Does the 'throw out science' argument work

[johncmcleod]

This isn't very well thought out, but I have been thinking that someone could argue that any scientific knowledge is not conclusive. You could bring up the example that thousands of years ago, someone could use the scientific method and think "The sun comes up from one side, goes down on the other, and then comes back on the first side. This means it must revolve around the earth." Of course later on, advances in technology were made and we discovered this was not true. But still, even using the correct scientific methods, what is found to be true is not necessarily true, for further advances in technology help us understand it better and may change our beliefs about it. One could say that science helps us understand things better, but we can't understand something perfectly and completely, and therefore knowledge gained through science isn't infallible.

[Ted Striker]

A lot of times things happen, which science cannot prove. There are alot of "old wives tales" that have been proven to work, and science is late to catch up.

An example is chicken soup helping to relieve cold symptoms.

[:) Smiley]

Science != Truth, rather, it represents the best model we have to explain something, so that it may be possible to reproduce the results or predict other things.

Using the chicken soup example, one can say "Chicken soup defies science" or one could ask "How can we figure out why chicken soup works and make a chicken soup pill?"

[Nostromo]

No your argument doesn't work. You're right when you say that our current theories aren't the Truth: they will probably be replaced by other theories in the future. But it doesn't mean that our current theories aren't closer to the truth: Einstein's theory isn't true, but it's closer to the truth than Newton's, and Newton's theory was closer to the truth than Aristotles. We know more today than the Greeks knew. We know more about the human body, we know more about other species, we know more about life, we know more about the earth, we know more about the solar system, we know more about the Universe, and I could go on and on.

[St Leo]

If you reject anything that is not 100% certain, you might as well curl up in a fetal position and suckle on your thumb until you wither away into nothingness.

Vision isn't magical. It is the result of light travelling in straight lines, reflecting, and finally reaching your eyes. It can be manipulated. Ditto for sound, smell, taste, and feel.

[Odin]

If you reject anything that is not 100% certain, you might as well curl up in a fetal position and suckle on your thumb until you wither away into nothingness.

Science:

[johncmcleod]

I agree with all of you. However, it seems that when someone says they are an atheist because there is no scientific evidence for a God and that the universe works fine without anything other than what we've proven by science, a deist could say that science is only an explanation, a theory, not the absolute truth. They could argue that the atheist theory can't be proven to be true, as it may be replaced by another theory closer to the truth, like Einstein's was closer than Aristotle's, and we don't know what this future theory is. It could involve there being a God. On the other hand, if a deist says that science has not explained the mysteries of the universe and why we got here (uncaused cause theory or whatever it's called and all that), and that therefore there must be a God, the atheist could use the same logic and say that with further advances in technology, we will gain further understanding of how the universe works and why it got here, and that we will not need to believe a God was there to start it.

It seems that it will never be possible to conclusively say that there is or is not a God. Atheists, deists, and agnostics will all have to rely on faith to continue believing in what they believe.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
I agree with all of you. However, it seems that when someone says they are an atheist because there is no scientific evidence for a God and that the universe works fine without anything other than what we've proven by science, a deist could say that science is only an explanation, a theory, not the absolute truth.

Not quite. Any scientific field is composed of a body of facts ("data points"), a prevailing theory (using Thomas Kuhn's terms), and a methodology. The theory can go out the door at any time, but the facts and the methodology stay.

BTW, I think the word you are looking for is "theist."

Originally posted by johncmcleod
They could argue that the atheist theory can't be proven to be true, as it may be replaced by another theory closer to the truth, like Einstein's was closer than Aristotle's, and we don't know what this future theory is.

Atheism is not a theory. Atheism is the belief that there is no good reason to believe in a deity (or a group of deities). It is the default state. Besides, proving that there is no god involves proving an infinitive negative, which can't be done.

Originally posted by johncmcleod
On the other hand, if a deist says that science has not explained the mysteries of the universe and why we got here (uncaused cause theory or whatever it's called and all that), and that therefore there must be a God

That's just the "god-in-the-gaps" argument.

Originally posted by johncmcleod
It seems that it will never be possible to conclusively say that there is or is not a God.

No. The burden of proof lies with the proponents of the assertion. This is elementary.

[Odin]

God-in-the-gaps arguments:

They annoy me to no end. You can't assume something is supernatural just we can't explain it will our present state of knoledge. It is what the Intelegent Design morons fall for.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
A lot of times things happen, which science cannot prove. There are alot of "old wives tales" that have been proven to work, and science is late to catch up.

An example is chicken soup helping to relieve cold symptoms.

This isn't a rejection of science itself though. It's just an example of why 'medical' science doesn't fall into the same category as the rest of the physical sciences.
With humans as the subjects and consisting of far more vaguaries than can be replicated/interpreted, medical science doesn't use null-controls for the establishment of proof-positives like every other branch, but defaults to placebos.

[Edit: Similarly for evolution really. That which you can apply as a 'model' for the majority of known life-forms just doesn't work as well when it comes to humans.]

[Mr. Harley]

Re Scientific Research - it's also becoming a major problem in the Mental Health fields. The various modern requirements for ethical research require informed consent, which immediately makes certain things impossible to research. The Milgram experiment en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment would be impossible to conduct today.

Atheism is a matter of faith. An Atheist believes in something that is unprovable. That is why most Atheists are vociferous in defending their position - it is a matter of faith. Agnostics have no faith at all in the matter, they acknowledge it's unknowable and that's that.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Odin
God-in-the-gaps arguments:

They annoy me to no end.

You do seem to get annoyed a lot.

[Nostromo]

It seems that it will never be possible to conclusively say that there is or is not a God. Atheists, deists, and agnostics will all have to rely on faith to continue believing in what they believe.

Ah, I see where this is heading... So you're asking whether we can prove or not God's existence. But the first question to ask is which God? Zeus? Vishnu? Brahma? Allah? Probably not. You probably meant Yahweh, right? But why? Probably just because you were born in the USA.

Now can we prove that Yahweh exists or not? I think a lot of claims about Yahweh can be proven or disproven by facts. For example, the claim that Yahweh created the world 10 000 years ago is demonstrably false. If he created the world its about 15 billion years ago. The flood is also demonstrably false. So it's not only a question of faith. I think that if you proceed this way, by confronting claims about God with known facts, you will come up with a very different concept of God, a God that has not much to do with the Bible version. Assuming, that is, that God survived the ordeal.

[Boris Godunov]

Actually, the world was created about 4.5 billion years ago, not 15.

[Nostromo]

The Universe is about 15 billion years old, and the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. What can I say, I'm a citizen of the universe!