Faith in science

Originally posted by @dj2becker
Putting 'faith' in science is not limited to atheists. Everyone who has 'complete trust or confidence' in science is putting their faith in science.

Where did you get 'complete' confidence in anything I said? We have confidence only up to a certain point.

If we drop a 20 pound weight from 6 feet up and let that weight hit a toe we can be pretty confident that toe will break.

There is a big difference between running a test based on one example and running the same test 1000 times and getting a definite window of some plus or minus number of the confidence level.

I think if we did that test 1000 times it would be pretty close to 1000 broken toes don't you think? Then we would have a high degree of confidence of the experiment of dropping a 20 pound weight from 6 feet or say 2 meters in the air onto a bare human toe, they will break.

Say one time it doesn't break, just bruises. So the numbers would be 99.9 % confidence level of the outcome.

Is 99.9% 'complete' confidence? No it is not because there is always 99.999 or 99.9999 and so forth, each with a higher level of confidence but still not 'complete' confidence.

And ZERO 'faith'.

Your goal is to force scientists to 'realize' they have a religion so you can feel comfortable in your own religion which you seem to have doubts about otherwise foisting faith onto science would not be an issue.

So what are you doubting about your own faith that requires you to want to foist 'faith' on to science?

Originally posted by @sonhouse
Where did you get 'complete' confidence in anything I said? We have confidence only up to a certain point.

If we drop a 20 pound weight from 6 feet up and let that weight hit a toe we can be pretty confident that toe will break.

There is a big difference between running a test based on one example and running the same test 1000 times and getting a d ...[text shortened]... are you doubting about your own faith that requires you to want to foist 'faith' on to science?

When it comes to conclusions about what you think occurred in the distant past or future, because you most certainly do not know for sure.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
When it comes to conclusions about what you think occurred in the distant past or future, because you most certainly do not know for sure.

Of course. That is the whole point of having a window of error which is why it is not 'faith' in a result, it is the confidence level of X %, obviously a 50% level of confidence would be on the same order as random chance but a 60% level starts to build confidence, not much in that case but up from 50. And so forth. 90% means a 10% error bar which could mean the whole idea is off but still possible. 99%, you are getting to a somewhat higher level, I think scientists want something like 99.999% surity of some issue to be confident enough to say start testing a drug on humans. This is still not 'faith'. It is a high degree of confidence by a proven scientific approach to a specific problem.

With say, carbon 14 dating, they know full well the limitations and will not use it if the date is suspected of being say 100,000 years old for some specimen since there would be practically zero C14 left to measure.

They also know about strata mixing where one strata may have mixed with another one via storms or earthquakes, floods and such. They actually are really good at their jobs and if they say such and such a specimen is 4500 years old they also say plus or minus some number of years say =+/- 300 years. That is not faith. That is science in action.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
Of course. That is the whole point of having a window of error which is why it is not 'faith' in a result, it is the confidence level of X %, obviously a 50% level of confidence would be on the same order as random chance but a 60% level starts to build confidence, not much in that case but up from 50. And so forth. 90% means a 10% error bar which could me ...[text shortened]... or minus some number of years say =+/- 300 years. That is not faith. That is science in action.

I don’t care about the window error the math could be spot on it doesn’t mean the conclusions about the distant past are correct. You can be spot on with numbers yet assumptions wrapped up in your calculations in error, thus giving you a correct wrong answer.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
I don’t care about the window error the math could be spot on it doesn’t mean the conclusions about the distant past are correct. You can be spot on with numbers yet assumptions wrapped up in your calculations in error, thus giving you a correct wrong answer.

Science insists their findings must adjust to new knowledge. This bothers you.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
When it comes to conclusions about what you think occurred in the distant past or future, because you most certainly do not know for sure.

True. Apply that insight to your favorite myth beliefs.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
When it comes to conclusions about what you think occurred in the distant past or future, because you most certainly do not know for sure.

That is funny coming from someone who thinks they know what happened 2000 years ago!
(Based upon conflicting stories written 100 years after the event)

Originally posted by @apathist
Science insists their findings must adjust to new knowledge. This bothers you.

You are asking that why? Did you see me questioning that?

Originally posted by @apathist
True. Apply that insight to your favorite myth beliefs.

Always

Originally posted by @kellyjay
I don’t care about the window error the math could be spot on it doesn’t mean the conclusions about the distant past are correct. You can be spot on with numbers yet assumptions wrapped up in your calculations in error, thus giving you a correct wrong answer.

In order for you to say that with confidence, you would have to prove errors in the math behind stats caculating the error bar. Without that, you are venturing opinion only. Anyone can venture opinions, proving the assertion is another thing entirely.

Besides, you are only arguing against the error level. You don't seem to be arguing about the main conclusions to some event or process, whatever. So If I say, the boiling point of water is 100 degrees C plus or minus 1/20th of a percent, you are arguing, NO, it's 100 degrees plus or minus 1/19th of a percent. Water still boils at 100 degrees C at sea level.

What you don't understand is the hard work going into those error bars, how they arrive at those conclusions and the hundreds of scientists involved in very different disciplines to arrive at a consensus.

Not being involved in those sciences, you have no idea of the logic behind the stats and you argue mainly from a religious POV that for instance, evolution is incorrect in spite of near 200 years of generations of scientists in many disciplines coming to conclusions that belie's the biblical version of events.

I have talked with religious folks time and time again, where the only thing they bitch about in science is the age of Earth and universe, evolution and that is pretty much it.

The thing is, you have to be able to prove the scientific method does not work for dating Earth or evolution before you make opinion pieces.

They have no problem with scientists using the exact same scientific method to come up with a treatment for diabetes or cancer or HIV or HEP C and such or the science going into making rockets or computers or the math involved in all of the above.

But when it comes to dating Earth or evolution, all of a sudden entire scientific disciplines are under fire, can't be right BECAUSE it says right here in Genesis and so forth.

For one thing, the 7 day biblical creation time line is just plagiarized even more ancient Egyptian 7 day creation tales sparked up for Jewish minds of the day.

That is a fact. So it was not god wrote those words it was people re-writing an ancient Egyptian creation tale and even THEY had 3 or 4 versions of creation.

It is all myth but people 2000 years later are so bound up in it they cannot think for themselves any more and wake up and smell the coffee. Evolution has been proven a hundred times over, now seeing evolution in birds happening within 2 generations.

'Oh, that is only MICRO evolution' the religious set says, 'that was not a dinosaur becomming a bird'

So now the goal post has been moved from evolution to 'micro'evolution, ignoring the fact it is STILL evolution.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
When it comes to conclusions about what you think occurred in the distant past or future, because you most certainly do not know for sure.

The trouble is that people don’t behave. They are supposed to be provisional when doing science, but they like certainty. So they really believe the earth will last another 5Byrs.

You can verbally beat them up for it, but that’s the way people are. Is this a reason to lend credence to the Bible?

Originally posted by @js357
The trouble is that people don’t behave. They are supposed to be provisional when doing science, but they like certainty. So they really believe the earth will last another 5Byrs.

You can verbally beat them up for it, but that’s the way people are. Is this a reason to lend credence to the Bible?

If you want to talk time and scripture we can, what I am speaking about has to do with conclusions made about the distant past or future apart from scripture.

Seeing x and suggesting that it means something millions or billions ago due to numbers we see today, means that there are assumptions made about x. Running the numbers could be spot on, but if the assumptions are not correct it doesn’t matter.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
In order for you to say that with confidence, you would have to prove errors in the math behind stats caculating the error bar. Without that, you are venturing opinion only. Anyone can venture opinions, proving the assertion is another thing entirely.

Besides, you are only arguing against the error level. You don't seem to be arguing about the main con ...[text shortened]... post has been moved from evolution to 'micro'evolution, ignoring the fact it is STILL evolution.

Did you read what I said? You can have assumptions apply numbers to them, the numbers says this, or that and all of the calculations were spot on! If your assumptions were incorrect your good math is meaningless to your conclusions!

Originally posted by @kellyjay
You are asking that why? Did you see me questioning that?

Yes.

You said "I don’t care about the window error the math could be spot on it doesn’t mean the conclusions about the distant past are correct. You can be spot on with numbers yet assumptions wrapped up in your calculations in error, thus giving you a correct wrong answer."

Clearly you imply that science can be wrong. But science doesn't claim it cannot be wrong. You aren't quite on the same page yet.

Originally posted by @apathist
Yes.

You said "I don’t care about the window error the math could be spot on it doesn’t mean the conclusions about the distant past are correct. You can be spot on with numbers yet assumptions wrapped up in your calculations in error, thus giving you a correct wrong answer."

Clearly you imply that science can be wrong. But science doesn't claim it cannot be wrong. You aren't quite on the same page yet.

Well of course science can be wrong because people are the source, you think we are infallible in science?