I convinced my dad to see the movie, who had previously admitted to being unconvinced on global warming. He told me that it changed his mind - but that he still didn't like Al Gore. Of course, it no doubt helped that my dad is a scientist as well (retired, but with training in computer science and agricultural engineering). And yes, I've told him about junkscience (so aptly named, but not for the reason they think) and the people who were funding it, and let him make up his own mind about that. Not a big surprise that he was able to find the holes in their arguments as easily as I could.
How in the hell can anyone be stupid enough to think that there is a political motive behind "Big Oil" giving to science education? I don't think Welsely Mouch from Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged would be that moronic.
Maybe because the NSTA themselves admitted it? As a previous poster pointed out: "Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place 'unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.'"
How in the hell can anyone be stupid enough to think that's NOT a political motive?;)
It could take millions of years from the beginning of colonization before a civilization stumbled across us. There may be ships on the way here now; why should we assume that there has been intelligent life in the galaxy for millions of years when our own planet has supported for so short a time?
Actually, that is what I believe I said initially. It could take millions of years. However, what are the odds that in the X billion years the Milky Way has been around, all of the (highly) advanced civilizations that are out there arose within the same 10-100 million year time span that we did? So, the best guess is that, for whatever reason, there are no aliens in the process of colonizing the Milky Way. I guess we'll have to be first.:)
As for (prolonged) interstellar war, I would rate that as very unlikely. Whenever two civilizations meet, one is very likely to be far more advanced - even if they share a common "parent" civilization. Also, without superluminal speeds (which this discussion has assumed is unlikely), such a war becomes impractical for other reasons as well.
Also, I'm not sure why colonies wouldn't grow inside the sphere of influence, or why it matters too much. For the first part, assume that the more desirable planets are colonized first, where desirability is a mixture of closeness to where you are as well as the amount of "alienforming" that would be required to make the planet habitable. Some planets would be initially skipped, but then returned to. Secondly, I'll agree that the sphere growth is a limiting factor on reaching us. However, if the sphere is growing approximately uniformly (also being limited on "top" and "bottom" of the galaxy), then the alien species in question will reach us as if they were traveling in an almost straight line towards us, with stops for colonization along the way, of course.
If the U.S. Government and the big polluters put their message out there more forcefully, the populace will reassure themselves that everything is fine, no matter how many climatologists are jumping up and down screaming about runaway carbon emissions.
Although the Bush administration has been far too quiet about it, what has been said by them mainly supports the position of non-ExxonMobil supported scientists - namely, that anthropogenic global warming is real. That said, their silence is almost deafening. Also, I did understand that your point was a lack of communication and am in no way suggesting that you are contributing to the misinformation. As such, it's a valid point as many scientists have a hard time communicating with the general populace, and our government doesn't seem to have the willpower to do the communicating, either.
So, basically, you're suggesting a grandfather clause? Countries that are already industrialized get to continue benig industrialized, but those who aren't can't become industrialized because you set their emission goals based off them not being industrialized? You are familiar with the history of grandfather clauses, aren't you?
So, are you suggesting that perhaps the car industry is willing to shoot "themselves in the foot to get out having to kill other people"? You might be right!:)
The whole central problem behind the "carbon" tax is that with the lack of consensus over whether or not fossil fuel emissions are increasing the Greenhouse Effect and producing global average temperature rise -- and frankly, I don't see how it couldn't be having some impact -- there is little or no "tangible" effect that anyone can point to.
If you subtract those people who are receiving money from fossil fuel companies, then as far as I know there is a total consensus on this issue. In fact, even among those people who DO receive money from the fossil fuel companies, you'll find several scientists who admit that fossil fuel emissions are increasing the Greenhouse Effect. (Go to the bottom of this article and see Pat Michaels arguments against Global Warming. Basically it's that "That number [the amount of global warming] is significantly low, and it suggests to me that this becomes a self-limiting issue in the following way: 100 years from now, the technology that runs our society, and powers our society, is going to be radically different than it is today. It will almost certainly be a more efficient, maybe not even a carbon-based fuel society.")
Now, I know people will call this an ad hominem attack, but if it is, it's valid. Just as it was valid to point out that those scientists who denied that smoking was bad for were being funded by tobacco companies. I say it's valid because for the majority of people who don't actually understand the science themselves, they need to consider the biases of those who provide the information. One on hand you have scientists being largely funded by an administration that has very weak on climate issues, but who still find very strong evidence to support the greenhouse gas theory, and on the other hand you have scientists being funded by ExxonMobil and friends who try to find faults with those arguments. It's also worth pointing out that this same group of scientists first denied global warming was happening, then suggested that it's not due to greenhouse gases, and is now claiming that it's not really that big of a problem. So, if you don't understand the science, who do you believe?
Personally, I understand the science fairly well. But it's hard to convince those who don't understand it without pointing out to them why some scientists might be deceiving them (either deliberately or otherwise).
See my previous discussion about that. Simply put, once an alien race has the ability to colonize other worlds, those worlds will also colonize other worlds, and you end up with exponential growth. Even with fairly pessimistic (or optimistic - depending on whether you want to be colonized by alien races, I guess) assumptions, they'd find Earth within 100 million years after they began their colonization efforts.
I believe -- and by all means, any self-professed agnostics should step in here with their understandings -- that agnosticism is the declared position that one cannot know if there is a god or gods.
I guess I hadn't made my position clear - I am a self-professed agnostic. I guess if pressed, I'd define "hard agnosticism" as the belief that one cannot know if there is a god or gods, and "soft agnosticism" (AKA "my position") simply that I do not know if there is a god or gods. So, presumably, you and I share the same belief, but I refer to it as agnosticism. I'm sure part of my reason for using that title is that I have friends who are quite certain there is no god, where I am merely agnostic on the issue. (Mind you, agnostic, with a tendency to think they are more likely to be right than other camps.)
However, if even one alien civilization exists that has the ability and desire to colonize nearby star systems, than one would expect that after a hundred million years or so (at modest speeds), they will have colonized every habitable star system, including ours (assuming that our star system is habitable for them, of course). The fact that we haven't been colonized by aliens tells us something about what's not out there. Perhaps there is an organized community of ET's that have a prime directive type of rule, but in order for that to work it means that every alien civilization would have to agree to that rule, or that at least the most powerful one is enforcing that rule. And, of course, perhaps there are no other civilizations out there with the ability to colonize other star systems. However, I'd also like to point out that once an alien civilization starts colonizing other star systems, the odds of that civilization becoming extinct are reduced dramatically.
Read the link in my GP post about the Fermi Paradox. It explains that once a civilization develops that starts colonizing other worlds, it will tend to generate two (or more) other inhabited planets. This will then lead to 4, 8, 16, until after 40 such doublings you have over a trillion inhabited planets (i.e., about 10 for every star in the Milky Way). Obviously there will be limiting factors (such as the number of inhabitable planets), but you'd think that eventually (i.e., in less than a few million years), they'd find Earth - we wouldn't need to find them.
According to the GGP post (to which I had responded) there should be 1,000 advanced civilizations in our galaxy. If only 1 of those had developed a desire and the ability to colonize nearby star systems (e.g., alpha centauri for us) a million years or so ago and then kept spreading out from there, they should be here by now. Again, see the link on the Fermi Paradox that I mentioned in the GP post.
I'm not claiming there's no life elsewhere, or even intelligent life, but the Fermi Paradox does put suggest some interesting limitations to what we should assume.
You seem to have confused numbers with the bits required to store them.
So, 22,747,732,032 bits per inch^2 are needed. Now, even a lowly 300 dpi scanner would only need to differentiate 252,752 colours, which is achievable with 6 bits each for R,G and B.
A 300 dpi scanner with 6 bits each for R,G,B can only encode 300*300*(6+6+6)=1,620,000 bits per inch. At 600 dpi, you get 4 times as many bits. Also, keep in mind that (a) not all paper is created equally "white" which will diminish the required accuracy for storing data, and (b) even if you store this paper as carefully as we in the US have stored the Declaration of Independence, the color quality of the paper will degrade slightly. Sure, acid free and all that, but there will be some color degradation, so I think it's optimistic to even think you'll be able to store 252,752 colors for any significant amount of time. Imagine this: how many bits get altered by a single fingerprint?
It is important to realize that the argument for what atheism means isn't "my" argument. It is the argument of the atheist community in general. And just as you would probably think that taking a Christian's word for what Christianity means is more reasonable than taking an atheist's word for the same, I submit to you that you're better off taking the atheist's word for what atheism means than you are taking anyone else's.
How, when, and where does the "atheist community" meet? I'm guessing they meet on Monday evenings in either an "achurch", an "atemple", or an "amosque", and that a newsletter is the "how". But how does one subscribe and is there a secret handshake?;)
OK, seriously, I actually do know of an "atheist community" here at UVA (it's a student club), and one of my friends is an officer in it. It never even occurred to me to ask them how they define "atheist" vs. "agnostic" as I naturally assumed they used the "standard" definitions (i.e., American Heritage, Merriam-Webster, etc.). You might have a point about going to the group, however, because I left off the 2nd defintion for atheism: "2. Godlessness; immorality." (I kid you not.) Agnosticism also has a 2nd definition, but it's one that I have no problem with: "2. an intellectual doctrine or attitude affirming the uncertainty of all claims to ultimate knowledge."
Your distinction between hard and soft atheism is adequate, but them I'm guessing "soft atheism" is synonymous with "agnosticim", no? If not, how are they different? (And don't try defining "agnosticism" as not knowing what you believe, because unless you can show me an "agnostic community" that professes such beliefs, I'm not buying it.
As for people who say they "don't know" what they believe, I'm guessing the majority of the time they're really trying to politely say that it's none of your business. (And as I say this as someone who is more likely to offend than to be offended in this regard.)
Faith does not mean a general feeling that something is right; it is an unquestioning belief that does not need evidence.
There are very few people of religious faith that never question their beliefs and I do not know of any that do not believe they have evidence - it's just a matter of how one interprets that evidence. Also, observe that not only does an individual's religious faith evolve, so too have most religions themselves evolved. However, I agree that faith is something more than a mere "general feeling that something is right". I believe it's somewhere between the two "options" that you presented. Even in religious faiths, or maybe especially in religious faiths, there are a lot of things that are admittedly unknown. (Why did God let this happen? What is His "master plan"?) Even on the "core issues", I'm sure you'll find a lot more uncertainty than you might expect.
Of course we need axioms to create logical frameworks, but that does not imply that we have to believe in them or have faith in them in anything like the way that people have religious faith. They are just mechanisms to allow discussion and debate.
Per Christian teaching, the consequences of not having the proper faith is eternal damnation (I'm basically agreeing with you here). So, what is the consequences of not having the proper "faith" in the sciences? Well, you will occaisonally come to the wrong conclusions. Since that doesn't happen very often, we say our "faith" is good. One problem is that we've been talking about "science" as a monolithic whole, when I'm not sure if that's really accurate. For example, the QM faith and GR faith are mutually incompatible at their basic level. Of course, this is an example of what you were saying about it not really being the same thing, because any QM or GR scientist will readily admit that their axioms are not valid in certain domains (the very massive for QM and the very small for GR). One solution is the "unitarian" approach that is common in physics, where a common set of axioms or theories is search for that fits all fields. Some people think "string theory" will end up being that "faith", but I'm very much unconvinced. Other similarities are the fact that science does, in fact, have its annointed. Now, this is different from Christianity, of course, but you have to trust most of what other scientists tell you if you want to make any progress in science. It's an unfortunate fact of life that no one can do all of the experiments required to verify all of science.
So, what really are the differences? Well, here's a couple that I can think of:
Science makes predictions about future events that are almost always correct.
Science expects its "faith" to change.
I stress "expects" on that latter point, because a lot of religious faiths evolve as well, but that's not something they're usually proud of (Martin Luther's theses notwithstanding). I almost added that science does not have inquisitions, but then I remembered my Ph.D. comprehensive exams.:p
Also, it should be pointed out that not all religious faiths have that much in common with Christianity, e.g., Buddhism.
Tip: As soon as you mis-characterize the atheist position as "believing there is no god" then you're off in never-never land. Atheists are without belief.
From American Heritage:
agnostic
n.
1.
a. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
b. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
atheism
n.
1.
a. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
b. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
So, the way the GP was using these words is consistent with 1b for both definitions. It's how a lot of people use these words. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous.
Now, I actually find the distinction between "not knowing" and "not believing" to be a whole lot harder to pin down than the distinction between "not believing there's a god" and "believing there's no god", but maybe that's just me. As for the latter, there are plenty of people who DO believe there's no god, so what do you call them if not atheist? I understand your etymology argument, but similar reasoning might lead to the idea that "inflammable" means "not flammable" (yes, I know that it comes from "inflame"), and although I'm no wordsmith, I'm sure there are dozens of examples in the English language where what the word means does not agree with its etymology.
Now if you're looking for another distinction that's not captured by these words - and perhaps this is what you're getting at - there are at least two types of agnostics: those who aren't sure whether there's no God, and those who aren't sure whether there are any gods. I.e., you can be agnostic and still think, "Well if there is a God, it's (probably) the Christian God." Such people might describe themselves as being "Christian agnostic". (I added the word "probably" because I think even self-described "Christian agnostics" might be willing to entertain the idea that it's a single God, but not necessarilyl the God of the Old and/or New Testaments.
No, causuality is not an axiom. There are solutions of General Relativity that certainly do remove causuality - any closed time loop allows information to be generated from nothing, and effects without causes.
Just because you can remove an axiom it doesn't mean the axiom wasn't there. That was my whole point about Euclidean geometry vs. non-Euclidean geometry. Also, even in the "solutions" that _violate_ causality in General Relativity (which are not actually "solutions" in the strictest sense as they have self inconsistencies), they still _have_ causality. This was my point about removing only part of the axiom of causality, namely the "causality ordering principle" which is really more of a principle than part of the axiom of causality in the first place. (If pressed, I would state the "axiom of causality" as "all (spacetime) events have (natural) causes". The word "spacetime" is thrown in to get around the "first event" which would have been on the cusp of spacetime, if such an event exists. An alternate weaker axiom might be "most events have (natural) causes".) Also, of course, I should point out my own bias here. My Master's thesis involved "solutions" of GR that removed these violations.
We have agreed standards, such as statistical limits. Nothing is final, and nothing is certain. We may call what we use for such standards 'axioms', but that does not imply any kind of 'faith', just an agreed way of proceeding.
Hrmm. How familiar are you with axiomatic set theory? One of the axioms of set theory is (essentially) that 1+1=2. Also, are you familiar with Gödel's incompleteness theorem? Now, I'll agree that science's "axioms" are not as precise as axiomatic set theory, but they must necessarily be there. You cannot create any logical system without axioms. Now, if you want to define science as "skepticism" and argue à la Kant that we really can't know anything, well then that's not really much of a logical system and I guess its only axiom is that we can't really know anything. I imagine you could be even more agnostic than that and do away with even that axiom, but then you're not left with anything useful.
Granted, Occam's razor is a principle and not an axiom. Causality, however, is an axiom, much as the axiom that straight lines never meet is an axiom of Euclidean geometry. And, just as with non-Euclidean geometry there are "sciences" (I'm only using quotes here to parallelize it to "geometries") that have been explored that do away with some components of causality (just as QM does away with some components of reproducibility). I'm not actually aware of any "sciences" that do away with all components of causality (or reproducibility), however. And, just as with non-Euclidean geometry there would still be other axioms left. It's hard to describe these axioms as they are, for the most part, so much a part of the fabric of what we believe that we don't even see them.
Let's get back to "don't work". How do you define that without resorting to some sort of circular reasoning?
I'll get you started:
something doesn't work if...
it requires at least X failures for me to say it doesn't work because...
after X failures I can rule out the possibility that quantum probabilities aren't at fault because...
this is still true if I assume an infinite number of universes because...
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not claiming to have all (or necessarily any) of the answers. I'm just saying that even science requires a few axioms to break oneself out of circular arguments.
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I convinced my dad to see the movie, who had previously admitted to being unconvinced on global warming. He told me that it changed his mind - but that he still didn't like Al Gore. Of course, it no doubt helped that my dad is a scientist as well (retired, but with training in computer science and agricultural engineering). And yes, I've told him about junkscience (so aptly named, but not for the reason they think) and the people who were funding it, and let him make up his own mind about that. Not a big surprise that he was able to find the holes in their arguments as easily as I could.
Maybe because the NSTA themselves admitted it? As a previous poster pointed out: "Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place 'unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.'"
How in the hell can anyone be stupid enough to think that's NOT a political motive? ;)
And calling that dependency "cool" is any less stupid?
I've attempted to say before much the same as what you've just eloquently posted, but nowhere near as well. Well said!
Actually, that is what I believe I said initially. It could take millions of years. However, what are the odds that in the X billion years the Milky Way has been around, all of the (highly) advanced civilizations that are out there arose within the same 10-100 million year time span that we did? So, the best guess is that, for whatever reason, there are no aliens in the process of colonizing the Milky Way. I guess we'll have to be first. :)
As for (prolonged) interstellar war, I would rate that as very unlikely. Whenever two civilizations meet, one is very likely to be far more advanced - even if they share a common "parent" civilization. Also, without superluminal speeds (which this discussion has assumed is unlikely), such a war becomes impractical for other reasons as well.
Also, I'm not sure why colonies wouldn't grow inside the sphere of influence, or why it matters too much. For the first part, assume that the more desirable planets are colonized first, where desirability is a mixture of closeness to where you are as well as the amount of "alienforming" that would be required to make the planet habitable. Some planets would be initially skipped, but then returned to. Secondly, I'll agree that the sphere growth is a limiting factor on reaching us. However, if the sphere is growing approximately uniformly (also being limited on "top" and "bottom" of the galaxy), then the alien species in question will reach us as if they were traveling in an almost straight line towards us, with stops for colonization along the way, of course.
Although the Bush administration has been far too quiet about it, what has been said by them mainly supports the position of non-ExxonMobil supported scientists - namely, that anthropogenic global warming is real. That said, their silence is almost deafening. Also, I did understand that your point was a lack of communication and am in no way suggesting that you are contributing to the misinformation. As such, it's a valid point as many scientists have a hard time communicating with the general populace, and our government doesn't seem to have the willpower to do the communicating, either.
So, basically, you're suggesting a grandfather clause? Countries that are already industrialized get to continue benig industrialized, but those who aren't can't become industrialized because you set their emission goals based off them not being industrialized? You are familiar with the history of grandfather clauses, aren't you?
So, are you suggesting that perhaps the car industry is willing to shoot "themselves in the foot to get out having to kill other people"? You might be right! :)
If you subtract those people who are receiving money from fossil fuel companies, then as far as I know there is a total consensus on this issue. In fact, even among those people who DO receive money from the fossil fuel companies, you'll find several scientists who admit that fossil fuel emissions are increasing the Greenhouse Effect. (Go to the bottom of this article and see Pat Michaels arguments against Global Warming. Basically it's that "That number [the amount of global warming] is significantly low, and it suggests to me that this becomes a self-limiting issue in the following way: 100 years from now, the technology that runs our society, and powers our society, is going to be radically different than it is today. It will almost certainly be a more efficient, maybe not even a carbon-based fuel society.")
Now, I know people will call this an ad hominem attack, but if it is, it's valid. Just as it was valid to point out that those scientists who denied that smoking was bad for were being funded by tobacco companies. I say it's valid because for the majority of people who don't actually understand the science themselves, they need to consider the biases of those who provide the information. One on hand you have scientists being largely funded by an administration that has very weak on climate issues, but who still find very strong evidence to support the greenhouse gas theory, and on the other hand you have scientists being funded by ExxonMobil and friends who try to find faults with those arguments. It's also worth pointing out that this same group of scientists first denied global warming was happening, then suggested that it's not due to greenhouse gases, and is now claiming that it's not really that big of a problem. So, if you don't understand the science, who do you believe?
Personally, I understand the science fairly well. But it's hard to convince those who don't understand it without pointing out to them why some scientists might be deceiving them (either deliberately or otherwise).
See my previous discussion about that. Simply put, once an alien race has the ability to colonize other worlds, those worlds will also colonize other worlds, and you end up with exponential growth. Even with fairly pessimistic (or optimistic - depending on whether you want to be colonized by alien races, I guess) assumptions, they'd find Earth within 100 million years after they began their colonization efforts.
I guess I hadn't made my position clear - I am a self-professed agnostic. I guess if pressed, I'd define "hard agnosticism" as the belief that one cannot know if there is a god or gods, and "soft agnosticism" (AKA "my position") simply that I do not know if there is a god or gods. So, presumably, you and I share the same belief, but I refer to it as agnosticism. I'm sure part of my reason for using that title is that I have friends who are quite certain there is no god, where I am merely agnostic on the issue. (Mind you, agnostic, with a tendency to think they are more likely to be right than other camps.)
However, if even one alien civilization exists that has the ability and desire to colonize nearby star systems, than one would expect that after a hundred million years or so (at modest speeds), they will have colonized every habitable star system, including ours (assuming that our star system is habitable for them, of course). The fact that we haven't been colonized by aliens tells us something about what's not out there. Perhaps there is an organized community of ET's that have a prime directive type of rule, but in order for that to work it means that every alien civilization would have to agree to that rule, or that at least the most powerful one is enforcing that rule. And, of course, perhaps there are no other civilizations out there with the ability to colonize other star systems. However, I'd also like to point out that once an alien civilization starts colonizing other star systems, the odds of that civilization becoming extinct are reduced dramatically.
Sure, in the same way we said "hi" to the inhabitants that we found when we decided to colonize America... :P
(Actually, I can't really say I have any expectations one way or the other.)
Read the link in my GP post about the Fermi Paradox. It explains that once a civilization develops that starts colonizing other worlds, it will tend to generate two (or more) other inhabited planets. This will then lead to 4, 8, 16, until after 40 such doublings you have over a trillion inhabited planets (i.e., about 10 for every star in the Milky Way). Obviously there will be limiting factors (such as the number of inhabitable planets), but you'd think that eventually (i.e., in less than a few million years), they'd find Earth - we wouldn't need to find them.
According to the GGP post (to which I had responded) there should be 1,000 advanced civilizations in our galaxy. If only 1 of those had developed a desire and the ability to colonize nearby star systems (e.g., alpha centauri for us) a million years or so ago and then kept spreading out from there, they should be here by now. Again, see the link on the Fermi Paradox that I mentioned in the GP post.
I'm not claiming there's no life elsewhere, or even intelligent life, but the Fermi Paradox does put suggest some interesting limitations to what we should assume.
Let's say 1 in 10 of those decide to start colonizing other star systems with generational ships. Where are they?
You seem to have confused numbers with the bits required to store them.
A 300 dpi scanner with 6 bits each for R,G,B can only encode 300*300*(6+6+6)=1,620,000 bits per inch. At 600 dpi, you get 4 times as many bits. Also, keep in mind that (a) not all paper is created equally "white" which will diminish the required accuracy for storing data, and (b) even if you store this paper as carefully as we in the US have stored the Declaration of Independence, the color quality of the paper will degrade slightly. Sure, acid free and all that, but there will be some color degradation, so I think it's optimistic to even think you'll be able to store 252,752 colors for any significant amount of time. Imagine this: how many bits get altered by a single fingerprint?
How, when, and where does the "atheist community" meet? I'm guessing they meet on Monday evenings in either an "achurch", an "atemple", or an "amosque", and that a newsletter is the "how". But how does one subscribe and is there a secret handshake? ;)
OK, seriously, I actually do know of an "atheist community" here at UVA (it's a student club), and one of my friends is an officer in it. It never even occurred to me to ask them how they define "atheist" vs. "agnostic" as I naturally assumed they used the "standard" definitions (i.e., American Heritage, Merriam-Webster, etc.). You might have a point about going to the group, however, because I left off the 2nd defintion for atheism: "2. Godlessness; immorality." (I kid you not.) Agnosticism also has a 2nd definition, but it's one that I have no problem with: "2. an intellectual doctrine or attitude affirming the uncertainty of all claims to ultimate knowledge."
Your distinction between hard and soft atheism is adequate, but them I'm guessing "soft atheism" is synonymous with "agnosticim", no? If not, how are they different? (And don't try defining "agnosticism" as not knowing what you believe, because unless you can show me an "agnostic community" that professes such beliefs, I'm not buying it.
As for people who say they "don't know" what they believe, I'm guessing the majority of the time they're really trying to politely say that it's none of your business. (And as I say this as someone who is more likely to offend than to be offended in this regard.)
There are very few people of religious faith that never question their beliefs and I do not know of any that do not believe they have evidence - it's just a matter of how one interprets that evidence. Also, observe that not only does an individual's religious faith evolve, so too have most religions themselves evolved. However, I agree that faith is something more than a mere "general feeling that something is right". I believe it's somewhere between the two "options" that you presented. Even in religious faiths, or maybe especially in religious faiths, there are a lot of things that are admittedly unknown. (Why did God let this happen? What is His "master plan"?) Even on the "core issues", I'm sure you'll find a lot more uncertainty than you might expect.
Per Christian teaching, the consequences of not having the proper faith is eternal damnation (I'm basically agreeing with you here). So, what is the consequences of not having the proper "faith" in the sciences? Well, you will occaisonally come to the wrong conclusions. Since that doesn't happen very often, we say our "faith" is good. One problem is that we've been talking about "science" as a monolithic whole, when I'm not sure if that's really accurate. For example, the QM faith and GR faith are mutually incompatible at their basic level. Of course, this is an example of what you were saying about it not really being the same thing, because any QM or GR scientist will readily admit that their axioms are not valid in certain domains (the very massive for QM and the very small for GR). One solution is the "unitarian" approach that is common in physics, where a common set of axioms or theories is search for that fits all fields. Some people think "string theory" will end up being that "faith", but I'm very much unconvinced. Other similarities are the fact that science does, in fact, have its annointed. Now, this is different from Christianity, of course, but you have to trust most of what other scientists tell you if you want to make any progress in science. It's an unfortunate fact of life that no one can do all of the experiments required to verify all of science.
So, what really are the differences? Well, here's a couple that I can think of:
- Science makes predictions about future events that are almost always correct.
- Science expects its "faith" to change.
I stress "expects" on that latter point, because a lot of religious faiths evolve as well, but that's not something they're usually proud of (Martin Luther's theses notwithstanding). I almost added that science does not have inquisitions, but then I remembered my Ph.D. comprehensive exams.Also, it should be pointed out that not all religious faiths have that much in common with Christianity, e.g., Buddhism .
I'm guessing he's referring to Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.
So, the way the GP was using these words is consistent with 1b for both definitions. It's how a lot of people use these words. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous.
Now, I actually find the distinction between "not knowing" and "not believing" to be a whole lot harder to pin down than the distinction between "not believing there's a god" and "believing there's no god", but maybe that's just me. As for the latter, there are plenty of people who DO believe there's no god, so what do you call them if not atheist? I understand your etymology argument, but similar reasoning might lead to the idea that "inflammable" means "not flammable" (yes, I know that it comes from "inflame"), and although I'm no wordsmith, I'm sure there are dozens of examples in the English language where what the word means does not agree with its etymology.
Now if you're looking for another distinction that's not captured by these words - and perhaps this is what you're getting at - there are at least two types of agnostics: those who aren't sure whether there's no God, and those who aren't sure whether there are any gods. I.e., you can be agnostic and still think, "Well if there is a God, it's (probably) the Christian God." Such people might describe themselves as being "Christian agnostic". (I added the word "probably" because I think even self-described "Christian agnostics" might be willing to entertain the idea that it's a single God, but not necessarilyl the God of the Old and/or New Testaments.
Just because you can remove an axiom it doesn't mean the axiom wasn't there. That was my whole point about Euclidean geometry vs. non-Euclidean geometry. Also, even in the "solutions" that _violate_ causality in General Relativity (which are not actually "solutions" in the strictest sense as they have self inconsistencies), they still _have_ causality. This was my point about removing only part of the axiom of causality, namely the "causality ordering principle" which is really more of a principle than part of the axiom of causality in the first place. (If pressed, I would state the "axiom of causality" as "all (spacetime) events have (natural) causes". The word "spacetime" is thrown in to get around the "first event" which would have been on the cusp of spacetime, if such an event exists. An alternate weaker axiom might be "most events have (natural) causes".) Also, of course, I should point out my own bias here. My Master's thesis involved "solutions" of GR that removed these violations.
Hrmm. How familiar are you with axiomatic set theory? One of the axioms of set theory is (essentially) that 1+1=2. Also, are you familiar with Gödel's incompleteness theorem? Now, I'll agree that science's "axioms" are not as precise as axiomatic set theory, but they must necessarily be there. You cannot create any logical system without axioms. Now, if you want to define science as "skepticism" and argue à la Kant that we really can't know anything, well then that's not really much of a logical system and I guess its only axiom is that we can't really know anything. I imagine you could be even more agnostic than that and do away with even that axiom, but then you're not left with anything useful.
Granted, Occam's razor is a principle and not an axiom. Causality, however, is an axiom, much as the axiom that straight lines never meet is an axiom of Euclidean geometry. And, just as with non-Euclidean geometry there are "sciences" (I'm only using quotes here to parallelize it to "geometries") that have been explored that do away with some components of causality (just as QM does away with some components of reproducibility). I'm not actually aware of any "sciences" that do away with all components of causality (or reproducibility), however. And, just as with non-Euclidean geometry there would still be other axioms left. It's hard to describe these axioms as they are, for the most part, so much a part of the fabric of what we believe that we don't even see them.
Let's get back to "don't work". How do you define that without resorting to some sort of circular reasoning?
I'll get you started:
- something doesn't work if...
- it requires at least X failures for me to say it doesn't work because...
- after X failures I can rule out the possibility that quantum probabilities aren't at fault because...
- this is still true if I assume an infinite number of universes because...
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not claiming to have all (or necessarily any) of the answers. I'm just saying that even science requires a few axioms to break oneself out of circular arguments.