Posted: Mar 14, 2012 3:56 pm
Cito articulated something that I've surmised from various blogs but which nobody else has admitted. That an absolute reality is considered to be the work of God, and therefore atheists deny it. Just as the OP pointed out that reason is sometimes used in religion, faith is sometimes used in science. The establishment of scientific theories is usually considered as merely a failure to falsify them (supposedly according to Popper). What's overlooked is that the evidence that backs up these theories is also a success at verifying them.
Fundamentalists are notorious for saying "evolution is a theory, not a fact". And yet there are now scientists who say the same thing, with the excuse that the words "theory" and "fact" mean something different in science. No they don't. In politics yes
, but not in science. Almost nobody seems to admit that evolution is a theory that has been verified as fact. And it seems that a concern like Cito's is motivating this strange trend. It seems that no scientific theory, no matter how much evidence there is to support it, and no matter how much it goes against popular religious beliefs, can ever be called a fact, because that would imply that God ordained it. This is considered proof that nonsense has been invoked. Well if you define God as the all-powerful Biblical king blah blah blah, then yes, that's nonsense. But in the first place, this definition is rapidly becoming obsolete. In the second place, this doesn't logically follow from a faith in reality. On the contrary, it is the recognition that reality exists and contradicts much of the Bible that has allowed science to escape the Bible's narrow-mindedness.
This is particularly problematic in the field of quantum theory. It's incomplete, and there are well-founded attempts (CSL is my favorite) to fill in the inconsistencies. But they're never explained to a general audience. The excuses are that they're ad-hoc, they have problems that haven't been worked out yet, they're not currently testable, or that if you simply follow the math they aren't necessary. But these don't excuse the inevitable result: Crackpots and charlatans fill in their own ignorant interpretations, and the real experts are powerless to intervene.
Fundamentalists are notorious for saying "evolution is a theory, not a fact". And yet there are now scientists who say the same thing, with the excuse that the words "theory" and "fact" mean something different in science. No they don't. In politics yes
, but not in science. Almost nobody seems to admit that evolution is a theory that has been verified as fact. And it seems that a concern like Cito's is motivating this strange trend. It seems that no scientific theory, no matter how much evidence there is to support it, and no matter how much it goes against popular religious beliefs, can ever be called a fact, because that would imply that God ordained it. This is considered proof that nonsense has been invoked. Well if you define God as the all-powerful Biblical king blah blah blah, then yes, that's nonsense. But in the first place, this definition is rapidly becoming obsolete. In the second place, this doesn't logically follow from a faith in reality. On the contrary, it is the recognition that reality exists and contradicts much of the Bible that has allowed science to escape the Bible's narrow-mindedness.This is particularly problematic in the field of quantum theory. It's incomplete, and there are well-founded attempts (CSL is my favorite) to fill in the inconsistencies. But they're never explained to a general audience. The excuses are that they're ad-hoc, they have problems that haven't been worked out yet, they're not currently testable, or that if you simply follow the math they aren't necessary. But these don't excuse the inevitable result: Crackpots and charlatans fill in their own ignorant interpretations, and the real experts are powerless to intervene.