How much science we take on "faith" (page 2)

rem

The_Classicist

>> Don't be so sure. Most of the higher level stuff can't even be done by most scientists. It reminds me of a news story a while back where a physicist got a huge grant and wrote a paper. Unfortunately, it turned out that he made the whole thing up and it took quite a while before someone realized it.

Yes, sometimes it takes some time, but the self correcting nature of the scientific method does eventually win out, just as your example shows. Scientists found that things did not add up and the fraud was exposed. The same thing happened with Piltdown man and others. This is the scientific method at work.

rem

tetrapod.sapien

Tetra, I hear you, I watched my brother in law get ready to defend is dissertation in Polymer Science and it was not pretty. I totally get the scientific method and see its results, just that for most of us its sort of vodoo since we just can't understand it.

LOL, i see what you are saying. you come up with the funnest threads man.

TS

William Penwell

The difference is a religious belief is based on "blind" faith and a believer will not change that belief no matter what evidence that may be brought out contrary to that belief. Science is based on theories or beliefs back by observation and experimentation. If that theory by observation is proved wrong it is replaced by another theory.

I recall my grandmother telling me bible stories when I was 5 years old and thinking it was a bunch of BS. At 5 years old I had enough intelligence to know it was a load of crap but it was always explained away that you just believed it because it was "Gods" word. Anyway I would rather believe in something I can prove than a book full of myths, legends and superstitions.

Will

stillajwexelder

Tetra, I hear you, I watched my brother in law get ready to defend is dissertation in Polymer Science and it was not pretty.

I would have loved to have been there

Big Dog

Stilla, I can guarantee you he didn't want to be there. He said it was like being attacked by a pack of rabid wolves. The whole process appears to be pretty pitiless and brutal from what I saw of it.

I will say the guys (or ladies) that put their theories out there have a set of stones on them because as has been pointed out their peers seem to take great delight in poking holes in their work.

stillajwexelder

but there is immense fun in quoting back one of the viva voce referees with one of their own publications or even proving them categorically wrong - if your work is sound it stands up to scrutiny

sonnyboy

Isn't that what theories are all about?

*waits for the science majors to tell me I'm wrong*

tetrapod.sapien

Isn't that what theories are all about?

sorry, sonny, with regards to what? i can't tell.

thx,

TS

sonnyboy

Big Bang?

tetrapod.sapien

sonny, i'd like to know what you are talking about, but i can't make sense of what you mean by big bang, i know it's a theory, but it doesn't seem to fit with anything else in the thread. forgive my daftness, but i need more info.

theories are proven explanations for data. if the data supports the theory, it's evidence. theories are falsifiable, and open to revision as future discoveries are made.

is that what you mean?

TS

How much science we take on "faith"

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