theories about it, repeatedly test them in a variety of ways, reconcile them with all sorts of observations. If it can't be reconciled, it will need to be changed. Science accepts that things will change, especially those things that are supported by only relatively small amounts of evidence, and those theories that are newer and/or on the edges of our current understanding of the universe. There's really no comparison with religion.
true. now. in the scientific community. but they were taken quite seriously for a long time and had quite a lot of money lavished on them. and the general population still has a cultural memory of e.g. Popular Science selling everyone on its promise that it could easily make a comeback PR campaign.
It's only the sad state of science education in general that allows this stuff to happen in the first place. They weren't fooling anyone involved in the actual science. At least not beyond a cursory investigation. Popular Science is not a scientific journal. It's a magazine that wants to draw in readers, so it prints all kinds of crazy and speculative stuff. That most people don't have the ability to tell the difference is quite unfortunate, and doesn't bode well for the future success of this country.
Gravity is a theory too. All our best scientific explanations are just theories. Some theories have more evidence behind them than others. They're always subject to change, or even replacement, in light of new evidence. Some theories propose tests that are only theoretical currently, because we don't have the ability to perform the test. So while the overall theory may hold together, and may still be the most evident answer, it's going to be more tentative than other, better established theories.
it does kind of hurt that the "publish or die" part of the scientific-academic culture produces vast reams of untestable hypotheses or unrepeatable claimed results.
the structure of the scientific community, the complexity of contemporary scientific knowledge, and its funding apparatus virtually guarantee charlatanism and exploitation of the priest-lay relationship that has developed between scientists and the community at large.
*cough* cold fusion *cough*
Actually, cold fusion is a pretty good example of how science does work quite well. Nobody has been able to reproduce the results of the claimed cold fusion successes, which is why most people associate that area with quackery. If the results could be reproduced, it would likely be a thriving area of science. Right now it's just a fringe, populated by people hoping to make a breakthrough.
And everytime science has "delivered", have you personally understood every finding out there? Nope. I'm willing to bet you honestly understand squat about something in science you've personally argued to the death over. Physics... string theory... quantum mechanics... something in biology... mathematics? But you came out on "top" in your argumentation b/c you only recited what the experts told you were the findings (because you probably know nothing about second order partial differential equations, or tensor notation for special relativity, or personally extracted RNA from cells). Sure maybe the process of science in itself is different than pure faith. But your usage of its findings is not. You go off faith.
Not faith, just trust and an understanding of the nature of science. We can argue the evidence for something. Evidence is all that science gives us. It doesn't give us proof. It doesn't give us absolute certainty. It's subject to change as our understanding increases. I may argue some subject that I don't understand down to the most minute detail, but that's only because others have provided the evidence that supports the theory. I'm not arguing that I'm right or that the experts are right in the absolute sense. I'm arguing for what is most evidently correct. Those who I end up arguing with are usually much less informed than I am on that particular subject, so it's often not terribly hard to come out on top.
But if you were able to reproduce the results (which is extermeley unlikely) then would you even understand the results? There are scientific principles that 99% of the population will never understand, no matter how many books they read and lectures they go to, and evidence is useless, because people won't know how to interpret what they are seeing. This means that for 99% of the population, what they say about a lot of things is based on the fact that they believe someone is telling the truth. Sounds like faith to me!
I can't build a microprocessor either, or even fully explain how one works, yet I'm typing this right now using one. Science gets results that we can see. Maybe I don't have the specialized education necessary to produce anti-hydrogen. But I don't need to. It's either something useful that will result in some new device or process, or it's just something interesting that doesn't really affect me, but could be very useful to someone else down the road when they need something with the specific properties of anti-hydrogen. Either way, no faith required.
I've always thought it rather obvious that Science is a Faith. If a word cannot be used to define itself, than how can Science ever be used to prove itself?
Science doesn't "prove" anything, at least in the sense you seem to be using the word. It does allow us to find the most evident answer to our questions though. We've see science succeed in all sorts of endeavors. We've put men on the moon, we've built incredible structures, we've created the very computers and networks that we're communicating with now. We've created medical procedures and devices that have allowed us to extend both our lifespan and quality of life significantly. I've got a phone in my pocket that can do more than most PCs did 10 years ago.
The results of the scientific method can be seen throughout our society, so we have vast amounts of evidence to support its efficacy. While many people may take the pronouncements of science on faith, there is no need to do so, as there is with religion. You actually can do the research and test the claims yourself. Those people that understand the methods of science know why they accept the answers that we get through science. They also know why those answers are subject to change. They also know there are some questions that may never be answered.
Science is all about accumulating and building upon knowledge. No theory is ever completely proven or ever finished. They're all subject to change pending new information. Some people have a hard time with that concept. Some people seem to have more of a need to have a simple explanation for everything, and what could be more simple than "God did it"?
This is not about whether you support Net Neutrality or not, whether your a democrat or republican or not, it has to do with an agency of government being told it did not have the power it was projecting, then instead of getting congress to grant it the power, decided to usurp the process altogether. That is not anything you should want any government agency doing at all. It makes about as much sense as the ATF deciding your in violation of a rule because you don't own a gun when they have no power to make that rule.
It's being told that by some, but it's disputed by others. Not sure how it will play out, but this is a dispute within Congress as to how much power they want the FCC to have, specifically on this issue. Very few of them actually give a damn about how NN will affect most people. They're more concerned with what their corporate sponsors want them to do about it.
Forget the pros and cons of network neutrality, everyone should be coming together to support the Rule of Law. If you want the laws changed bug your Congresscritter.
I guess it's kind of sad that I read that last sentence as "If you want the laws changed buy your Congresscritter", and it actually made more sense that way.
I don't see this getting past the Senate, so it's probably not much of an issue right now. They do have a lot more important things to worry about. What really annoys me is that for all the Constitution-thumping that the Tea Partiers do, they don't seem to understand that the minority doesn't get to just come in and scream and yell about stuff and then make whatever laws they want.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't really see the point of a show trial in this case. The guy had declared war on the US, and done everything he could to kill as many as possible, so whether we kill him there or here doesn't make a lot of difference. There's no dispute about his guilt, by him or anyone else, and there's really no dispute about the consequences for it. Any trial would be simply for show. I'd rather not give him a platform for spreading any more of his message, which is exactly what a trial would do.
No, the real question is how history will judge this assassination. We are outraged about what he took responsibility for, and likely blinded by it, justifying our blood thirst by having lived through his. Future generations might not be so biased, and think that the right to a trial is universal and should be stronger protected the more atrocious the acts were, and the surer we are of the guilt.
That's ridiculous. When you gloat about killing 3000 people and promise to kill more, your life is forfeit and you can expect to be dead as soon as those you've attacked get their hands on you. I couldn't care less how history judges it.
This was a class action suit against *NVIDIA*, not the laptop manufacturer. Do you sue Kenmore for the full value of your house because your stove doesn't work, or Kwikset because someone broke into your house?
I don't see why not, if the Kwikset lock was defective, thus allowing the thief into my home. Seems like their defective product was directly responsible for the situation. If a Kenmore stove was somehow preventing my house from serving its intended purpose, such as it exploding and rendering the place unlivable, then sure. They're responsible. The defective Nvidia part prevented the computers from working, so yeah, I'd say they are responsible. They can take the defective laptops back and give me a new one. I don't need a 3-year old laptop when I paid for a brand new one and didn't get it. Instead I got a worthless brick that did nothing.
I mostly agree with you, but there is still something to be said for class actions: they are one of the only things encouraging corporations not to take more advantage of people than the law allows. This way, NVIDIA's costs for selling a faulty product are higher, which gives them more reason to make sure that they don't. Think of it as quality control.
We just need a way to ensure that the people who got screwed over by the company being sued don't get screwed over even more by the attorneys on the case. They tend to walk away with millions, while the people who actually lost something tend get a ridiculously paltry sum to compensate them, often with strings attached, such as being required to purchase from the same company again in order to take advantage of it.
More likely, if there barracuda in the Arabian Sea, they *ATE HIS FACE*.
I think that's the implied precursor step to his face being shat out by said barracuda.
You use oblivious. Why do you assume it is being oblivious vs. apathetic? Maybe the US doesn't care.
The people paying for this agenda to be pushed certainly care. I doubt that more than a very tiny fraction of the public at large has any idea what ACTA is.
No, science takes everything fundamental on faith. For example: 1. The uniformity of nature. Can science PROVE that nature behaves the same here as on the moon, or on Mars, or in a distant galaxy? No, it is taken on FAITH. 2. The existence of other minds -- can science prove that we are not brains in vats or in the matrix? No, of course it cannot, thus it is taken on FAITH. 3. Science assumes the universe was not created 5 minutes ago with the appearance of age. Can it prove it was not? No, it is a FAITH statement. Stop worshipping the tool (science) and worship the creator of science instead :-)
1. You fail at understanding science. Science does not seek to PROVE anything. It forms theories based on evidence, so at best it will tell us what is most evidently correct. It is quite good at this, which is why it has provided us with so much incredibly useful stuff, like the computer I'm typing this on.
2. Solipsism is useless as an explanation for anything.
3. Same as number 2.
You've provided no evidence of a creator, let alone a reason to worship him/her/it/them, so what reason is there to do so?
I may be able to specialize enough to understand the science of one field like say, particle physics, but things like rocket science or material engineering would have too little overlap and have too steep a learning curve for me to master and understand in any meaningful way. That's the whole point of TFA. Laziness has nothing to do with it. No one can learn everything in a lifetime, no matter how talented or long-lived.
The type of faith you describe bears no resemblance to the type of faith required for religion. Implying that it's even close to the same is dishonest. Science produces results. Religious faith produces rationalization.
Keep in mind two things. One, Science is a construct of man and is inherently lacking in ability to measure Deity. Two, Having faith does not make a person less credible in scientific matters.
Yes, it lacks that ability by definition. If there was actual evidence of the existence of Deity, however, then it would fall in the realm of science.
Having faith certainly doesn't make you less credible in scientific matters, so long as you're engaging in science. The point of science is to remove your biases and flawed perceptions from the equation so that only the facts are recorded. The point of faith is to rationalize your perceptions in the attempt to conform to your biases, thus you see miracles where only a medical error (which are alarmingly common) actually exists. Now it's absolutely no wonder at all that you claim to have seen dozens of miracles.
Don't let the presence of a thousand religions dilute the reality that there is a God. Just because man does not understand God doesn't mean he isn't understandable in meaningful ways. I get that you and I disagree on that point, but I can't help but feel you have a lot of prejudices when it comes to faith.
Why not? They all describe him/her/it/them differently. Which one is correct? Are they all equally valid?
Neither do I, but I don't ascribe superstition to things which have a rational explanation in my mind (regardless of what your mind or anyone else's mind sees it as). Do I understand why the hypothetical person died in your example but the other did not, no. But I do have faith in the creator of both people and what I perceive is his plan for us. And I believe that dead or not, we are his children and he desires our happiness. I'm glad you have found happiness with your current belief (or lack thereof).
Just like your hospital example, your perception is clouded by your preconceptions that you've established without any evidence. You see miracles, even in places where there are many much more likely mundane reasons. Is a screwup on an x-ray that later is corrected really a miracle, or just a relief to that patient and their family? If you jump directly to the miracle explanation without considering other far more common explanations, then you're willfully choosing to see only what you want to see.
Religion assumes that there is a purpose to life to the same degree that Science assumes that there is order to the Universe.
Science doesn't assume order, it just looks for explanations for phenomena and tests those explanations against the observations and evidence we accumulate.
In addition, we should avoid conflating "purpose of life" and "purpose in life". Religion attempts to explain the purpose OF life (i.e. not one's own life, but life in general). But even if one fully understands the purpose of life, they still need to find their purpose IN life. They are two distinct questions and often have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
The existence of a purpose OF life is assumed. A purpose IN life is what we choose.
Two examples of this: A person may fully understand the game of basketball, but may not know what their role in the game is.
I'm thinking this is a bad example. The person's role depends on the position they play and the game strategy laid out by the coach. If they have a complete understanding of the game, then they should know exactly what to do.
Or, we may say that there is no real purpose for war/chaos/natural disasters, but even absent a general purpose a person may nevertheless find deep meaning and purpose for their own existence in such chaotic and meaningless times.
Right, the purpose we choose. No need for religion, although some may choose religion as a purpose unto itself.
Do you verify most findings you "trust"? No. That's my point. You have faith that they're reliable. Trust and faith have overlap, and I'm pointing out that you probably use more of the faith than you admit.
Most of what I trust has been proven out through application. That which has not, I either have little opinion or feeling about, or I accept that the other researchers who have verified it have used the same kinds of scientific methods that are used throughout science. So while it may not be completely correct, it's at least the best we've got for now. When it comes to the newer theories and those that don't have a lot of evidence behind them, I'm hardly going to be out there defending their honor to the death anyway. That stuff tends to be more about curiosity and potential rather than something I'm going to find convincing. You know, the kinds of bleeding edge stuff you see in Popular Science and similar magazines.
Danse, The problem isn't that faith can't measure up to (or be measured by) science. The problem is that faith is harder to obtain than man's knowledge. A lack of faith does not mean 'more credible' just as having faith is not the same as irrational. What you call rationalization I call understanding. Faith is useful to me and provides me with happiness in this life, regardless of the existence of an afterlife. In the end, I have not harmed you because of my faith and you have not harmed me because of your lack of it. What matters in both perspectives is how we treat each other now, in this life. Does it not?
The problem is that whatever qualities you attribute to faith, you're doing it without any substantive reason for doing so, and I could find a hundred other religious people that would attribute somewhat different qualities to it, equally unsubstantiated. You call it understanding, but that's really not true. You don't understand why anything happens. You don't understand why two good people can get into an accident and one dies and another is hardly injured. You rationalize it within the teachings of your particular flavor of religion. There's no other word for it but rationalization. Understanding implies the ability to explain something. Faith does not provide that.
I'm not arguing that it can't provide you with happiness, but that could be said about all kinds of beliefs. I'm quite happy with my beliefs too. Sure, it means that I have to accept that there's much in this life that I will never be able to understand or explain, but I can accept that. I don't need to apply an explanation or cause to everything, especially if those explanations are just superstitions or myths.
You might be much more informed, but you're probably not even close to an authority on some subjects you've argued over. You just trust that the findings are evident... or that they "exprerts" are even competent enough to say a finding is evidence for something. I just call it faith... you call it trust. If you look at faith or trust in the dictionary, they are synonyms for each other.
Each word has multiple meanings. Some may be the same, but those aren't the meanings that we're using in this case. Again, trust can be verified. Faith cannot. I can trust science to produce results that are verifiable, explanatory, consistent, and predictable. Faith (in the religious sense) produces none of these things.
Saying that religion is a valid method of understanding our purpose in life assumes that there is a purpose for our lives that we must find, rather than being something that we create for ourselves. I don't know of any evidence to support that assumption. You can certainly choose religion as a purpose in itself, or as an inspiration for a purpose in life, but I don't see any reason to consider it any more useful or valid than any other choice.
Fair enough. I can't fully explain how someone who had a traumatizing brain injury seen on an X-ray taken at one hospital and then a blessing [wikipedia.org] was performed, the patient shipped to another hospital and all trace of the injury vanished on the next X-ray, but it happened. Just because it hasn't happened to you, doesn't mean faith-based healings or other miracles aren't real and repeatable. Maybe I don't have the theological training required to explain it, but I don't need to. It's something useful that happened to me and millions like me.
Can you reproduce it? Consistently? We have hundreds of millions of microprocessors working all over the world. They work consistently, predictably. That is science. Religion is an attempt to attribute that which we haven't been able to explain to a supernatural cause. It explains nothing, provides no consistency nor predictability. It's just an explanation that explains nothing.
In your example, there's two main issues raised that I would look to. Number one would be a screwup on the part of the x-ray technician, or the doctor reading the x-ray. Number two would be the fact that we still don't have anything like a complete understanding of the brain or it's capacity for recovery from injury. It could have been a simple misdiagnoses. It could be that the x-ray was botched and the x-ray at the other hospital was done correctly. Without an investigation, we can't know.
The key difference between science and religion isn't testability, it's the subject of TFA: Faith. In order to experience miracles, you have to first believe in the power behind the miracle. Yeah, it's a paradox, but I didn't set the system up. People who bandy about the "it's science if it's testable" line don't care to understand faith-based workings because it requires them to give something up -- their pride.
The great thing about science is that you don't have to believe anything. You can start with the basics and learn about whatever you want. I'm not sure where pride even enters into the equation in science. The more I learn, the more I realize how much more there is that I don't know. I've accepted that there are vast stretches of knowledge that I will never be able to incorporate in my life. Scientists understand this as well, which is why we see more and more specialization. As the amount of information we uncover in each area of science increases, it takes someone that much longer to learn everything we currently know in that area. They can't afford to learn as much about too many other areas, so they will remain necessarily ignorant in those areas as a sacrifice to their ability to have a much deeper understanding of only a few areas.
Next time you are in a car accident or get a major illness and feel like testing your faith, let me know and I'll be glad to perform a demonstration.
What's the point? I can already tell you what the results would be.
Ultimately it's just rationalization with no predictability or consistency, and certainly without evidence.
At this point it is only faith as in the way the article intended it to mean. A lot of science is understood in the same way by a lot of people which is why some are drawing the connections between science cults and religions so strongly. The concept and thought process in believing one is right or more right or whatever is almost exactly the same.
It's not at all the same. While some scientific theories have less evidence to support them, science works the same as it always does. We understand the method and how it gets results. We see those results all the time. Knowing that the same methods are being used is what allows us to have a fairly high degree of trust. It's not faith, and certainly not the essentially blind faith or circular rationalization that religion requires.
Science isn't just about reproducing anything we see. It's about explaining how things work. We come up with theories about it, repeatedly test them in a variety of ways, reconcile them with all sorts of observations. If it can't be reconciled, it will need to be changed. Science accepts that things will change, especially those things that are supported by only relatively small amounts of evidence, and those theories that are newer and/or on the edges of our current understanding of the universe. There's really no comparison with religion.
true. now. in the scientific community. but they were taken quite seriously for a long time and had quite a lot of money lavished on them. and the general population still has a cultural memory of e.g. Popular Science selling everyone on its promise that it could easily make a comeback PR campaign.
It's only the sad state of science education in general that allows this stuff to happen in the first place. They weren't fooling anyone involved in the actual science. At least not beyond a cursory investigation. Popular Science is not a scientific journal. It's a magazine that wants to draw in readers, so it prints all kinds of crazy and speculative stuff. That most people don't have the ability to tell the difference is quite unfortunate, and doesn't bode well for the future success of this country.
That's why it's called a "theory".
Gravity is a theory too. All our best scientific explanations are just theories. Some theories have more evidence behind them than others. They're always subject to change, or even replacement, in light of new evidence. Some theories propose tests that are only theoretical currently, because we don't have the ability to perform the test. So while the overall theory may hold together, and may still be the most evident answer, it's going to be more tentative than other, better established theories.
it does kind of hurt that the "publish or die" part of the scientific-academic culture produces vast reams of untestable hypotheses or unrepeatable claimed results. the structure of the scientific community, the complexity of contemporary scientific knowledge, and its funding apparatus virtually guarantee charlatanism and exploitation of the priest-lay relationship that has developed between scientists and the community at large. *cough* cold fusion *cough*
Actually, cold fusion is a pretty good example of how science does work quite well. Nobody has been able to reproduce the results of the claimed cold fusion successes, which is why most people associate that area with quackery. If the results could be reproduced, it would likely be a thriving area of science. Right now it's just a fringe, populated by people hoping to make a breakthrough.
And everytime science has "delivered", have you personally understood every finding out there? Nope. I'm willing to bet you honestly understand squat about something in science you've personally argued to the death over. Physics... string theory... quantum mechanics... something in biology... mathematics? But you came out on "top" in your argumentation b/c you only recited what the experts told you were the findings (because you probably know nothing about second order partial differential equations, or tensor notation for special relativity, or personally extracted RNA from cells). Sure maybe the process of science in itself is different than pure faith. But your usage of its findings is not. You go off faith.
Not faith, just trust and an understanding of the nature of science. We can argue the evidence for something. Evidence is all that science gives us. It doesn't give us proof. It doesn't give us absolute certainty. It's subject to change as our understanding increases. I may argue some subject that I don't understand down to the most minute detail, but that's only because others have provided the evidence that supports the theory. I'm not arguing that I'm right or that the experts are right in the absolute sense. I'm arguing for what is most evidently correct. Those who I end up arguing with are usually much less informed than I am on that particular subject, so it's often not terribly hard to come out on top.
But if you were able to reproduce the results (which is extermeley unlikely) then would you even understand the results? There are scientific principles that 99% of the population will never understand, no matter how many books they read and lectures they go to, and evidence is useless, because people won't know how to interpret what they are seeing. This means that for 99% of the population, what they say about a lot of things is based on the fact that they believe someone is telling the truth. Sounds like faith to me!
I can't build a microprocessor either, or even fully explain how one works, yet I'm typing this right now using one. Science gets results that we can see. Maybe I don't have the specialized education necessary to produce anti-hydrogen. But I don't need to. It's either something useful that will result in some new device or process, or it's just something interesting that doesn't really affect me, but could be very useful to someone else down the road when they need something with the specific properties of anti-hydrogen. Either way, no faith required.
I've always thought it rather obvious that Science is a Faith. If a word cannot be used to define itself, than how can Science ever be used to prove itself?
Science doesn't "prove" anything, at least in the sense you seem to be using the word. It does allow us to find the most evident answer to our questions though. We've see science succeed in all sorts of endeavors. We've put men on the moon, we've built incredible structures, we've created the very computers and networks that we're communicating with now. We've created medical procedures and devices that have allowed us to extend both our lifespan and quality of life significantly. I've got a phone in my pocket that can do more than most PCs did 10 years ago.
The results of the scientific method can be seen throughout our society, so we have vast amounts of evidence to support its efficacy. While many people may take the pronouncements of science on faith, there is no need to do so, as there is with religion. You actually can do the research and test the claims yourself. Those people that understand the methods of science know why they accept the answers that we get through science. They also know why those answers are subject to change. They also know there are some questions that may never be answered.
Science is all about accumulating and building upon knowledge. No theory is ever completely proven or ever finished. They're all subject to change pending new information. Some people have a hard time with that concept. Some people seem to have more of a need to have a simple explanation for everything, and what could be more simple than "God did it"?
This is not about whether you support Net Neutrality or not, whether your a democrat or republican or not, it has to do with an agency of government being told it did not have the power it was projecting, then instead of getting congress to grant it the power, decided to usurp the process altogether. That is not anything you should want any government agency doing at all. It makes about as much sense as the ATF deciding your in violation of a rule because you don't own a gun when they have no power to make that rule.
It's being told that by some, but it's disputed by others. Not sure how it will play out, but this is a dispute within Congress as to how much power they want the FCC to have, specifically on this issue. Very few of them actually give a damn about how NN will affect most people. They're more concerned with what their corporate sponsors want them to do about it.
Forget the pros and cons of network neutrality, everyone should be coming together to support the Rule of Law. If you want the laws changed bug your Congresscritter.
I guess it's kind of sad that I read that last sentence as "If you want the laws changed buy your Congresscritter", and it actually made more sense that way.
I don't see this getting past the Senate, so it's probably not much of an issue right now. They do have a lot more important things to worry about. What really annoys me is that for all the Constitution-thumping that the Tea Partiers do, they don't seem to understand that the minority doesn't get to just come in and scream and yell about stuff and then make whatever laws they want.