Science isn’t based on faith
I’m used to have conversations with a friend of mine — a psychologist — who is convinced that science is just another type of faith; an idea which, of course, never fails to poison our conversations. He is wrong, and here’s why:
The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That’s it. There is one corollary, and that is that if the Universe follows these rules, then those rules can be deduced by observing the way Universe behaves. This follows naturally; if it obeys the rules, then the rules must be revealed by that behavior.
I’m going to quote two paragraphs from a rather excellent article in Bad Astronomy:
Science is not simply a database of knowledge. It’s a method, a way of finding this knowledge. Observe, hypothesize, predict, observe, revise. Science is provisional; it’s always open to improvement. Science is even subject to itself. If the method itself didn’t work, we’d see it. Our computers wouldn’t work (OK, bad example), our space probes wouldn’t get off the ground, our electronics wouldn’t work, our medicine wouldn’t work. Yet, all these things do in fact function, spectacularly well. Science is a check on itself, which is why it is such an astonishingly powerful way of understanding reality.
And that right there is where science and religion part ways. Science is not based on faith. Science is based on evidence. We have evidence it works, vast amounts of it, billions of individual pieces that fit together into a tapestry of reality. That is the critical difference. Faith, as it is interpreted by most religions, is not evidence-based, and is generally held tightly even despite evidence against it. In many cases, faith is even reinforced when evidence is found contrary to it.
Faith is belief without evidence. Science people never believe anything without evidence that supports said belief. To say that we have to take science on faith is such a gross misunderstanding of how science works that it can only be uttered by someone who is wholly ignorant of how reality works.
Thus, it’s oxymoronic to say that science is a different kind of faith. It might not even be oxy!
February 19th, 2008 at 12:50
Science doesnt need to make the assumption that “the universe follows a set of rules”. It could also be possible that the universe lacks any symmetry whatsoever, and the experiments would then show just that. Take Ohms Law for example, some times you would measure U=IR, other times U=2*Pi, U=exp(I/k) etc. There wouldnt be any Ohms Law left, but that doesnt mean there wouldnt be any Science left, since it was science that just showed you that there was no possible Ohms Law in the first place. In this sense, science is never the idea that there the universe is describable by a set of rules, but rather the practice of observing/measuring different phenomena and finding out the formalism - if any exists - that best describes such phenomena.
Of course, I’m trivializing a lot of things, and Science is a bit more complex than I’ve just described. Trying to describe how scientists come up with experiments and theories is like trying to describe how Mozart composed music or Picasso painted Guernica, science its just as complex a creative process as great art, if not more so: Art doesnt have to correctly describe the universe.
More to the point, the solution to the faith/science “debate” is very simple: science is based on evidence, faith (by definition) isnt. Questions of wheter reality is “real”, Hume’s “skepticism” of causality, etc. are superfluous: In physics, for example, “reality” is defined by what the experiment tells you, causality is just a topological property of the formalism and time direction is a consequence of the Second Law. (Well, OK, its a little more subtle than that…) Any need for “faith” in science is negated by the existence of empirical evidence.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:54
please s/existence of empirical evidence/strict requirement that any proposition have statistical significant empirical evidence to back it up/ above,thanks.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:16
The definition of faith is the following: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1
Also, faith must be based on evidence, for the Biblical concept of “faith” is actually “trust”. To have faith in God is to trust God. I build my faith or trust upon facts and evidence. Blind faith is a bad idea.
With regard to science, I have always seen it the same way. I must “observe” and I must test. These develop a foundation of evidence.
On the other hand, I believe the confusion in science comes about by the interjection of belief systems into science. While the belief systems of evolution and creationism are good places to start, they are not science until beliefs are replaced by facts thru observation.
Thank you.
February 27th, 2008 at 16:53
Oh how convenient, you’re using an invented definition of faith that is IN THE BIBLE, which is a series of made-up histories.
“Also, faith must be based on evidence”. That is OXYMORONIC. If you have evidence to back up your belief, then it isn’t faith anymore.