Science and Religious Belief

[Mordecai]

Scientists from 300 years ago? I don't think the most important developments in the philosophy of science were based on "the idea that God, being good, would make the universe observable and predictable." You said "the scientific method" was developed with God in mind... that seems like quite a stretch, don't you think so?

Actually, if the universe is not observable and predictable, the scientific method is pointless. The scientific method was built on the premise that the universe was predictable. Without that, there is no scientific method. That's how the Dark Ages ended. So in that sense, it was very much built on religion, particularly the religious philosophy posited by Descartes.

[elguanteloko]

Actually, if the universe is not observable and predictable, the scientific method is pointless.

Sure.

The scientific method was built on the premise that the universe was predictable. Without that, there is no scientific method. That's how the Dark Ages ended. So in that sense, it was very much built on religion, particularly the religious philosophy posited by Descartes.

I am somewhat confused here. Do you realize the most important achievements in the philosophy of science have been made after Descartes? I am not saying the idea that God would make the universe consistent did not contribute but there is a huge leap between saying that and saying the scientific method was developed with God in mind.

[Mordecai]

Sure.

I am somewhat confused here. Do you realize the most important achievements in the philosophy of science have been made after Descartes? I am not saying the idea that God would make the universe consistent did not contribute but there is a huge leap between saying that and saying the scientific method was developed with God in mind.

I don't believe I ever said it was developed "with God in mind." It was developed with a philosophy built on theology; let's put it like that. Everything was built on the movement Descartes started, even the much later stuff.

[changed]

She's not just failing to recognize a problem or move in a given direction. She's claiming that science, in principle, can't answer a particular set of questions it quite clearly can.

So, science can answer all questions? LOL... science can tell you who to get married to, science can define morals, science can tell you what your favorite color should be? Do you believe in free agency? do you have a will, or are you just a product of nature/nurture, a product of your environment, and of your genes? Not everyone is a free agent, not everyone has a will, or will-power... if deep down inside you feel you are a mere robot whose actions are dictated by your genes and your environment, who am I to say otherwise? Others hold a different perspective, feel that we are not robots, that all of our actions cannot be calculated. I'm not talking about "God of the gaps" or God of what science cannot yet explain... it's about the existence of free will, and what free will implies about our nature.

[changed]

Except that, manifestly, her interest in science wasn't dampened. (In fact.) She went on to earn a Ph.D. after her conversion in a highly scientific field.

from an insider's view

I once had a student who wrote a very interesting research paper. She went around and interviewed a bunch of people of various educational levels, and asked them some strange questions like: Do you believe in aliens, and do you gamble... most undergrads did not believe in aliens, while most grads and post grads did. We don't have much sci evidence to support aliens, so who can tell me why the grads were more inclined to believe in aliens?

In labs we taught error ****. I would ask everyone what the temp of the room was. Let them come read it off the thermometer in the classroom. Then I'd ask them how much they trusted the thermometer - was that really the temp of the whole room? We'd talk about how the temp by the door was different than the temp by the window, or by the computer - how it varied with space and time. We'd talk about the accuracy of the thermocouple etc. etc. ... that lecture classes had exact answers that you could look up in the back of the books, but for reality, there was no such thing as an exact answer. There were many who hated labs because of this, the lab was MEL - (multidisciplinary engineering lab) It was named "HEL" instead of "MEL" because the answers were not exact, and the equip was as all equip is - imperfect, and some problems had multiple solutions .. it was designed to force students out of their ivory towers and into the real world... Some people think science is black/white, right/wrong, exact... perhaps I'm more of an engineer than a scientist... engineers don't see things in black and white.

Anyways, there comes a point where you start to see in shades of grey. imo, this is the point where science is fun.

[Ralph Man]

So, science can answer all questions?

No. But if someone asserts that science can't help us answer why lightening strikes, pointing out that that they believe science can't address questions it quite clearly can doesn't in any way imply that science can answer all questions.

LOL

Uh....yeah.

[changed]

No. But if someone asserts that science can't help us answer why lightening strikes, pointing out that that they believe science can't address questions it quite clearly can doesn't in any way imply that science can answer all questions.

Uh....yeah.

there are the natural sciences, then there are the social sciences, two completely different fields, two different fields for a reason. "Science" is a pretty broad term, science can address everything, but some answers don't come in the form of equations/numbers.

[MistahStokes]

The scientific method was developed based on the idea that God, being good, would make the universe observable and predictable.

CFR, please.

I'll answer eiguanteloko's CFR:

This is a pretty standard position in the historiography of science. But two quite good scholars to read on the point are Stanley Jaki and Pierre Duhem.

what

Duhem's Systeme is ten volumes, and his single minded critque of Aristotelian and Thomism isn't going to square easily with what Mordecai wrote.

[thesometimesaint]

http://www.angelfire.com/az2/saintsci/

Mormonism and Scientists

Scientists Believe in Mormonism

An outstanding achievement of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) is the extraordinarily high level of professionally recognized scientists born in Utah where this church is predominant. Scientific studies over a sixty-year period by three separate researchers of university- level academic standing have discovered and published these facts.

The material in these pages substantiates the following findings:

(1) That Utah is the top state in per capita scientist production and has been for over 60 years;

(2) That in Utah the Mormon population produces more scientists than does the non-Mormon, proportionate to their numbers in Utah;

(3) That the Mormon scientists assert, overwhelmingly, that they are

"Strong" or "Very Strong" believers in the following three key convictions

held by Mormons:

(1) That Jesus is the Divine Son of God, the Savior, the Messiah;

(2) That Joseph Smith, Jr., was inspired by God in the formation of The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints;

(3) And that this church has the only current authority to administer the

teachings and ordinances of Christ's restored church.

The approximate total number of these scientists who are active and believing in the Mormon Church is 2000. This is, of course, a very small percentage of

the total Church membership, which includes some, more or less, from the spectrum of the national population.

This data does not mean that education or any other social status indicator is needed for Latter-day Saint Church membership, conviction, or activity.

Membership comprises persons of all walks of life and races.

These facts do establish that anti-Mormon literature, which has attacked Mormonism from its earliest beginnings, has not prevented highly educated professional people from being strong believers in the Mormon church. They did not find anti-Mormon arguments to be convincing. These well-informed scientists used their broad knowledge and reasoning to uphold the Mormon claims and counter the prejudiced half-truths and misrepresentations used against the Mormons. Can anyone of similar ability and desire also embrace and enjoy the truths and activities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Yes.

The year 2000 update of the 60-year Utah Scientist Studies

[Mudcat]

Seeing how ~90% of the population are theists, this has the opposite implication you seem to think it does. I agree that it is a complicated question, but you aren't doing yourself any favors here.

I don't think it argues against my position at all. Which is simply that there are a large number of theists in scientific fields. That theistic beliefs are existent in the scientific community.

It is reasonable to conclude that theism does not dampen interest and science.

Now you can certainly point to a figure, as you have, that 90%+ of the US is religious and then say science has less than that. But I don't think you could rationally conclude that therefore science is dampened by religion.

My remark would be that science dampens religion. If 90% of the country is religious, all things being equal, it would be safe speculation to say that 90% of the people who enter scientific fields are religious, but many who enter scientific fields become atheistic/agnostic.

This would seem natural to me. Science looks for naturalistic explanation to things. It would seem logical that some religious people who enter such fields embrace naturalistic explanation on a personal level as well as career oriented level.

But the idea that a person won't be a chemist, physicist, what have you.. because they are religious is far fetched IMO.

[Brennin]

Here's a quote from the metallurgist and engineer:

Wait, is she really saying that animate life doesn't properly fall under the scope of science? Why, yes -- yes she is.

As evidence that Latter-day Saints can be scientists, too, you've elected to spotlight a Mormon who doesn't believe in neurophysiology, psychology, behavioral ecology, or even biology generally. That's pretty telling.

I have no desire to cozy up to "Mormon Scholars Testify" but there is much junk in those disciplines.

[WalkerW]

Anyone interested in the rise of science, see Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton University Press: 2003).

Also, the logical positivism or scientism that has been prevalent on this board is not only self-refuting, but also declining in the circles of philosophy and social sciences. See Tyler Burge, "Philosophy of Language and Mind: 1950-1990," The Philosophical Review 101:1 (Jan. 1992).

From a Christian point of view, see Gary Habermas, "Paradigm Shift: A Challenge to Naturalism," Bibliotecha Sacra 146:584 (Oct.-Dec. 1989).

From an agnostic point of view, see F.A. Hayek, "Scientism and the Study of Society," Economica 9:35 (1942).

My education is in organizational behavior and human resources. The shift from scientific management to a more "subjective, emotional" approach is due to the realization that there is much more to human consciousness and experience than previously assumed.

[noel00]

I noticed that in the last five entries, that four of them were born in the church and attended BYU. Micheal Shermer argues that many educated people believe in weird things

"Perhaps the most interesting observation Shermer makes is with regard to the similarity in the flawed methodology that all the proponents of weird things use. His two main examples are creationists and Holocaust deniers. From my own experience, I know that Mormon apologetics also rely on this same methodology. The methodology includes these elements:

1. They concentrate on their opponents' weak points, while rarely saying anything definitive about their own position.

2. They exploit errors made by scholars who are making opposing arguments, implying that because a few of their opponents' conclusions were wrong, all of their opponents' conclusions must be wrong.

3. They use quotations, usually taken out of context to buttress their own position.

4. They mistake genuine, honest debates between scholars about certain points within a field for a dispute about the existence of the entire field.

5. They focus on what is not known and ignore what is known, emphasize data that fit (their distorted world view) and discount data that do not fit."

http://www.2think.org/wpbwt.shtml

[LifeOnaPlate]

I noticed that in the last five entries, that four of them were born in the church and attended BYU. Micheal Shermer argues that many educated people believe in weird things

"Perhaps the most interesting observation Shermer makes is with regard to the similarity in the flawed methodology that all the proponents of weird things use. His two main examples are creationists and Holocaust deniers. From my own experience, I know that Mormon apologetics also rely on this same methodology. The methodology includes these elements:

1. They concentrate on their opponents' weak points, while rarely saying anything definitive about their own position.

2. They exploit errors made by scholars who are making opposing arguments, implying that because a few of their opponents' conclusions were wrong, all of their opponents' conclusions must be wrong.

3. They use quotations, usually taken out of context to buttress their own position.

4. They mistake genuine, honest debates between scholars about certain points within a field for a dispute about the existence of the entire field.

5. They focus on what is not known and ignore what is known, emphasize data that fit (their distorted world view) and discount data that do not fit."

http://www.2think.org/wpbwt.shtml

LOL. This from the guy quoting Criddle on the Spalding theory in his sig.

[WalkerW]

I noticed that in the last five entries, that four of them were born in the church and attended BYU. Micheal Shermer argues that many educated people believe in weird things

"Perhaps the most interesting observation Shermer makes is with regard to the similarity in the flawed methodology that all the proponents of weird things use. His two main examples are creationists and Holocaust deniers. From my own experience, I know that Mormon apologetics also rely on this same methodology. The methodology includes these elements:

1. They concentrate on their opponents' weak points, while rarely saying anything definitive about their own position.

2. They exploit errors made by scholars who are making opposing arguments, implying that because a few of their opponents' conclusions were wrong, all of their opponents' conclusions must be wrong.

3. They use quotations, usually taken out of context to buttress their own position.

4. They mistake genuine, honest debates between scholars about certain points within a field for a dispute about the existence of the entire field.

5. They focus on what is not known and ignore what is known, emphasize data that fit (their distorted world view) and discount data that do not fit."

http://www.2think.org/wpbwt.shtml

I like Shermer. I especially like his The Mind of the Market (I'm using it in a current research project). And his points are valid. Yet, Church-born BYU students aren't the only people shaped by their cultural upbringing or tainted by confirmation bias. Everyone is. And just because someone is biased does not make them wrong. Finally, I do not embrace scienticism as Shermer does (see his "The Shamans of Scientism," Scientific American, June 2002). Setting up "empiricism" and "reason" as the "twin pillars of a philosophy of life" begs the question about the nature of empiricism and reason. As philosopher Edward Feser put it, "Of its very nature, scientific investigation takes for granted such assumptions as that: there is a physical world existing independent of our minds; this world is characterized by various objective patterns and regularities; our senses are at least partially reliable sources of information about this world; there are objective laws of logic and mathematics that apply to the objective world outside our minds; our cognitive powers - of concept-formation, reasoning from premises to a conclusion, and so forth - afford us a grasp of these laws and can reliably take us from evidence derived from the senses to conclusions about the physical world; the language we use can adequately express truths about these laws and about the external world; and so on and on. Every one of these claims embodies a metaphysical assumption, and science, since its very method presupposes them, could not possibly defend them without arguing in a circle. Their defense is instead a task for metaphysics, and for philosophy more generally; and scientism is shown thereby to be incoherent." (The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, St. Augustine's Press: 2008)

[Aka_me]

the number of issues where the church conflicts with science is too significant to ever begin to be reconcilable...

1. location of Adam-ondi-Ahman

no archeological evidence to support it.

2. Adam and Eve as full language skills and abstract reasoning

not at all how science explains human development.

3. creating grass (11) before there was such thing as day or night (14)

no branch of science can support the sequence.

4. where was Heavenly Father standing before the big bang?

a corporeal god has a boot strapping problem, someone must create a planet for him to live on.

5. why not make a rocket ship and to travel to the celestial kingdom?

given an eternity in the terrestial or telestial kingdom, you put einstein and hawking and the rest of the brainy-acks together and they'll simply fly to the celestial kingdom.

6. no such thing as upgrading kingdoms.

there is no such thing as the finest mineral (ie diamond) ever progressing to the vegetable kingdom. there is no such thing as the biggest vegetable (ie sequoia) ever progressing to the animal kingdom. there is no such thing as the smartest animal (ie chimp) ever progressing to the human kingdom. and as such there can never be any such thing as the human progressing to the divine kingdom.

7. genetic diversity renders Noah's flood as impossible.

there is no way the human diversity of populating the entire earth, with different skin colors and languages could have happened post Noah's flood.

[ERayR]

the number of issues where the church conflicts with science is too significant to ever begin to be reconcilable...

1. location of Adam-ondi-Ahman

no archeological evidence to support it.

2. Adam and Eve as full language skills and abstract reasoning

not at all how science explains human development.

3. creating grass (11) before there was such thing as day or night (14)

no branch of science can support the sequence.

4. where was Heavenly Father standing before the big bang?

a corporeal god has a boot strapping problem, someone must create a planet for him to live on.

5. why not make a rocket ship and to travel to the celestial kingdom?

given an eternity in the terrestial or telestial kingdom, you put einstein and hawking and the rest of the brainy-acks together and they'll simply fly to the celestial kingdom.

6. no such thing as upgrading kingdoms.

there is no such thing as the finest mineral (ie diamond) ever progressing to the vegetable kingdom. there is no such thing as the biggest vegetable (ie sequoia) ever progressing to the animal kingdom. there is no such thing as the smartest animal (ie chimp) ever progressing to the human kingdom. and as such there can never be any such thing as the human progressing to the divine kingdom.

7. genetic diversity renders Noah's flood as impossible.

there is no way the human diversity of populating the entire earth, with different skin colors and languages could have happened post Noah's flood.

All very answerable questions. All it takes is a little meditation and sudy. Start with FARMS and FAIR then just think about. I will be the first to tell you that the evidence is not irrefutable. There are many areas where evidenciary interpretations may differ. Your questions and and conclusions indicate the lack of serious study and meditation. They are more like bullit points from anti-christian literature.

[changed]

Here's a quote from the metallurgist and engineer:

Our conscience, and many other things in science, clearly point towards intelligent design. The existence of the physical laws, the fine-tuning of universal constants, and our ability to think and be self-aware are all dependent on information, intelligence, and sentient life. The universe is made up of two basic building blocks:

1. that which acts.

2. that which is acted upon.

Science and engineering do a pretty good job when dealing with the inanimate, with those things that are acted upon. Drop a ball of mass m from height h and defined restitution coefficient

[Ralph Man]

Also, the logical positivism or scientism that has been prevalent on this board is not only self-refuting, but also declining in the circles of philosophy and social sciences. See Tyler Burge, "Philosophy of Language and Mind: 1950-1990," The Philosophical Review 101:1 (Jan. 1992).

Logical positivism has been effectively dead for almost 60 years in philosophy. How much more do you think it can decline? Scientism is a more vague concept and always used derisively. It's a pejoritive by its very nature. Neither of these appear to have much of any popularity on this board. Presumably you are referring to critics of the LDS faith endorsing these views, but seeing how these rather abstract philosophical concepts almost never have anything to do with said criticism, this probably is another example of a strawman argument used against people who use science to criticize your faith. That, on the other hand, does have some prevalence on this board.

[Aka_me]

All very answerable questions.

ok... please answer them.

[MistahStokes]

Logical positivism has been effectively dead for almost 60 years in philosophy. How much more do you think it can decline? Scientism is a more vague concept and always used derisively. It's a pejoritive by its very nature. Neither of these appear to have much of any popularity on this board. Presumably you are referring to critics of the LDS faith endorsing these views, but seeing how these rather abstract philosophical concepts almost never have anything to do with said criticism, this probably is another example of a strawman argument used against people who use science to criticize your faith. That, on the other hand, does have some prevalence on this board.

Your comment is all too valid.

WalkerW's use of Rodney Stark's historical writings is atrocious, but the sad thing is, it's probably better than Father Stanely Jaki and more appropriate than Duhem, which Dan offered.

Most posters here (including Dan) have this odd notion of strict physicalism that they try to apply to secular or naturalistic criticism, Dan's FAIR essay on Secular Anti-Mormonism is a fine example of that.

[TAO]

the number of issues where the church conflicts with science is too significant to ever begin to be reconcilable...

1. location of Adam-ondi-Ahman

no archeological evidence to support it.

Archeological Evidence is un-necessary, really. God doesn't really intend to 'prove' his books to his people, he expects us to have faith. And Archeological Evidence does decay, that it does.

2. Adam and Eve as full language skills and abstract reasoning

not at all how science explains human development.

Yep, it's not explained like science, that it isn't. It is reconcilable - but I don't know enough about it currently to make any suggestions at the moment... perhaps some other people might have some. I can think of at least one way, but I want to think about it more before I post it.

3. creating grass (11) before there was such thing as day or night (14)

no branch of science can support the sequence.

The timeline of the creation is notoriously unspecific about the time length in between certain events. For all we know, there could have only been a few seconds in between those two events. Also, was the creation perhaps idealized before the organizing was done? Aka thought about before put into effect?

4. where was Heavenly Father standing before the big bang?

a corporeal god has a boot strapping problem, someone must create a planet for him to live on.

This is part of the reason why determining whether there is or isn't a God by evidence is ultimately futile. We cannot determine what lies outside of the universe (stars? planets? other material? other universes? something?). However, we can determine that it was orderly (total chaos, aka complete randomness, would destroy the universe in the instance of creation, thus, outside of the universe must have order. Order means obeying to laws). Thus, God, living wherever he was, made this universe.

5. why not make a rocket ship and to travel to the celestial kingdom?

given an eternity in the terrestial or telestial kingdom, you put einstein and hawking and the rest of the brainy-acks together and they'll simply fly to the celestial kingdom.

Mmmm... how are you going to break the fabric of the universe... it might be possible, but I think it would cause large amount of disaster to occur... ultimately, I wouldn't suggest trying it. We all know that the Tower of Babel was a bit of a bad idea, that it was.

6. no such thing as upgrading kingdoms.

there is no such thing as the finest mineral (ie diamond) ever progressing to the vegetable kingdom. there is no such thing as the biggest vegetable (ie sequoia) ever progressing to the animal kingdom. there is no such thing as the smartest animal (ie chimp) ever progressing to the human kingdom. and as such there can never be any such thing as the human progressing to the divine kingdom.

There is such a thing though as sea creatures becoming land creatures though. There is also such a thing as stars becoming white dwarfs, or neutron stars, or pulsars, or black holes. There is even such a thing as turning lead into gold... if one is willing to spend alot of money. How we rise, how we change, isn't really determined at this point. Some think we just go dead, and that's the end of it. I don't really think that way... I think matter can change, that it can.

7. genetic diversity renders Noah's flood as impossible.

there is no way the human diversity of populating the entire earth, with different skin colors and languages could have happened post Noah's flood.

Mmmm.... how bout we say, 'there's little chance'. Doesn't mean it can't happen, that it doesn't. Animal Species have survived some pretty nasty disasters, that they have. There is a small chance that some species were able to survive the flood, wouldn't there be? High mountains or something? I don't know exactly, again, this isn't really my subject, but perhaps other people's.

Ultimately God has ways of doing things, very special ways of doing things, and they don't have to contain 'science as we know it'. He has promised to return the lost Tribes of Israel (which currently we cannot find), provide everyone temple ordinances, and come back to the earth, among many other things, and if he can keep those promises, these things probably are pretty easy for him to do. Ultimately, I wouldn't really try to base your belief in science. Instead, place it in faith. You can learn alot more from him that way, and he will show you some pretty amazing things, that he will.

Erp... I hope that didn't sound to harsh, that I do, I don't like harshness =P.

[Tarski]

Logical positivism has been effectively dead for almost 60 years in philosophy. How much more do you think it can decline? Scientism is a more vague concept and always used derisively. It's a pejoritive by its very nature. Neither of these appear to have much of any popularity on this board. Presumably you are referring to critics of the LDS faith endorsing these views, but seeing how these rather abstract philosophical concepts almost never have anything to do with said criticism, this probably is another example of a strawman argument used against people who use science to criticize your faith. That, on the other hand, does have some prevalence on this board.

I might add that scientism is a word that is used without restraint by people in the humanities that seem to have an irrational fear of knowledge and have taken over the language (but not the understanding) of the Continental philosophers. Thus I occasionally get students in my math/science classes telling me that some professor told them that math and science aren't even true! What a disservice to education! It is my understanding that postmodernism is not really very prevalent in American philosophy departments where there is more analytic philosophy--but there is sickness in the humanities.

In any case, the only reason logical positivism is dead is that it made a fetish of a single principle instead of making it one virtue among many.

Furthermore, the idea that naturalism is dead is completely false. People in religion or in the humanities keep saying that this or that is dead, they keep foolishly challenging the very notions of truth and objective reality and pointing to papers written by their own community but I assure you that naturalism (and some form of scientific realism) is alive and well and there are plenty of modern philosophers that support a version of it whole heartedly.

One finds a great deal of pseudo-deepness in certain postmodern circles-- some of it quite hilarious. The extent of the intellectual absurdities that abound is outlined in the famous book Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science.

The same goes for reductionism. While thoughtful scientists and philosophers of science rightfully eschew what is now called "greedy reductionism", the project of explaining more and more phenomena as emerging from simpler more basic phenomena (non-greedy reductionism) is not only alive and well, it is still the singularly successful paradigm of explanatory power. Real scientists want to know how things work rather than hear poetic diatribes on holism, social relativism or constructivism, or how witches and demons are just a real as atoms(Feyerbend).

I am sorry that some people feel oppressed by the idea that there are correct answers and incorrect answers in science.

Navajo mythology is not "just as true" as modern biology or solid state physics.

Sorry, reality is a beotch.

[TAO]

I might add that scientism is a word that is used without restraint by people in the humanities that seem to have an irrational fear of knowledge and have taken over the language (but not the understanding) of the Continental philosophers. Thus I occasionally get students in my math/science classes telling me that some professor told them that math and science aren't even true! What a disservice to education! It is my understanding that postmodernism is not really very prevalent in American philosophy departments where there is more analytic philosophy--but there is sickness in the humanities.

In any case, the only reason logical positivism is dead is that it made a fetish of a single principle instead of making it one virtue among many.

Furthermore, the idea that naturalism is dead is completely false. People in religion or in the humanities keep saying that this or that is dead, they keep foolishly challenging the very notions of truth and objective reality and pointing to papers written by their own community but I assure you that naturalism (and some form of scientific realism) is alive and well and there are plenty of modern philosophers that support a version of it whole heartedly.

One finds a great deal of pseudo-deepness in certain postmodern circles-- some of it quite hilarious. The extent of the intellectual absurdities that abound is outlined in the famous book Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science.

The same goes for reductionism. While thoughtful scientists and philosophers of science rightfully eschew what is now called "greedy reductionism", the project of explaining more and more phenomena as emerging from simpler more basic phenomena (non-greedy reductionism) is not only alive and well, it is still the singularly successful paradigm of explanatory power. Real scientists want to know how things work rather than hear poetic diatribes on holism, social relativism or constructivism, or how witches and demons are just a real as atoms(Feyerbend).

I am sorry that some people feel oppressed by the idea that there are correct answers and incorrect answers in science.

Navajo mythology is not "just as true" as modern biology or solid state physics.

Sorry, reality is a beotch.

I actually disagree with this. Positivism is a very useful philosophy indeed, one in which I will hold to, because it kinda becomes purposeless to hold to other philosophies, that encourage things which I view as negative.

Philosophies only die and live as those who think them believe in something else, therefore, positivism is still very alive.

Scientism in my terms, is the belief that everything needs to be proved. As someone who has experienced faith, my disagreement with it is pretty solid - Faith kinda defies the 'logic' of scientism, that it does. Furthermore, I am cynical about scientism's lack of trust in things, when they take complete trust in things interpreted by the senses (and faith could be a sense, could it not?)

As for math and sicence not being true, math I can understand - after all, it only works in exact situations, and will never work precisely (perfect measuring is impossible due to the effect of the measuring device on the item being measured). As for science, it is limited to what can be determined by the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and sense of touch. Considering that these haven't been proved to work, without using the senses themselves, that's why I distrust 'scientism'.

I hope I didn't make it too vauge, sometimes I have a bad habit of doing so =P.

[Tarski]

As for science, it is limited to what can be determined by the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and sense of touch. Considering that these haven't been proved to work, without using the senses themselves, that's why I distrust 'scientism'.

I disagree with this. Science can and does use instrumentalities, reason, inference and whatever other reliable tools it can get its hands on and the conclusions often do disagree with what our senses seem to be telling us (at first blush).

As for faith being a path to truth, well all I can say is look around at the ever growing diversity of mutually contradictory religions. Faith (as it is understood in religion) is not reliable and there is no reason to think that it would be.

Science is exactly the full on, straightforward, and self correcting project of finding the truth about our world while systematically attempting to avoid the pitfalls of the approaches to truth that we find in faith based religion.

Science has already been proven to work. The diversity of religious and supernatural beliefs that exist shows that if there is any method in religion, it is completely unreliable.

I can't think of a single thing that I know to be true soley thanks to religion as such (although that doesn't stop religion from taking credit).