I was discussing this notion with the mrs last night and stating my case that people blindly follow science without knowing anything about the topic or the studies. I see friends of ours, all phds, quote something along the lines of “science finds …” and they all take it as an absolute truth. I’m a skeptic at heart and have a healthy distrust of academics - though she and my bro are - and tend to argue over every claimed truth. for the hell of it, last night i brought up dinosaurs and tried to refute that they existed. Anyone else come across this herd like mentality when it comes to science?
My point isnt that they didnt exist, its that we dont know. You see these giant replicas in a museum in which the entire thing was conceived from a single tooth.
Same with the big bang - if you dare and say you dont believe it you will be chastised.
See this is exactly what i am getting at. Im not religious whatsoever, i just believe the “facts” of today will be overturned by the “facts” of tomorrow (i.e the earth is flat --> the earth is round). And yet if you say something along these lines, you are deemed having the perspective of someone who is religious. Furthermore, the vast majority of us do not have the intellect, nor the time, to even prove the foundation of most of these theories - thus my take it is blindly followed.
Good science doesn’t profess to be absolutely correct. See bayesianism and the works of thomas kuhn for reference. Religion is all about objective truth, often with a sprinkling of ridiculous bullshit. People pick and take the parts of the religions they like and say thats the correct way to interpret religion, and the objective truth, while ignoring the parts they don’t like. Theres a lot of wisdom that can be taken from religion. To say that its on par with science as a means of understanding reality, is not the correct way to view the value of religion. What religion does best is serve as a way to pass morality and defining, archetypical stories, and timeless truths about the human condition on from generation to generation. Not about whether or not dinosaurs exist.
Science doesn’t hold that these paradigm shifts can’t happen. Religious people would argue that they can’t.
The correct way to see science is theories as a bunch of highly probable statements, like 99.99999% correct, but only in terms of the things which they’ve already tested. They may be proven incorrect in the future, and a paradigm shift may occur. Scientific laws are just highly tested theories which can still be proven wrong.
I can’t side with you on this buddy. Seems like you are making a caricature of science to then disprove. No scientist claims perfect knowledge or items that are not subject to change. But some findings do have more weight and are suspected to be harder to change.
However! I admire the trolling subtext of your endeavor. And a lot of science abuses statistics in ways most don’t understand. So when you get into more subtle effects, the ability to trust science is diminished. Listen to this podcast and you’ll be able to argue with lots of scientific findings. I think you should be more skeptical of statistics and how scientists use it, rather than science itself. This podcast does a good job discussing the issues
So you are saying there are no examples of scientist pick and choosing the material they wish to include vs exclude? You’re saying there hasnt been a case in which a study has concluded utmost accuracy only to be debunked?
I’m pretty sure religions are dynamic too but you are incorrectly understanding my message. It’s not that we should choose one or the other, science or some religion, it’s to learn from the lessons of the past and use the mistakes taken by those who have blindly followed a religion when hearing about a new study or discussing an old theory.
Sure, some scientists do bad science. Not most of them. But if you’re saying that the shitty science of a few scientists outweighs the benefits of science in bettering mans situation, and that we’ve progressed through religion (regardless of the religion, a stagnant body of statements which usually claim to be objective truths) more than we have through science (in the things which science applies itself to, like understanding electricity, physics, biology etc.), then I think you’d be making a foolish claim.
Re: your last point, that its important to update our beliefs based off of new information, and not take religion (or a scientific claim) too seriously, then I think thats a reasonable and rational thing to do. Just don’t take it toooo far when refuting science, and don’t go outside your level of competence on any particular subject.
Just to restate my point, bolded to leave absent any room for confusion, "people blindly follow science without knowing anything about the topic or the studies."