Slate: No Faith In Science

[PeterMP]

I think World Religions is a one semester elective, at least in our county,

 

I don't think it was as an independent class, but as part of the larger history/social studies requirements.

 

I believe they were covered in a World History class way back when I was in High School.

 

Here's some quotes from the

"

Standards of Learning Documents for History & Social Science – Adopted 2008" for VA

"

The student will demonstrate knowledge of the civilizations of Persia, India, and China in terms of chronology, geography, social structures, government, economy, religion, and contributions to later civilizations by

a)   describing Persia, including Zoroastrianism and the development of an imperial bureaucracy;

"

describing Greek mythology and religion

 

"

The student will demonstrate knowledge of the influence of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism in the contemporary world by

a)   describing their beliefs, sacred writings, traditions, and customs;       locating the geographic distribution of religions in the contemporary world"

 

http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/history_socialscience/

[Burgold]

I completely disagree.

 

I believe in the Higgs boson because other scientists who ARE capable of following the mathematics understand it. And they have been checked by a dozen other scientists who are also capable of following the mathematics. Likewise, they believe me when I make claims based on the things I am able to follow and speak on. 

 

You likely don't understand the cellular process behind most of modern medicine. And yet, you aren't trusting your doctor based on faith, but rather on the rational assumption that your doctor understands how these things do work.

In a sense, this is more dangerous.  You don't have faith in the math or the science, but the prophet (scientist).  In religion, this is what has led many good people astray.  How many have trusted the word of someone who has claimed to have heard God or been devinely touched and wound up engaging in something harmful?

 

Mind you, I tend to trust our scientific prophets too.  It's why I believe in climate change (well, that plus what I've read... which is based on their writings :paranoid: and my own anecdotal evidence)

[Springfield]

Math and science should be tought in school. Religion should be tought in church. I'm talking about general academia, not college. I fail to see any benefit of teaching religion in school vs teaching math and science.

To me they are two completely different subjects for two completely different places.

[Burgold]

Math and science should be tought in school. Religion should be tought in church. I'm talking about general academia, not college. I fail to see any benefit of teaching religion in school vs teaching math and science.

To me they are two completely different subjects for two completely different places.

 

I think religion has a place in history and social studies.  After all, excluding the impact of religions from history would be removing a huge piece of the puzzle.  So, much good and ill has stemmed from religious action and belief.

[alexey]

In a sense, this is more dangerous. You don't have faith in the math or the science, but the prophet (scientist). In religion, this is what has led many good people astray.

...

I completely disagree and I think this is a horrible and absolutely wrong way of looking at it.

Comparing scientists who work according to a known process, publish their work, get checked by their peers, etc, to charismatic and somewhat (or completely) insane cult leaders who just make stuff up? Oh my say it aint so.

Maybe you are taking about the "cult of the scientist" or something where people who do not understand how science works end up with wrong impressions.

[Burgold]

Think of it this way... there are tens of thousands of priests studying holy works, they are parsing every word, letter, metaphor, etc.  There is a incredible degree of diligence to their careful analysis.  They work gets checked, analyzed, and is debated.  Then when it filters down to you and me... we are expected to trust these learned priests because of their study and their devotion.

 

Similarly, a scientist devotes their life to studying a subject and observing the most minute details.  Their work is debated, checked, analyzed, replicated amongst their own conclave and published.  At some point, their findings filter down to us and then we generally decide to have faith in what the scientists have discovered/declared.... well, unless you are a conservative Republican or radical Islamist.

 

It's all the same... you just believe in one more than the other.  Even though, some of what these physicists, chemists, and engineers are describing are probably as arcane to you as mysticism.

 

Or slightly more seriously, I have more faith in the science than the scientist.

 

(The problem with being an atheist is you can't ever play the devil's advocate because you don't believe in demons. )

[Springfield]

I think religion has a place in history and social studies. After all, excluding the impact of religions from history would be removing a huge piece of the puzzle. So, much good and ill has stemmed from religious action and belief.

I agree that religion must have a place in history but that place isn't really front and center. You don't need to know the teachings of Judaism in order to understand the holocaust. You don't need to know the first four books in the New Testament to understand early American immigration. You don't need to know what Mohommed said in order to understand 9-11.

Learning the religions (or race, or origin, or gender) is a key to identifying groups of people. Only in higher learning should one really be required to delve deeper into those underlying subjects.

That's just my opinion.

[Burgold]

I agree that religion must have a place in history but that place isn't really front and center. You don't need to know the teachings of Judaism in order to understand the holocaust. You don't need to know the first four books in the New Testament to understand early American immigration. You don't need to know what Mohommed said in order to understand 9-11.

Learning the religions (or race, or origin, or gender) is a key to identifying groups of people. Only in higher learning should one really be required to delve deeper into those underlying subjects.

That's just my opinion.

I'm pretty much with you.  I don't think we need to teach religion to examine its place in culture, history, law, or how we problem solve, but I think we shouldn't be afraid to explore its positive and negative impacts either.

 

Mind you, I'm pretty opposed to prayer in schools.

[alexey]

Think of it this way... there are tens of thousands of priests studying holy works, they are parsing every word, letter, metaphor, etc. There is a incredible degree of diligence to their careful analysis. They work gets checked, analyzed, and is debated. Then when it filters down to you and me... we are expected to trust these learned priests because of their study and their devotion.

...

People who work with people and communities have a lot to say about the human condition because of their devotion.

People who study holy texts as information that has any divine origin are wasting their intellect. Historians, anthropologists, linguists - those are the people who bring value in studying ancient texts and myths.

You are misleading people by conflating study of reality by scientists and "study" based on pretending that gods write books.

Would you make the same point about diligent and devoted study of Scientology, or something else that you can comfortably admit to be made up?

[mistertim]

I smell another 10 pages of alexey/PeterMP debates about semantics, epistemology, and probability coming on.

 

[alexey]

Oh no we're done. I probed him enough

[Morneblade]

Belief itself vs disbelief.

 

It might not be your kind of math

Or any kind of math.

[Morneblade]

So any atheists want to weight in?

Not really. It's not like my input is going to change anyones mind.

[twa]

Or any kind of math.

 

even math has it's limits

[PeterMP]

Not really. It's not like my input is going to change anyones mind.

 

You do realize this is your 3rd post in this thread.  Kind of odd to be posting in a thread where you don't want to weigh in on the topic, no?

 

I'll carry the arguments over them other thread and open them up to anybode else that wants to give them a shot:

 

1.  There is evidence that we are living in a simulation (see the other thread for my posts on the topic).

2.  It is not possible to prove anything so I can't prove this is a simulation and other people can't prove basic things on this reality.

 

From there, I have two questions:

 

1.  If you spend your day studying anything, what have you really learned?  Does what you've learned allow you to say anything about the future or other people's experiences?  I'm happy if people want to give their answers in terms of probability (in the other thread we talked about it in the context of studying two things bumping into one another, but people can use whatever example they want).

 

I don't think you've learned anything about either of those things because it is possible that this is a simulation and it is possible that the simulators have set up so that people will experience different things (in fact quantum mechanics tells me the position of the observer is important with respect to the observation) and might change it in the future.

 

2.  Currently the basic mathematical forumalism for what we call gravity is m1*m2/r^2 (that's the mass of the two objects multiplied divided by the distance between them squared).  What is the probability that tomorrow that equation is no longer going to hold and the attractive force between two objects will be me m1*m2/r?  How did you come about that number and how did you take into account this might be a simulation?

 

I don't think anybody can tell you how to caculate that probability in any sort of real constructive manner.

 

If you're going to make a positive assertion (i.e. that science isn't based on faith on any level), then I think you have the obligation to support that assertion.

 

And if you can't/won't answer the questions or address the point without playing word games (e.g. if the equation for gravity changes, then it won't be gravity any more and so gravity can't change), it leaves me wondering why you can't/won't and why you feel the need to go around making such positive assertions.

 

**EDIT**

alexey, maybe you can e-mail Coyne and he'll give you an answer.  You can even send him the link to the other thread.

[PeterMP]

The other point I want to make is that sometimes there is talk about science disproving religion because it becomes clear certain parts of religious texts or religious ideas become falsified.

 

This is from the wiki entry on St. Augistine who died in 430 AD. well before Galileo, Copurnicus (born in 1473), Newton, Darwin, and Columbus were even born.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo

 

"Apart from his specific views, Augustine recognizes that the interpretation of the creation story is difficult, and remarks that we should be willing to change our mind about it as new information comes up."

[Vilandil Tasardur]

In a sense, this is more dangerous.  You don't have faith in the math or the science, but the prophet (scientist).  In religion, this is what has led many good people astray.  How many have trusted the word of someone who has claimed to have heard God or been devinely touched and wound up engaging in something harmful?

 

Mind you, I tend to trust our scientific prophets too.  It's why I believe in climate change (well, that plus what I've read... which is based on their writings :paranoid: and my own anecdotal evidence)

I can't agree with you here. 

 

I don't have faith in the scientist as a prophet. I have faith in the system that usually does not allow a single scientist to publish data and make claims without having been checked thoroughly and scrutinized extensively by others who do understand the math. I don't understand myself, but I know that it isn't just one dude who understands the math making a claim. It's a group of people working together to understand the math, and then having that cross checked by an editor and getting it peer reviewed by a dozen more people who understand the math.

 

Part of my research at the moment involved rebuffing a publication by another researcher in which he makes certain claims based on an erroneous understanding of the fossil record. Similarly, I expect that science in fields which I do not understand has gone through these same steps to keep it self policing.

 

 

Also, I pose that science encourages us to try to understand the math. Most scientists, while they know you won't get the physics or the math behind it, would love for the general public to pick it up and try. We like our work to be permeating through the general public and we like people to understand and share our enthusiasm in what we do. SOME religious leaders feel this way, and they tend to be the ones I gravitate to. 

 

For example, I had a strong argument with the pastor at my church last weekend. Everything I ever studied in my religious classes in college taught me that the four gospels have not been confirmed to have been written by the disciples they were named for. As a man of faith, I don't think this affects their importance one bit. I think there are good messages about morality in those pages and I don't care if Matthew was literally written by a Matthew. But my pastor was trying to convince me that being a good christian meant accepting that Matthew penned it himself on faith. I see no reason why that is the case.

 

 

Edit:

 

And for what it's worth. I never had a religious class in high school (Reservoir, graduated 2008). We learned a lot of religion in World History AP and in European History AP, but our teacher had strict rules placed on him. We were only allowed to discuss religion in phrases such as "Moses then did this..." or "The early church believed that" and "Luther did X because he believed Y".

 

If a student asked "What do Muslims believe today" the teacher was forbidden from answering. He could only discuss religion with regards to how it affected the specific time period and how it colored the material at hand. The end result was a fabulous understand of the origin of many religions and a slightly dated basis for what those faiths believe today.

[The Evil Genius]

We were already taught a ****ized version of american history in school. I can't imagine what Disneyfied version of religion would be taught also.

 

Do you really think kids will be consistently taught (in detail) that the natives were slaughtered because they wouldn't let baby jesus in their lives? 

 

[PF Chang]

There is no reason to attempt to discredit religion and inflate science. 

 

 

Isn't there? It would be nice if that were the case but they're clearly related and move in opposite directions. People used to think rain was attributable to a god. Now we know better and the religious belief died out. Except now we have religious people fighting to ensure that science such as evolution is not present in schools -- why? Because it pretty much discredits their religion. 

 

It's a constant battle. Take contraception for example, it is and should be ludicrous for anyone to suggest banning it. And yet it's somehow still a topic politically despite the obvious health benefits. Religion is powerful and it impedes science. I know we all like to say that they can and should remain separate, and why don't we all just get along, but it's not working like that in practice. 

[mcsluggo]

that is a pretty simplistic view of faith, and only applies to the least common denominator

[PeterMP]

Isn't there? It would be nice if that were the case but they're clearly related and move in opposite directions. People used to think rain was attributable to a god. Now we know better and the religious belief died out. Except now we have religious people fighting to ensure that science such as evolution is not present in schools -- why? Because it pretty much discredits their religion. 

 

It's a constant battle. Take contraception for example, it is and should be ludicrous for anyone to suggest banning it. And yet it's somehow still a topic politically despite the obvious health benefits. Religion is powerful and it impedes science. I know we all like to say that they can and should remain separate, and why don't we all just get along, but it's not working like that in practice. 

 

In some cases, it certainly an issue, and I'll put my track record of defending things like evolution up against anybody else here.

 

However, this is a case where I don't see a real easy solution, and I doubt that misrepresentation of what science is and can do that many people seem to be suggesting as a solution (such as that done in the OP) is long term really the solution.

 

Longer term, I think is very likely that such attempts are going to be more damaging to science than issues like teaching evolution in school.

 

From my perspective, the only real solution is to continue to chip away at it argument and person at a time.

 

If you have other ideas, I'd be curious to hear them.

[alexey]

that is a pretty simplistic view of faith, and only applies to the least common denominator

getting everybody openly on the same page about the lowest common denominator would be great.

Lets wait for religious voices to go against science denial before we dismiss such criticism.

Yes the appropriately nuanced view of religion would not result in support for discrimination, evolution denial, global warming denial, GOP war on the poor, opposition to social safety nets, opposition to healthcare as a basic right, opposition to sex education, opposition to birth control, attempted promotion of religion in the public sphere, and opposition to reality-based decision making in politics... But those things are the case, they are powerful, religion plays a strong role in them, and they hurt people.

[btfoom]

Let's see, late for deadline and need something to write about for 1500 words, check.

 

Create strawman in first paragraph, check.

 

Spend rest of article raging against said strawman, check.

 

Now can go back to playing COD - Ghosts in mom's basement, check.

 

This was a hack piece by a hack writer.

 

There is no reason why science and religion can't co-exist.  I work for and with many scientists/engineers/physicists.  The vast majority of them are also religious (as far as believing in some type of religion/god).  They aren't exclusive.

[alexey]

Science and religion can coexist, but do

they??? How about you get your religion the **** away from evolution education and then we will talk about coexisting.

[Popeman38]

Isn't there? It would be nice if that were the case but they're clearly related and move in opposite directions. People used to think rain was attributable to a god. Now we know better and the religious belief died out. Except now we have religious people fighting to ensure that science such as evolution is not present in schools -- why? Because it pretty much discredits their religion. 

 

It's a constant battle. Take contraception for example, it is and should be ludicrous for anyone to suggest banning it. And yet it's somehow still a topic politically despite the obvious health benefits. Religion is powerful and it impedes science. I know we all like to say that they can and should remain separate, and why don't we all just get along, but it's not working like that in practice. 

No, there isn't. Man believed that rain was a gift from god. Then we developed science and learned what causes it. That does not mean science should go out of its way to attempt to discredit religion. It is spiteful, and serves no other purpose than self gratification and piousness. 

 

Can you point out where contraception is an issue? Last I checked, the issue was private industry (mainly the Catholic church) being forced to cover contraception under their insurance. Notice they didn't forbid their employees from using contraception, just didn't want to pay for contraception. Contraception, believe it or not, is not a right. If it was, men would be afforded the ability to receive subsidized contraceptives.

Science and religion can coexist, but do

they??? How about you get your religion the **** away from evolution education and then we will talk about coexisting.

How about you admit that evolution education is already being taught at 99.9% of the publicly funded schools in the entire country. So why don't you get your science the **** away from religion. You posted an article that blatantly attacks religion for no reason, and ends by saying that addressing someone as a person of faith is an insult. What did you expect?