The scientific process

Originally posted by Starrman
Originally posted by DragonFriend
[b] In short, they accept that something exists there despite having no evidence of it. Isn't that faith?

You are misconstruing the subject of dark matter. There is evidence for the existence of it, it is just that the theory cannot be said to be proven yet. To say that a belief in the existence of d ...[text shortened]... ue' they say 'we consider this true since we cannot find anything to disprove it'.[/b]

I think I finally get it.
I've been saying scientists have faith because they accept the existance of something before having evidence of it (like dark matter) and it's the acceptance of it's existance that intrigues them into looking for it.
What I'm hearing is that scientists aren't using faith because they don't actually accept the existance of dark matter (or anything new, for that matter) they simply guess that it might exist and then test to prove/disprove their guess.

Did I get it right this time? I really am trying to understand this way of thinking. Maybe I'm just thicker than I realize. 😛

DF

Originally posted by DragonFriend
I think I finally get it.
I've been saying scientists have faith because they accept the existance of something before having evidence of it (like dark matter) and it's the acceptance of it's existance that intrigues them into looking for it.
What I'm hearing is that scientists aren't using faith because they don't actually accept the existance ...[text shortened]... rying to understand this way of thinking. Maybe I'm just thicker than I realize. 😛

DF

No, not quite. In the case of dark matter (and I'm not fully aware of the details), it became apparent through other research that there was more 'stuff' in space than there seemed to be. Since there was no obvious explanation, more research began. It was already obvious that something must be present to make up the missing stuff, so simply saying the notion of dark matter came from nowhere is incorrect. What this something was, was the subject of more experiments and theorising, the creation of null hypotheses and their refutation, until a theory that seemed to be correct began to emerge. This is not the same as saying scientists just guessed that it exists. There was a conceptual process to the theory, the origins of which lay in already established theory.

Originally posted by Starrman
No, not quite. In the case of dark matter (and I'm not fully aware of the details), it became apparent through other research that there was more 'stuff' in space than there seemed to be. Since there was no obvious explanation, more research began. It was already obvious that something must be present to make up the missing stuff, so simply saying ...[text shortened]... s a conceptual process to the theory, the origins of which lay in already established theory.

Good.
Apparently I didn't express myself very well, but that's what I was thinking, yes. The 'guess' (as I put it) is made because the info collected so far points in that direction be the scientists have no data on this new concept/thingy yet. I didn't intend for it to sound like the guess was just picked out of the air at random. It's an educated guess based on info already collected.

By george, I think I've got it!
I apprecite the feedback from you all. Thanks.

DF

Originally posted by Halitose
Oh, I think you got me wrong. I don't deny the incarnation of Christ by any means -- I was merely asserting that this would be the exception rather than the rule.

Yes. The spirit of God lives within us, but that is not a tangible exhibition of God, is it now?

Why is it that Christians tend to have so much problem deciding amongst themselves pretty much anything about Christianity or the nature of God? Science, whilst it does have disagreements, tends to have a far more defined view of things. This begs the question though, if christians cannot agree on even some of the fundamental points of their religion, who do you believe? Who do you listen to? Who is right and who is wrong?

Originally posted by DragonFriend
The funny thing about evidence, it has to be looked for before it can be found.
Miracles, generally speaking, are events the break the laws of nature as we know them. Example, a little boy gets an ear infection that eats those little bones in his ear as well as his ear drum. Doctors say he'll be deaf in that ear for life. Then, poof, the bones are rest ...[text shortened]... used by God, then the evidence will never point towards Him. And that's not science.

DF

So many 'miracles' can now be explained, like rainbows for example. For example, my mum used to tell me that wind was god blowing, now I know about high and low pressure weather systems, the coriolis effect etc, it tends to dim your view of religion, when all these 'miracles' can (and are) explained away using testable repeatable facts.

Just who is the little boy in your example? What is the story and the facts? Who said he'd never hear again? Was that the only time that ever happened? What were the circumstances? Was he being treated for his ailment? When anyone recovers from an illness is that proof of god or merely proof of the immune system?

Originally posted by dj2becker
I am not saying that you would not be happy. I am sure that there are plenty of fleeting pleasures to enjoy. And as soon as the guilt feeling comes back you have to do some more. This type of 'happiness' does not bring lasting satisfaction. I was refering to lasting happiness which can only be found in God.

I'm perfectly content with my life without god and in the (relative) absence of 'fleeting pleasures'. But then, I don't have the safety net you do of decieving myself that 'god is watching over me' when it all goes to crap. Ah, the joys of being a realist....

Originally posted by DragonFriend
Thank you for responding (I really do want to talk about this topic).

I agree with you, a miracle not evidence of God any more than it’s evidence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But the problem I'm seeing is that this is where most scientific types stop (thus the 'evidence must to be looked before it can be found' statement).
But what if science di ...[text shortened]... -scientific leap along the way, which I’d be happy to have someone point out.

DF

You are only using secondary accounts. No primary evidence of god.

Originally posted by DragonFriend
Thank you for responding (I really do want to talk about this topic).

I agree with you, a miracle not evidence of God any more than it’s evidence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But the problem I'm seeing is that this is where most scientific types stop (thus the 'evidence must to be looked before it can be found' statement).
But what if science di ...[text shortened]... -scientific leap along the way, which I’d be happy to have someone point out.

DF

...God (Eze 1:1-3), who wrote in 586BC ...

Funny, even the dead sea scrolls aren't that old....

"Within a fairly short time after their discovery, historical, paleographic, and linguistic evidence, as well as carbon-14 dating, established that the scrolls and the Qumran ruin dated from the third century B.C.E. to 68 C.E. They were indeed ancient! Coming from the late Second Temple Period, a time when Jesus of Nazareth lived, they are older than any other surviving biblical manuscripts by almost one thousand years."

http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/world.scrolls.html

Originally posted by DragonFriend
If I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that I'd have to prove the healing wasn't everything else before I could call it a miracle. No, that's not science either. We all know you can't prove a negative.

According to Wikipedia, "In cosmology, dark matter refers to hypothetical matter particles, ..." Hypothetical matter means it's not been ...[text shortened]... energy, that life started via evolution, etc. So why am I wrong and they right?

DF

So religion therefore relates to a hypothetical divine being then? I'm happy with that description.

Originally posted by DragonFriend
So, in short, scientists have FAITH that it will be verified someday.
Websters: 2b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof
You see, the scientific types DO have faith, it's just in science instead of God.

The bottom line is that we all have and use faith. We all accept things to be true that we haven't proven ourselves. The di ...[text shortened]... to admit it, where the scientific types (at least I haven't met one yet) is unwilling.

DF

Scientists have faith, yes. Faith in other scientists, at least when their evidence fits in a rational description of the way the world works. If a scientist (or a theist or anyone) told me that they'd just seen a blue whale fly past their 16th story window I wouldn't believe them. It doesn't fit with my world view. A theist would have less grounding to tell our protagonist that he is mistaken, for it may simply be a miracle.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Dark Matter? Yes scientists have detected it and in some ways observed or measured it or there would probably be no hypotheses about it. Gravity is also a method of detection. However it is not the only possible explanation for the observations and thus to a large extent remains a hypothesis.

Some people have tried to prove or disproove the existance o ...[text shortened]... t for other similar evidence to be available and also other testable predictions to be possible.

One thing I'd like to point out about miracles is this: They are always
something getting cured that we cannot see, some hidden organ
all of a sudden coming back to life, some disease cured magically,
eyesight restored, etc. There is never a miracle about stuff we can
plainly see, like a guy's leg get cut off and then gets magically
regrown. A foot gets cut off and a year later a miracle occurs and
he has a new foot. Its always stuff we have no means yet of seeing
accurately so people can always say its a miracle. Show me a guy
with a missing kneecap that all of a sudden gets replaced, maybe
I can believe in miracles.