Science is limited

[livingwordlabels]

Science, by definition, can only accept something which can be proven or tested in some way. It is therefore limited to making conclusions about physical things.
I'm not saying this limitation undermines science as a valid and extremely useful source of knowledge. However, what does undermine its reliability is when people use it to make assumptions and conclusions without acknowledging this limitation.

For example, when people try to use their scientific way of thinking to decide whether God exists or not. God is spiritual, not physical - a concept completely alien to science.

Also when people use only what they can observe to explain how mankind was created. This inevitably fails, as they have to limit life to something physical and we get the absurd idea of life evolving out of matter. The Bible offers us a more plausible explanation - that God created man from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life. If we believe the Bible, we can see that humans are spiritual as well as physical.

My conclusion? If you want to understand God, how we were made, our purpose for living, our relationship with God and even our future, then you need something more than science.

[keithprosser3]

I am surprised that one aspect of this is rarely mentioned - the impact of global warming on agriculture. It is said that civilisation is 3 meals away from barbarism, an d that might well be true. In the west - at least since ww2 - people are unused to the idea of real shortage of food. Famines happen in Africa and Asia, but not at home. But I suspect it would only take a small shift in rain patterns to turn vast areas of farm land to desert in very few years.

The US with a population of over 300 million people requires over a billion meals every day, 365 days a year. That's a lot of cows, pigs and wheat fields. Current models predict little effect on the US wheat crop in the short/medium term which might cheer some people up... if we can trust the models. This might be one case where the sceptics should hope the scientists are right.

[JohnA]

Firstly, You do not seem to understand the definition of faith. Faith is holding cognitive content as true, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof or evidence. What you proposed above is that Faith is assuming an un provable assumption. That is just blatantly absurd.

Your definition of 'faith' is totally wrong, plain and simple. Faith is simply believing in something without evidence. When you perform a lab experiment you assume that certain variables will react to each other in a certain way. You assume that the materials will behave lawfully, rationally and uniformly. This is an assumption that is un provable, yet scientists must accept it and believe in it in order to proceed. There is no proof for this assumption, yet people still believe in it. This is called faith. It's a very simple concept so I don't understand why you're having such a difficult time understanding it.

Secondly, These assumptions that you refer to are assumptions that Philosophers make. Do not believe me? Check your own link, it is about Philosophy of Science. Philosophy is not science. Philosophy can not prove / disprove anything so it is only natural for them to try and impose unprovable assumptions on science.

I get it, you're one of those people that has no appreciation for philosophy. That's unfortunate for you, but it really has no bearing on this topic. Philosophy of science is simply a subset category of philosophy that focuses on trying to understand the basis for scientific knowledge. If you've ever been to college you'll notice that there are philosophy of religion courses, philosophy of mind courses, philosophy of mathematics, etc. The point of philosophy IS NOT to impose un provable assumptions on science. Science is based upon un provable assumption and philosophers take notice of this.

Lastly, These Philosophical Assumptions are placed on Scientific Knowledge, the knowledge accumulated and gained by science, not on the scientific method or process itself and certainty not on the scientists. Scientists ignore these Assumptions since as you stated they can not be proved or disproved so they are actually meaningless. The Scientific process caters for testing of assumptions to destruction. There are no assumptions in scientific theories, facts or laws. NONE.

Doesn't matter. The fact is that science rests upon un provable axiomatic assumptions and without these assumption science would not be possible. This is the definition of faith, which is accepting something to be the truth without any evidence or proof. You admit this, but you just don't like it when I use 'science' and 'faith' in the same sentence.

I want to let in onto a little secret here. Science is not an authority or Institution or Ideology or Sect or Cult or Denomination. A group/collection of scientists are not an entity called Science. Science is merely a process how to get to knowledge of the real world. People take this knowledge and build stuff. You and I use the stuff. When you criticize science you are criticizing your own stuff that you decided to buy yourself; you are criticizing yourself. So, you are kicking in the wind with your false accusations on science. Not only are your accusations false, you have completely neglected to understand that you are not accusing anyone here because there is nobody to accuse (authority or Institution or Ideology or Sect or Cult or Denomination) but yourself.p.

I never said ANYTHING about science being an authority or an institution or an ideology or a sect or a cult. The fact that you now have to resort to making up stuff pretty much shows you've lost the argument.

Also, here is my answer to your little bogus article on faith.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 219#607219

LOL am I supposed to care about a little bogus critique written by some random over the internet? I'm supposed to believe YOU over a respected scientist with multiple publications? No thanks.

I read your full post. I see you trying to be fair, but I also see bias. You can't help it. You are human and this is how you have learned to think. You clearly did not read the my full post, all you did was continue to criticize yourself. How is that logical?

Am glad you agree with me that the definition of Faith. But then you go on and say again that an assumption that is un provable is called Faith. This is pure wishful thinking. How is that logical? Have your cake and eat it?

That is your biased struggling with the distinction between "definition" and "calling". You can claim faith to be what you like, but does that not mean you are correct. Especially when you contradict your own writings, confusing descriptive with prescriptive.
According to you, walking over the street and is called faith, anything with any future implication is faith regardless of predictability being there or historical evidence existing or not. That my friend is just a fatal epistemological error on your part, pure wishful thinking.

The point of philosophy IS NOT to impose un provable assumptions on science. Science is based upon un provable assumption and philosophers take notice of this.

Am glad you agree that the link that you provided was wrong then. You provided a link from Philosophy of Science. That is now another error on your part that you admitted to. Can you correct this error and provide us the link where SCIENCE (this non existing entity) makes these un provable assumptions on scientific knowledge? Until you provide this your prescriptive definition of faith is a mere empty claim.

I never said ANYTHING about science being an authority or an institution or an ideology or a sect or a cult.

That is interesting. Am glad you agree. But that just makes it harder for you to provide a link where where SCIENCE (this non existing entity) makes these un provable assumptions on scientific knowledge. You had to walk into that. We both now know you would not be able to provide this link, so you whole argument falls flat. And you did this yourself, with your own words. Ironic, would you say?

LOL am I supposed to care about a little bogus critique written by some random over the internet?

Thank you for admitting that your reject your link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opini ... d=all&_r=0.

I'm supposed to believe YOU over a respected scientist with multiple publications? No thanks.

Once again you admitted that you only accept authorities that agree with your faith based belief. How did you get to your faith based belief? Can you explain to us which authority's faith based belief did you adapt and why?

Dear WinePusher,
You merely continued to criticized yourself. You went further and contradicted yourself and admitted that your sources were wrong and you rejected at least one of them and the other one supports my point not yours. I suspect this is just a lack of understanding on your part.

I'm intrigued nevertheless, it seems to me that you employed wishful thinking in an attempt to drag me down to his level of comprehension of irrational faith based belief resting on your empty claims. Being open minded means being open to new ideas; it doesn't mean pontificating empty claims without using the filter of reason. "Am what I am being asked to believe really based on solid reasoning and evidence'? I've NEVER seen this in your posts, they're ALWAYS flawed in some basic critical respect. For example, your unwillingness to accept the outcome of scientific knowledge is to me a fatally flawed as this is the very method of reasoning you claim to use, except, it seems, when it does not agree with your belief. Incidentally, it is not uncommon for theists to deny scientific knowledge when it goes against their beliefs. But this ought to give you pause for serious thought if you are serious about the foundations of your beliefs.

Face up to facts dear WinePusher. You are a faith based believer. As such by definition, your filters have been so long installed you can't even see them, however much you may want to kid yourself that you are open minded and logical. And my evidence for this claim? Your posts, this irrational response thinking it is reality.

The tragic part here is that with a few clicks of the mouse, you can look this stuff up for yourself. The question is why don't you? That is for you to answer. I suspect that deep down you don't want to find what you faith based belief has no rational foundation. Your mistake is your reasoning that being rational makes you less of a person. It doesn't. You can be rational too, but I don't think you'll ever relinquish your faith based belief. It is too precious to you, which is why debate is pointless because you adopted some authority's faith.


Am looking forward to your response. Am guessing you would do a full circle and end up being more thoughtful. Am not hopeful that you would fix your reason filter because you need a new one. If you ever get a new reason filter, you will come to realise that:
Religion just declares truth based on faith (wishful thinking, no evidence). Science attempts to establish knowledge & predictability only based on testable observable evidence. That is the difference, the process of how to get to understand reality. The rest is just your reason filter that is grounded to only display faith based wishful thinking by default.

I wish you well.

[Star]

Your definition of 'faith' is totally wrong, plain and simple. Faith is simply believing in something without evidence.

Some of the things you post truly amaze me, you know WinePusher? This definition of faith is exactly the same definition John was using. It basically comes down to not having enough evidence to justify a belief.

When you perform a lab experiment you assume that certain variables will react to each other in a certain way. You assume that the materials will behave lawfully, rationally and uniformly. This is an assumption that is un provable, yet scientists must accept it and believe in it in order to proceed. There is no proof for this assumption, yet people still believe in it. This is called faith. It's a very simple concept so I don't understand why you're having such a difficult time understanding it.

Now you're describing research in a lab where there is in fact evidence. You contradicted your first paragraph which stated the opposite (that faith is belief without evidence). You then post an example of scientists having belief with evidence. Scientists don't actually believe something until there's sufficient evidence, and even then, that belief isn't 100%. Every scientist knows our understanding can always be improved. Fortunately, there is the scientific method, a variety of other methods, as well as the peer-review process to help ensure correct rejection/confirmation.

I think it's possible that you mistakenly think that scientists automatically believe in any and all scientific theories and hypotheses, before testing them, as if their default position is belief. They neither believe in their hypotheses when they form them, nor do they draw absolute conclusions, as religious faith requires.

Robust theories like evolution are supported by immense amounts of evidence across numerous disciplines. It's stood the test of time and has been continually improved and expanded. All evidence supports it, while none contradicts it. It's important to point this out.

[bluethread]

I am surprised that one aspect of this is rarely mentioned - the impact of global warming on agriculture. It is said that civilisation is 3 meals away from barbarism, an d that might well be true. In the west - at least since ww2 - people are unused to the idea of real shortage of food. Famines happen in Africa and Asia, but not at home. But I suspect it would only take a small shift in rain patterns to turn vast areas of farm land to desert in very few years.

The US with a population of over 300 million people requires over a billion meals every day, 365 days a year. That's a lot of cows, pigs and wheat fields. Current models predict little effect on the US wheat crop in the short/medium term which might cheer some people up... if we can trust the models. This might be one case where the sceptics should hope the scientists are right.

I didn't really want to muddy the waters by stating that, but you are correct. What is so bad about global warming? What is bad about living in a greenhouse? Increased heat and moisture increases plant growth. There are a lot of other things that have to be factored in and that is my main point. However, setting aside the flexibility of earth's systems, a warmer more humid planet is an improvement from the standpoint of food production.

[WinePusher]

I read your full post. I see you trying to be fair, but I also see bias. You can't help it. You are human and this is how you have learned to think. You clearly did not read the my full post, all you did was continue to criticize yourself. How is that logical?

Honestly, do you even have any clue what you're talking about? You aren't even addressing the topic, you're just going on these incoherent rants that don't make sense. And you're trying to make this a personal debate about my beliefs. If you're so interested in my beliefs you can ask me a question in the question subforum, this thread and this subforum is not the appropriate place.

Am glad you agree with me that the definition of Faith. But then you go on and say again that an assumption that is un provable is called Faith. This is pure wishful thinking. How is that logical? Have your cake and eat it?

I said that accepting an assumption without any evidence is known as faith. Faith is simply believing in something in the absence of evidence. Why can't you understand this?

According to you, walking over the street and is called faith, anything with any future implication is faith regardless of predictability being there or historical evidence existing or not. That my friend is just a fatal epistemological error on your part, pure wishful thinking.

Faith is believing something to be true without any evidence. Your street analogy is nonsense. A better analogy would be if I believed that the sun would implode tomorrow. There is no evidence that proves this yet I still believe it will happen. This is called faith.

The point of philosophy IS NOT to impose un provable assumptions on science. Science is based upon un provable assumption and philosophers take notice of this.

Am glad you agree that the link that you provided was wrong then.

Yea, I'm pretty much done with you. You keep dishonestly putting words in my mouth and you're not even addressing the topic.

You provided a link from Philosophy of Science. That is now another error on your part that you admitted to.

I never said my source was flawed, stop making stuff up. There is another thread about how dishonesty should be against the rules and here is a prime example of why it should. You are dishonestly putting words in my mouth.

Can you correct this error and provide us the link where SCIENCE (this non existing entity) makes these un provable assumptions on scientific knowledge?

I listed two links with authoritative analysis from scientists such as Gould, Polanyi and Berlinski. For whatever reason you refuse to accept these sources and I really don't care. What I care about is the quality of your posts, and they are pretty subpar. You aren't addressing the topic, you keep dishonestly putting words in my mouth, and you keep going on these incoherent rants about MY faith and MY religious beliefs.

I never said ANYTHING about science being an authority or an institution or an ideology or a sect or a cult.

That is interesting. Am glad you agree.

And here you are dishonestly saying I agree with you when I don't.

LOL am I supposed to care about a little bogus critique written by some random over the internet?

Thank you for admitting that your reject your link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opini ... d=all&_r=0.

I never said I rejected my link. What I said was that I don't find any merit or credibility in your poorly written critique. Stop making stuff up.

Dear WinePusher,
You merely continued to criticized yourself. You went further and contradicted yourself and admitted that your sources were wrong and you rejected at least one of them and the other one supports my point not yours. I suspect this is just a lack of understanding on your part.

I'm intrigued nevertheless, it seems to me that you employed wishful thinking in an attempt to drag me down to his level of comprehension of irrational faith based belief resting on your empty claims. Being open minded means being open to new ideas; it doesn't mean pontificating empty claims without using the filter of reason. "Am what I am being asked to believe really based on solid reasoning and evidence'? I've NEVER seen this in your posts, they're ALWAYS flawed in some basic critical respect. For example, your unwillingness to accept the outcome of scientific knowledge is to me a fatally flawed as this is the very method of reasoning you claim to use, except, it seems, when it does not agree with your belief. Incidentally, it is not uncommon for theists to deny scientific knowledge when it goes against their beliefs. But this ought to give you pause for serious thought if you are serious about the foundations of your beliefs.

Face up to facts dear WinePusher. You are a faith based believer. As such by definition, your filters have been so long installed you can't even see them, however much you may want to kid yourself that you are open minded and logical. And my evidence for this claim? Your posts, this irrational response thinking it is reality.

The tragic part here is that with a few clicks of the mouse, you can look this stuff up for yourself. The question is why don't you? That is for you to answer. I suspect that deep down you don't want to find what you faith based belief has no rational foundation. Your mistake is your reasoning that being rational makes you less of a person. It doesn't. You can be rational too, but I don't think you'll ever relinquish your faith based belief. It is too precious to you, which is why debate is pointless because you adopted some authority's faith.

Am looking forward to your response. Am guessing you would do a full circle and end up being more thoughtful. Am not hopeful that you would fix your reason filter because you need a new one. If you ever get a new reason filter, you will come to realise that: Religion just declares truth based on faith (wishful thinking, no evidence). Science attempts to establish knowledge & predictability only based on testable observable evidence. That is the difference, the process of how to get to understand reality. The rest is just your reason filter that is grounded to only display faith based wishful thinking by default.

Yea, I don't even know what you're saying half the time because your writing style is incomprehensible. This thread isn't about MY beliefs. It's about the limits of science. I stated at the very beginning that science is based on an un proven axiomatic assumption. This assumption is that the universe is lawful, rational and uniform. Therefore, science is based on faith because at it's very core science is based upon a belief that is not proven. And you really haven't addressed this at all. All you've done is dishonestly put words in my mouth and whine and complain about my sources.

[WinePusher]

Your definition of 'faith' is totally wrong, plain and simple. Faith is simply believing in something without evidence.

Some of the things you post truly amaze me, you know WinePusher? This definition of faith is exactly the same definition John was using. It basically comes down to not having enough evidence to justify a belief.

Why don't you try reading his definition again. He threw in some nonsense about 'spiritual convictions' that isn't correct.

I think it's possible that you mistakenly think that scientists automatically believe in any and all scientific theories and hypotheses, before testing them, as if their default position is belief. They neither believe in their hypotheses when they form them, nor do they draw absolute conclusions, as religious faith requires.

No. I have stated repeatedly that my position in this thread is that the enterprise of science is based on faith. I have never said that scientists automatically believe in any and all scientific theories and hypotheses. My position is that science rests upon an un provable axiomatic assumption. Even though this assumption is not provable scientists still believe and accept it. This is known as faith.

Robust theories like evolution are supported by immense amounts of evidence across numerous disciplines. It's stood the test of time and has been continually improved and expanded. All evidence supports it, while none contradicts it. It's important to point this out.

You see, this is irrelevant. I haven't even mentioned evolution and I believe in evolution. I made a thread on evolution a while back in the science forum, if you want to talk about evolution please go there or make a new topic.

[Star]

We have not physically observed anything in the distant past. We also have not physically observed the space at the far ends of the universe. Yet, we assume that the laws the govern our solar system also govern those other galaxies and systems even though we've never physically observed it.

Your ignorance of evidence isn't a problem for me. These infrared Hubble images show a then-young galaxy as it was 13.2-billion-years ago, which of course, was 13.2-billion-light-years away at the time, when the universe was only 480-million-years-old, long before our solar system even formed. The region of space in the second image is Hubble Ultra-Deep Field. See?

You're completely wrong. Just because we observe something over and over again does not mean it will behave the same way. There is no absolute certainty that the sun will rise again tomorrow just because we have observed it rising for the past two hundred centuries. Yes, there is a high probability that the sun will rise but the probability is never equal to 100%. This was David Hume's point, just because something occurs repeatedly does not mean it will occur again.

My point is that our views are based on evidence, not faith. Clearly, you're confusing evidence with absolute certainty or proof. By your own definition of faith, it's belief without evidence. We have evidence that the sun will come up tomorrow and can say it will with a very high level of certainty. Of course, it's possible an asteroid kills us tomorrow, or a stray black hole devours the solar system, but not likely.

[Goat]

Who do I trust?? Think tanks funded by the oil industry?? Or the scientists?

Who do I trust?? Think tanks funded by the oil industry?? Or the scientists funded by EPA grants?? Neither. However, I do find it interesting that people who deny global catastrophes in the past are warning of one in the future.

And what global catastrophe are you talking about?? The global flood? The one that there is no evidence for, verses the tons of peer reviewed articles on global warming??

Let's look at more neutral ground, the volcanos of the 1200's that are thought by some to have put into motion the Dark Ages.

So, you are talking about something that we , well, actually have physical evidence for then?

[JohnA]

I read your full post. I see you trying to be fair, but I also see bias. You can't help it. You are human and this is how you have learned to think. You clearly did not read the my full post, all you did was continue to criticize yourself. How is that logical?

Honestly, do you even have any clue what you're talking about? You aren't even addressing the topic, you're just going on these incoherent rants that don't make sense. And you're trying to make this a personal debate about my beliefs. If you're so interested in my beliefs you can ask me a question in the question subforum, this thread and this subforum is not the appropriate place.

Am glad you agree with me that the definition of Faith. But then you go on and say again that an assumption that is un provable is called Faith. This is pure wishful thinking. How is that logical? Have your cake and eat it?

I said that accepting an assumption without any evidence is known as faith. Faith is simply believing in something in the absence of evidence. Why can't you understand this?

According to you, walking over the street and is called faith, anything with any future implication is faith regardless of predictability being there or historical evidence existing or not. That my friend is just a fatal epistemological error on your part, pure wishful thinking.

Faith is believing something to be true without any evidence. Your street analogy is nonsense. A better analogy would be if I believed that the sun would implode tomorrow. There is no evidence that proves this yet I still believe it will happen. This is called faith.

The point of philosophy IS NOT to impose un provable assumptions on science. Science is based upon un provable assumption and philosophers take notice of this.

Am glad you agree that the link that you provided was wrong then.

Yea, I'm pretty much done with you. You keep dishonestly putting words in my mouth and you're not even addressing the topic.

You provided a link from Philosophy of Science. That is now another error on your part that you admitted to.

I never said my source was flawed, stop making stuff up. There is another thread about how dishonesty should be against the rules and here is a prime example of why it should. You are dishonestly putting words in my mouth.

Can you correct this error and provide us the link where SCIENCE (this non existing entity) makes these un provable assumptions on scientific knowledge?

I listed two links with authoritative analysis from scientists such as Gould, Polanyi and Berlinski. For whatever reason you refuse to accept these sources and I really don't care. What I care about is the quality of your posts, and they are pretty subpar. You aren't addressing the topic, you keep dishonestly putting words in my mouth, and you keep going on these incoherent rants about MY faith and MY religious beliefs.

I never said ANYTHING about science being an authority or an institution or an ideology or a sect or a cult.

That is interesting. Am glad you agree.

And here you are dishonestly saying I agree with you when I don't.

LOL am I supposed to care about a little bogus critique written by some random over the internet?

Thank you for admitting that your reject your link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opini ... d=all&_r=0.

I never said I rejected my link. What I said was that I don't find any merit or credibility in your poorly written critique. Stop making stuff up.

Dear WinePusher,
You merely continued to criticized yourself. You went further and contradicted yourself and admitted that your sources were wrong and you rejected at least one of them and the other one supports my point not yours. I suspect this is just a lack of understanding on your part.

I'm intrigued nevertheless, it seems to me that you employed wishful thinking in an attempt to drag me down to his level of comprehension of irrational faith based belief resting on your empty claims. Being open minded means being open to new ideas; it doesn't mean pontificating empty claims without using the filter of reason. "Am what I am being asked to believe really based on solid reasoning and evidence'? I've NEVER seen this in your posts, they're ALWAYS flawed in some basic critical respect. For example, your unwillingness to accept the outcome of scientific knowledge is to me a fatally flawed as this is the very method of reasoning you claim to use, except, it seems, when it does not agree with your belief. Incidentally, it is not uncommon for theists to deny scientific knowledge when it goes against their beliefs. But this ought to give you pause for serious thought if you are serious about the foundations of your beliefs.

Face up to facts dear WinePusher. You are a faith based believer. As such by definition, your filters have been so long installed you can't even see them, however much you may want to kid yourself that you are open minded and logical. And my evidence for this claim? Your posts, this irrational response thinking it is reality.

The tragic part here is that with a few clicks of the mouse, you can look this stuff up for yourself. The question is why don't you? That is for you to answer. I suspect that deep down you don't want to find what you faith based belief has no rational foundation. Your mistake is your reasoning that being rational makes you less of a person. It doesn't. You can be rational too, but I don't think you'll ever relinquish your faith based belief. It is too precious to you, which is why debate is pointless because you adopted some authority's faith.

Am looking forward to your response. Am guessing you would do a full circle and end up being more thoughtful. Am not hopeful that you would fix your reason filter because you need a new one. If you ever get a new reason filter, you will come to realise that: Religion just declares truth based on faith (wishful thinking, no evidence). Science attempts to establish knowledge & predictability only based on testable observable evidence. That is the difference, the process of how to get to understand reality. The rest is just your reason filter that is grounded to only display faith based wishful thinking by default.

Yea, I don't even know what you're saying half the time because your writing style is incomprehensible. This thread isn't about MY beliefs. It's about the limits of science. I stated at the very beginning that science is based on an un proven axiomatic assumption. This assumption is that the universe is lawful, rational and uniform. Therefore, science is based on faith because at it's very core science is based upon a belief that is not proven. And you really haven't addressed this at all. All you've done is dishonestly put words in my mouth and whine and complain about my sources.

I am addressing your beliefs, correct. That is at the heart of the problem why you think Science is limited. Your beliefs are mistaken.

Your beliefs are:
Science is based on faith
Science is therefore limited.
And then you try to argue that your beliefs are facts.
But you completely neglect that your religious belief is faith based and you seem to think it is not a bad thing.
And you yourself just wrote to Star that your faith is not based on 'spiritual convictions' So, you are arguing that you do not believe in your god based on faith! That is interesting, are you arguing that your i) scripture is wrong, ii) faith is not needed, and iii) you have evidence for your god. Interesting.

nonsense about 'spiritual convictions' that isn't correct.

That is circular. You can not have you cake and eat it.
You can not say
X is based on faith, therefore it is limited (bad)
Y is based on faith, therefore it is not limited (good)
Y is not based on faith, therefore it is not limited (good)

This is your biased, your reason filter that is broken. And you can not see it is broken because you have been indoctrinated that to adopt some authority's religious belief long ago.

And that is why I say you are are merely criticizing yourself. That is in addition to assuming that Science is some entity that adheres to un provable assumptions.

I said that accepting an assumption without any evidence is known as faith.

But that is not the definition of faith? You clearly wrote:

Faith is simply believing in something without evidence

Accepting something and believing something is not the same thing. You are still making an epistemological error.
That is besides the fact that you can not give me a single reference where SCIENCE accepts these so called assumptions.
Not only that, you have now changed as previously you wrote:

There is no proof for this assumption, yet people still believe in it. This is called faith

You do realize that proof belongs to Math (part of logic) alone. Well, Whiskey too if you want to be pedantic!
Furthermore, proof and evidence is very different things. Evidence does not prove anything. How absurd!
And you preceding statement was:

This is an assumption that is un provable, yet scientists must accept it and believe in it in order to proceed.

So, can you at least decide if scientists accept this or believe it? To accept and to believe are different things Winepusher.
Also, you are arguing that scientists X and Y, and them somehow lump this into SCIENCE. This is even after I told you there is no such thing as a group of scientists belong to an entity called science.

You are simply showing a lack of understanding in basic language, epistemology and you are contradicting yourself by offering wishful thinking here. This is solid evidence that you are biased and your reason filter is broken. I am merely pointing this out. And notice, I provide evidence for this. You do not like this exposure in your faulty wishful thinking. Your unwillingness to accept the outcome of faulty reasoning is to me a fatally flawed as this is the very method of reasoning you claim to use, except, it seems, when it does not agree with your belief.

There is no evidence that proves this yet I still believe it will happen. This is called faith.

Let's forget about the fact that evidence does not prove anything and that belief and faith are different things, so is accept and belief.
So, how can "When you perform a lab experiment you assume that certain variables will react to each other in a certain way" be faith if there is historical evidence that shows variables will react to each other in a certain way?
Shall I ask how 'variables' can interact with each other? That is just a faulty use of word and reasoning again on your behalf. Maybe you meant molecules or elements. You do know concrete objects are not abstract concepts? More faulty reasoning from you!


How can :

Science is based upon un provable assumption and philosophers take notice of this.

When you wrote:

I never said ANYTHING about science being an authority or an institution or an ideology or a sect or a cult.

So, how can a non-existing entity (science) that is also an enterprise be based on upon un provable assumption and philosophers take notice of this?

So, you never wrote this:

the enterprise of science is based on faith

here: http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 431#607431

Can I suggest that you at least decide what you are arguing!!!!

This is more faulty reasoning on you part. Your beliefs, your faith based beliefs, are mistaken Winepusher. That is because you are biased and your reason filter is broken. That is the only explanation for this dogma drivel that you pontificate.

I never said my source was flawed, stop making stuff up.

You wrote:

The point of philosophy IS NOT to impose un provable assumptions on science.

But your link was from Philosophy:
http://www.ask.com/wiki/Philosophy_of_s ... ssumptions

If philosophy IS NOT to impose un provable assumptions on science then surely your link must be wrong as you link is from Philosophy!
That is besides the point that you admitted that science is a non-existent entity, but an enterprise!
So, is an enterprise an existing entity, or a non-existent entity? You really need to decide what you are arguing!!!!

I listed two links with authoritative analysis from scientists such as Gould, Polanyi and Berlinski. For whatever reason you refuse to accept these sources

But your links are from people, not from SCIENCE. That is why I reject it. And that is why I said to you that you would not be able to supply this since you SCIENCE is not an entity. You agreed that SCIENCE is not an authority or an institution or an ideology or a sect or a cult, but there is an 'enterprise of science'. So, can you give a link from this 'enterprise of science' you refer to? That is besides the point that you also said you do not accept links from random people on the internet. You are knocking down your own argument Winepusher. That is why I said to you: "Am guessing you would do a full circle and end up being more thoughtful." You are living up to my prediction. And for that I commend you, thank you!

And here you are dishonestly saying I agree with you when I don't.

So, how can SCIENCE be based on faith if SCIENCE is not an entity, but an enterprise?

I never said I rejected my link. What I said was that I don't find any merit or credibility in your poorly written critique. Stop making stuff up.

Surely you are not accusing me of being dishonest? But you are once again living up to my prediction that you unwillingness to accept the outcome of your own writings is to me a fatally flawed as this is the very method of reasoning you claim to use, except, it seems, when it does not agree with your belief.

Yea, I don't even know what you're saying half the time because your writing style is incomprehensible. This thread isn't about MY beliefs. It's about the limits of science. I stated at the very beginning that science is based on an un proven axiomatic assumption. This assumption is that the universe is lawful, rational and uniform. Therefore, science is based on faith because at it's very core science is based upon a belief that is not proven. And you really haven't addressed this at all. All you've done is dishonestly put words in my mouth and whine and complain about my sources.

But SCIENCE does not exist as an entity, so how can it be based on faith? So how can this entity make assumptions when Philosophers makes unprovable assumptions about scientific knowledge? or have you made up this 'enterprise of science' straw man that you are beating up - the one that your reason filter distorted and presents as reality?
I am merely pointing out that your BELIEFS are mistaken, suggesting an upgrade of your beliefs. Start with a new reason filter.

I can not understand why you are now calling me dishonest. A working reason filter would tell you that your accusation can be defined as a form of slander. That just indicates that this is close to the end of the debate.

I leave you with a quote from Socrates:
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.�

[Goat]

I am surprised that one aspect of this is rarely mentioned - the impact of global warming on agriculture. It is said that civilisation is 3 meals away from barbarism, an d that might well be true. In the west - at least since ww2 - people are unused to the idea of real shortage of food. Famines happen in Africa and Asia, but not at home. But I suspect it would only take a small shift in rain patterns to turn vast areas of farm land to desert in very few years.

The US with a population of over 300 million people requires over a billion meals every day, 365 days a year. That's a lot of cows, pigs and wheat fields. Current models predict little effect on the US wheat crop in the short/medium term which might cheer some people up... if we can trust the models. This might be one case where the sceptics should hope the scientists are right.

I didn't really want to muddy the waters by stating that, but you are correct. What is so bad about global warming? What is bad about living in a greenhouse? Increased heat and moisture increases plant growth. There are a lot of other things that have to be factored in and that is my main point. However, setting aside the flexibility of earth's systems, a warmer more humid planet is an improvement from the standpoint of food production.

Actually , quite the opposite will occur. One of the reasons the food production has been so good is not because of heat, but because of the stability of the climate. One consequence of global warming is bigger extremes of weather, which is not good for agriculture. ALso, there will be greater areas that will be subject to more sever drought conditions (although the north east U.S. will have a higher level of precipitation, according to the models).