On hadron colliders, dark matter and black holes

[töff]

I think you'll find a lot of Christians saying that the Trinity is a consistent explanation of why many phenomena occur, and so that's equivalent to saying that we know Christ exists.

Scientists can apply science to disprove God.
Christians can apply doctrine to disprove science. (Yes they can; some specific aspects of it, anyway.)

Once you get into such details, you've already chosen a side, and that choice dictates your entire paradigm.

But if you step back and think OUTSIDE that choice (objectively, if such a stance is really possible), there's this amazing parallel. And I think that recognizing that parallel can lead to a greater understanding of the "other side."

Yes, I know, science and math and empirical evidence are, to us non-religious types, "PROOF" of our beliefs. Belief becomes "fact." ... But it's the same thing for religion. To the faithful, doctrine is "PROOF" -- it's fact.

From either side, the other side looks absurd and misguided. But the absurdity, running both ways, is parallel. I think that's amazing.

[töff]

if there are two scientific theories about a phenomena then there will be a test that would tell you which scientific theory is correct or whether neither is correct

The incompatibilities of quantum mechanics vs. relativity is a really good place to start with this idea. They've both been "proven," but they disprove each other. The GUT eludes us, so far.

[torstan]

I would never ever consider religion to be absurd. I also do not find religion and science to be in conflict. I heard somewhere that the proportion of people with deeply held religious beliefs is actually higher in physicists than average. I'll address the other points in an hour or so, but right now I need to eat lunch.

[töff]

I guess my point is, a friend of mine declared quite absolutely and vehemently that "science is not a belief system." But I think it has to be. It's a way of perceiving reality. But it's also quite incomplete and uncertain in many ways.

Sure, scientists chase after "truth" rather than philosophical doctrine -- they declare something to be a "theory" and they apply tests and interpret evidence in the hopes of disproving it ... but eventually they give and and say, "Okay, this is a LAW. It's scientific FACT." And they have every reason in the world to believe it.

... to "believe" it. Within science and math and logic, some things just can't be argued.

Once again, I believe it, too. This is my own personal approach. I'm not saying it's wrong.

I'm just saying, it really boils down to a belief system.

And the religious faiths, in so many ways, work exactly the same way.

[töff]

I would never ever consider religion to be absurd

Me neither ... even Heaven's Gate, which almost the entire world calls bizarre and insane and absurd and tragic. But many people of the scientific approach do consider even the world's oldest and most "refined" ("evolved"?) faiths to be built on concepts that are scientifically absurd.

I also do not find religion and science to be in conflict.

We can point to scientific or religious concepts that are in findamental conflict with the other side. But I don't want to start the war here all over again.

[töff]

Another attempt at expressing my idea ...

"Fact" is the endpoint of a line of "belief."

Nothing we conceive can reach that endpoint. We might THINK it does -- something we "believe as fact" might feel as if it's 100% true and factual -- but it seems more realistic to place each of our beliefs somewhere along the line. Some points on MY line (the points will be elsewhere on yours):

• The "law" of gravity? 99.99999% -- this one's a really accurate perception, I think.
• Black holes? 99.9%
• Saddam's WMD programs? 99% (see Halabja, where he used a chemcial WMD).
• The magic bullet that killed Kennedy? 50%.
• A god (or something else) behind the comet that the Heaven's Gate people were shooting for? 0.0001% (not zero).

But if we can't ever get to that 100% endpoint of "fact," then EVERYTHING IS A BELIEF. Our perceptions and interpretations of reality are never certain. We all just believe things. Sometimes we can't see the gap between 99.9999% and the endpoint ... and so we think we "know" something. And that seems absolute. It seems like the endpoint. We just KNOW it's true.

Ask a scientist about black holes, and she'll say she KNOWS they exist. They have to, according to the sum of all the things that are our world. Has she ever seen one? No (except in her mind).

Ask a Christian about God, and she'll say she KNOWS He exists. He has to, according to the sum of all the things that are our world. Has she ever seen Him? No (except in her soul).

We place beliefs on the 100% endpoint, and call them fact.

[Karro]

We can point to scientific or religious concepts that are in findamental conflict with the other side. But I don't want to start the war here all over again.

Not to belabor an argument, if there has been one, but do you mind terribly sharing your opinion on where these fundamental conflicts exist?

As a believer in both science and religion, I am unaware of any fundamental conflicts that I have been unable to resolve to my own satisfaction.

[töff]

sharing your opinion on where these fundamental conflicts exist?

Adam & Eve vs. Lucy, for example; whence cometh Original Sin per Darwin?

unaware of any fundamental conflicts that I have been unable to resolve to my own satisfaction.

Then you are fortunate to be aware of threats to your belief system and to have avoided or decided them. Not everyone is so fortunate.

***

I just wanted to say this, to those who, like I do, believe in science:

Think about what we "know" and what we believe. Think about black holes ... think about the elusive GUT. Think about the nature of empirical "fact" and "law" in the framework of interpreted perceptions.

Perhaps you, like I have done (to some degree, I hope), might gain an insight into religious faith, which, for so many people who share our science-based outlook, can seem (and often is) irrational and naïve and blind and science-antagonistic.

I say this in the hopes that someone might gain a new perspective on the barriers that divide us within the human race ... barriers that have led, least case, to misunderstanding and separation ... worst case, to murder and war and horror.

[torstan]

@Karro: That's a very good point. Many scientists do just say 'I've tested this' or 'I've researched this' and so you must believe it to be true, without any consideration for the level of belief that engenders. That certainly does have parallels with religious belief where people are required to believe something on the word of someone else.

The issue that should be made clear is that tests are done, and that theories are measured off against one another. If it can't be disproved then there's an argument for saying it's not science. That's unique to science and holds it apart. I would never hold any religion to that standard - that would be crazy. That's at the heart of the difference between the two fields. Whilst that difference exists I have to disagree that the two are the same.

Now, on to Toff's point.

Science cannot disprove God and should never try. If you take a view that a deity of a religion is omnipotent then any argument you place against the existence of a deity is flawed as any evidence (including your own logic) is based in the world created by and manipulated by that deity. Therefore there is no logically consistent way science can prove or disprove the existence of an omnipotent deity.

Religion cannot disprove science either and shouldn't try. Say I hold a deep religious belief that God causes all objects to fall down. Now a scientist says that gravity causes objects to fall down. Now say that in one bizarre turn of events an object does not fall down. A scientist says that his gravity theory is wrong. The person with the religious conviction says that God decided that the object wouldn't fall down this time. Is that a disproof of the science? No. The omnipotent God can cause the object to move in any way. This means that the hypothesis cannot be proved or disproved. The scientist accepts that the empirical evidence (not the religious theory) has refuted his theory so he goes away and does more tests to formulate a consistent theory that incorporates the new phenomena. That theory will have testable consequences that the scientist (if he has any rigour) will go and attempt to test.

There are many instances where there have been conflicting scientific theories proposed that are motivated by religion. But the debates have been settled through the scientific method rather than an appeal to belief.

Right, before Toff jumps in I need to address the core of his argument, which I've been skirting up until now.

How do we know the scientific method has any bearing on the way the universe works? We don't. It is a belief, and one that is at the heart of science. This is the place that science and religion do cross paths. Both are founded on the basis of belief. The difference is in what those beliefs are. In science the beliefs are of the form of things such as:

1. There are laws that the universe obeys. If something happens time and time again there must be a very good reason if it suddenly does something different. That reason will also be some form of rule or law that if the same scenario were to repeat, the theory could predict the behaviour accurately. This is essentially a law of inductive reasoning.
2. It also requires that we trust our interaction with the world. Essentially this is Descartes Evil Demon argument (or the brains in vats of the matrix). We cannot prove that the world is not an illusion presented to us by some omnipotent malign intelligence. Therefore we must believe that this is not the case and act accordingly.

Now on the basis of these two principles we can make enormous progress, and make sensible informed decisions.

Religions have very different core beliefs which define how relative decisions are made about the explanations of the world we experience.

These two sets of beliefs define how we make relative choices between explanations. If you apply the criteria of choice at the heart of science to two religious explanations then you aren't having a religious debate any more. If you apply religion's decision making criteria to a choice between two scientific theories then you aren't doing science. This is a clash of paradigms (as introduced by Thomas Kuhn) just as Toff mentioned.

This is why (I believe) there will always be conflict between the two, and also why I feel that the two sides are not actually in conflict.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope it was an interesting read. Right. Off to see if I can make some falsifiable predictions now.

[Karro]

Adam & Eve vs. Lucy, for example; whence cometh Original Sin per Darwin?

Ahh. So these examples are doctrinaly-specific conflicts, and not general in nature. (As a for-instance, the doctrine of my church of choice rejects the concept of Original Sin and has what I might characterize as a somewhat nuanced view of Adam & Eve.)

Then you are fortunate to be aware of threats to your belief system and to have avoided or decided them. Not everyone is so fortunate.

Thank you; yes, I think that I am fairly fortunate. Howbeit... I don't think I have specifically avoided threats to my belief system. I'm actually a religious convert, consquent to just such threats to my belief system that, once resolved, required for me a change in my church of affiliation.