Reply #77: certainly there is such a thing as scientific belief

[fishwax]

just as there is such a thing as non-scientific belief.

This is true in the simple sense that a belief is simply something we hold to be true. The word belief does not necessarily imply an absence of evidence in the same way that, say, faith does. So while it might be true that there is no such thing as scientific faith, there is such a thing as scientific belief.

It is also true in the more conceptual sense that science structures a specific belief system--one that Stephen Jay Gould would say is the only appropriate belief system with respect to the physical world of observable fact, as opposed to a religious belief system which is appropriate for the why or the moral or other questions for which science is not ideal to address.

It's certainly true that scientific "belief" is an entirely different animal than religious "belief" ... scientific belief must reconcile it to observable fact in a way that religious belief need not. I certainly don't take issue with the distinction you're making between what science represents and what religion represents, as they are too often conflated or falsely equated.