Scientific fact vrs. religious faith?

[gcomeau]

7. Few points...

The reason that science is the enemy of ignorance is because it enforces a methodology for evaluating evidence that does not allow ignorance to survive where it is applied.

There are minor differences in how that methodology can be described but in broad strokes it involves:

1. Identify subject of inquiry
2. Study/Observe
3. Construct an explanatory hypothesis.
4. Test. (Seriously, brutally, rigorously and repeatedly test)
5. Evaluate results for pass/fail
6. Publish (and subject your results to the review of your peers)
7. Revise hypothesis if necessary.
8. Repeat


Step 4, the test phase, is where your claim that science is not the enemy of religion runs into problems. Science holds that explanatory hypotheses MUST be testable. It does so for good reason, if a hypothesis can't be tested it isn't actually explaining anything whatsoever. It is making no contribution to your knowledge base, it has no more value than spinning a random fairy tale.

Hypotheses which cannot be subjected to testing are also referred to as "unfalsifiable" hypotheses. Science rejects them.

Statements like "God exists" are unfalsifiable hypotheses. There is no possible hypothetical manner in which they can be meaningfully tested because there can exist no test outcome that could not be explained away by "that happened because God...".

One big recent argument in scientific circles has been whether string theory was falsifiable or not. People are so seriously concerned with that debate because if the answer is "it's not" then string theory is dead. So people who favor string theory spend a lot of time trying very hard to establish falsifiability criteria for it.


That all also has bearing on the "both sides have their faith adherents" aspect of your post. Yes, there are some scientists who hold unjustifiable convictions about their hypotheses based on faith. The difference, and this is a HUGE difference, is that the entire scientific method is designed to wring those people out, whereas the entire religious framework is designed to encourage them.



Now there are apologists who try and get around this conflict by appealing to things like Gould's "non overlapping magesteria" but that's just sticking a new label on our old friend special pleading. "My hypothesis is special so it doesn't have to play by the same rules as everyone else's hypotheses... cause I said so."