The attempt by certain religious believers to characterize the relation between scientifically inclined individuals and scientific disciplines as a relation between a faithful believer and his creed is ultimately quite disingenuous. However, as with many errors, there is a certain plausible kernel of truth here that lends credence to the larger claim in the minds of those only too eager to malign science and its advocates for the purpose of saving their religion from perceived danger. The difficulty rests in the claim by the enthusiasts of science that scientific methods are unique sources of objective knowledge. This is true by any sensible standard but false when one looks to exaggerated criteria of knowledge. Unintentionally, the religious believers’ accusation leads us into an important epistemic debate.
When replying to the not unsubstantial boast of the methods of science, the religious believer has two options: he can either claim that religion is more reliable than others think, or he can allege that scientific inquiry isn’t so trustworthy. These are the options for a believer should he care to pursue the question of knowledge and not the question of faith.
Illustrated by Louise McCune
When dealing with qualified scientists, religious people often discover quite quickly that their variety of religious “knowledge” is a far cry from the rigorous knowledge sought according to stringent standards by scientists. Thus if the first option fails, believers find that the second option presents a much harder task. A good scientist (despite her specialization) likely knows how penicillin works, what a genome is and other points of general knowledge. Moreover, she probably knows a great deal of the foundational evidence upon which these matters are based.
Faced with an uphill battle, the common religious believer might resort to desperate measures, such as unleashing the dreaded problem of induction. But in challenging our experientially well-founded presupposition that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (e.g., the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold), any religious believer looking to undermine science is in fact undermining the basis of his everyday experience. It can be safely assumed that the believer will predict that throwing water on a fire will put it out and not that H2O will whimsically become flammable itself. Unbeknownst to the believer, he or she relies on induction all the time. Otherwise, crossing a room might become a true adventure and opening a door would never be safe as it may open to hell or, still better, to two-dimensional Flatland.
However, most of us are not so well versed in the history and methods of science. That being the case, such religious believers needn’t devolve into such absurdity in attempting to undermine science among the general public. They instead might allege, in an alternative attempt to devalue the reliability of science and undermine its stature, that lay aficionados of science lack any knowledge of its validity and that they must approach it with the very same (blind) faith with which they approach their own deity. Thus they claim that science is the religion of the secular (read heathen) age.
To start in earnest on the topic at hand, I might ask “What do you know?” It is a simple question, but it involves a bit of conceptual work. Let’s tentatively use the classic JTB analysis of knowledge as justified true belief. What, then, do we know? Well, 2+2=4; on a clear day, the sky is typically blue; Obama is the president; Albany is north of New York City, etc. But do I know Schwarzchild’s radius equals 2GM/c2? Do I know all that much about the theoretical aspects of evolution, let alone the underlying genetics? Or else can I grasp the entirety of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Can I justify its findings or the methods employed in reaching the conclusions therein—explaining their assumptions, the mathematics and the evidentiary bases behind all of the methods? The answer to many of these questions is certainly “no.” But do I then know that these things are correct? An epistemic quandary is rearing its head here: What do I know and how do I know it? Some believers would like to exploit my ignorance on many matters as well as my uncertainty and fuzziness about others to their ends. In this way, they would like to demonstrate that there is some significant element of faith involved in believing that science is valid.
Illustrated by Louise McCune
Where might we draw a line so as to subsume enthusiasts for science under knowledge (perhaps nearer its fringes) and believers clearly under faith? An obvious answer comes to mind. As above, knowledge might be taken as justified true belief. Faith, then, might be a sort of confidence that is provided by no evidentiary backing whatsoever and directed to something that is inscrutable (e.g., God). If the retort that trust in science is modern faith can be taken as indicative of the epistemic bankruptcy of religious belief (which is probably called “belief” precisely because it cannot aspire to much justification), then it seems clear how believers might be subsumed under the category of “faith.” Enthusiasts for science then might be subsumed under knowledge, but only if we first define “justification.” For these purposes we might take it to consist in the use of reliable ways of coming to belief. If we think we can produce reliable and sensible reasons for coming to believe in the validity of science, then we can see why confidence in science is not comparable to religious faith.
Unfortunately, many religious persons who would lob the allegation at hand have adopted unrealistic and very different criteria for the justification of knowledge. They would prefer a hyper-reliable sort of knowledge precisely because it places an overwhelming burden on any supporter of science with its sheer impracticability. Hyper-reliable knowledge is unimaginable in the vast majority of human endeavors (save perhaps mathematics and logic) and so it’s not of much worth addressing, though I will note that many believers who would even attempt this crude tactic fail to approach a great many aspects of their own lives with that same hyperbolic skepticism. They don’t apply it to their own religious beliefs or to the great many sorts of social media that they might care for (e.g. televangelists). Nor do they entertain the idea that they might be brains in vats or else under the spell of an evil demon (though they might be tempted to resort to Descartes’s embarrassingly bad solution and its requisite circular justification of God.) Instead, in setting the bar for knowledge so ludicrously high they count on it resulting in everyone’s having only some variety of “faith.”
But let’s see if we can ascribe to enthusiasts of science any sort of knowledge on the weaker criterion provided above, i.e. if we can produce reliable and sensible reasons for coming to believe in the validity of science. Quite obviously the internal affairs of science and scientists in their professional contexts remain unassailable. The strict methodologies, community standards and means of peer review are effective ways of ensuring quality. In terms of education and societal confidence in science, its successes are the most striking and convincing justification anyone could point to. By its successes science shows remarkable reliability across a range of contexts.
What about the deep epistemic attack of religious enthusiasts? A textbook might say inherited genetics determine the features of an organism, but do I know this? Do I know that DNA is made from arrangements of adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine? Well, no, not if that means that I must have myself repeated the experiments that allegedly demonstrate these things. But this is not such a worry on the eminently practical criterion. The theories are cogent. The information came from reliable sources of qualified professionals whom I trust. And it has subsequently proved theoretically sound as the basis of later experimentation and advances from which I derive much practical benefit.
In this case, we must take a non-foundationalist view of knowledge here; we are not moving from premises to logical conclusions. Rather, we are basing our understanding on previous views deemed reliable. Given inherited knowledge, science will be continuously revised for all foreseeable time. This is a virtue of science in that, unlike religion and faith, it takes no dogmatic given at its word as unassailable and a justification of itself. Science—contrary to the false image painted by some believers of a despotic closed authority—even invites the likes of “intelligent designers” to take a shot at explaining relevant matters, though scientists ultimately find their “theory” facile, without positive explanation but only naysaying. So while our confidence in science might not meet the exaggerated Cartesian standard, it is still very reliable while religious belief remains otherwise.
There is no meaningful element of faith in science. Setting the bar for knowledge too high is intended to result in everyone having some variety of faith as found in religion. However, with its strict standards of proof, replicability, peer review, etc., science offers great objectivity. Science is objective enough, being based on the reliable knowledge of preceding generations, though it always reserves the option to correct itself, something religion could never do. Furthermore, it is reliable enough to adequately justify confidence in it. The allegation that confidence in science is comparable to the baseless faith found in religion is a particularly facile one that no respectable religious believer could advance. Instead, only those who themselves see the world through blind faith could accuse others of doing the same.
This addresses the direct epistemological criticism of scientific knowledge, but what about the postmodernist critique of scientific knowledge? Is there any truly objective knowledge or is everything irredeemably influenced by the cultural and historic context of the scientists? Granted, this is less true for, say, physics than biology and the social sciences, but it still calls into question the true “objectivity” of scientific knowledge.
This post is interesting.
Let me start by noting that I had the intention of discussing the “hard” sciences only. After all, I said “science” not, say, the German word “Wissenschaft,” which can be construed to include much more. So I mean the natural sciences, not the social sciences at all. And these natural sciences stand on firm ground as Paul seems to acknowledge in his last sentence (though he should put the word “than” after “biology” so as to place it nearer to the rigorous discipline that is contemporary physics).
Now, if the article is decidedly on matters of the natural sciences, what is the supposed post-modern “critique” of these disciplines? I will answer for Paul: Nothing. There is no sensible, rational, consistent, meaningful or else worthwhile post-modern “critique” of the natural sciences.
The idea that “everything [is] irredeemably influenced by the cultural and historic context of the scientists” is rubbish. It may be that you can allege something like this about modish and exotic theories like EO Wilson’s theory of sociobiology (which is widely unpopular with professionals). However, that is his idiosyncratic pet idea and not an accepted or even properly evidenced idea.
Wherever scientists are in substantial agreement, there is no possibility for such a criticism as Paul alleges. It is just faddish post-modern gibberish. It has no rhyme or reason, and so Paul just vaguely alludes to the post-modern “critique” without giving any substantive criticism or objections to natural science. How would Paul like to object to the fact that DNA is made from arrangements of adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine?
I was at the Left Forum over spring break, where I listened to some adjunct from Harvard participating in a discussion as part of a panel. He was talking about indigenous rights in the Amazon and the gist of his discussion was this: the white folks with their ecologically disastrous science have this peculiar, though presently hegemonic mode of knowledge while the indigenous peoples have their own rival mode. The latter should and must replace the former to avoid impending catastrophe.
I am immediately inclined to point out that science may very well be what tells the indigenous that they are in danger as, say, contaminants in their water or soil may not be humanly detectable, nor may their horrific effects manifest for some time. No matter. But there Is no such thing as “white man science”; there is only one science. And that science, by its processes of peer review, replicability, etc. is open to everyone–even “intelligent designers” and Native Americans. Natural science is simply a matter of provable facts, repetitious testing, and evidenced conclusions. Surely the indigenous populations of the Amazon know this, although their modish, self-proclaimed representative at the Left Forum did not (it takes a philosopher to say something that stupid).
The only intuition I can detect in this, the only kernel of truth to this baseless allegation voiced by Paul is as follows: Science cannot create or legitimize values. In Kantian terms: considerations of theoretical reason cannot justify those of practical reason. That is only to say, science cannot tell you if it is permissible to use your scientific knowledge to erect whole forests of fake plastic trees (cf. Radiohead’s greatest album, “The Bends”) or else to perfect elaborate systems of industrial-scale murder such as seen in Nazi concentration camps. Science is entirely neutral on such matters. Only your valuations for the earth or else human life can tell you that those are appalling ideas and therefore science (and scientists) should not be employed in advancing them.
Ultimately the Harvard fellow could only have meant to say that we (“western,” perhaps white, folk) need to scrutinize our valuations and prioritize traditional lifestyles, the earth, our posterity against whom we are committing the greatest inter-generational crime in our species’ history, etc.
Both Paul and our friend from Harvard need to realize that they are engaging in intellectual masturbation. The post-modernists are no more that faddish figures who are already on their way to the dustbin of bad and useless ideas.
If Paul thinks I am wrong, then he can articulate a substantive (and hopefully jargon-free) criticism instead of merely dropping mention of the “post-modernists”.
Your article is exceptional and the arguments that you present in it seem flawless. You do, however, leave out one important point that must be addressed in order for your argument to be complete: the Unknown. (I use a capital “U” in Unknown not to signify the word in a supernatural sense, but rather as an absolute concept that encompasses everything that is still scientifically unknown [or inexplicable].)
Any respectable scientist will admit that her field contains unknowns, things that have yet to be discovered, things that may never be discovered. The appropriate scientific response to this, of course, is that just because we don’t know, and possibly never can understand, we must continue to try to find solutions (after all, giving up would not be science).Nevertheless, this problem of Unknowns requires an adequate response. The example we should use is common and obvious: the Beginning.
The Beginning is still a mystery to modern science (note: I will not use “Creation” as it may be seen as requiring an agent, but I will use a capital “B” to denote the absolute beginning). Theories abound about the first instant of the universe, the possibility (or sometimes theorized impossibility) of a pre-universe, the existence of other universes, etc. Any physicist will admit, however, that these are not definite solutions, and the answer to the question of what was the Beginning, and how it happened, still evades us.
You commented on how much you trust scientists and their findings, which also means you must trust them when they admit the Unknowns. Once again discussing the Beginning, you must acknowledge that we have no answer. This leaves us with an issue: if science has no answer (yet, or possibly ever), to where do we turn? I’m sure that you will say it is an unjustified leap for a person to believe that since we don’t know about the Beginning there must have been Something or Someone who created it. The scientific process would require us to test this theory and be able to prove it false–since we cannot, it is not science. On the other hand, we have no testable scientific theory with an alternative answer that has proved itself so far (and passed the scientific method you refer to above). What does this leave us with? Nothing.
This absence of knowledge is where you will find a problem. You have no scientific answer; those who believe in a Creator have no scientific answer. Where do we go now?
To be fair to your argument, I will not provide my own answer; rather, I burden you with addressing the issue in order to fully complete your argument. If you are successful, you will have an even stronger case; if not, although you don’t have to admit that the other side is correct, you must at least admit that you cannot provide an answer.
**Reply to the latest post forthcoming. Later today, I promise. I also promise to deal with Rose thoroughly–despite her post being off-topic. She will be swiftly disposed of, like Paul before her.
Let me begin this, my second rejoinder, by thanking Rose for her opening compliment: I, too, think my article is exceptional and its arguments are flawless. I do greatly appreciate when my arguments are thought estimable. However, on close attention Rose will notice that my argument is plainly about the epistemic status of science—and not the origins of the universe at all. So her comments are off topic, although she apparently does not acknowledge this. Any rational religious believer—and there are many—must necessarily agree with the gist of the article, i.e. science is not a matter of faith and a certain retort offered particularly by evangelical Christians is rubbish. All the same, I will oblige her with my response to her concerns. Naturally, my response will dispose of her post.
To begin in earnest I will note that the word “unknown” does *not* appear in my article, and it certainly does not appear with a majuscule letter, though she alleges it does (and any reader can check this with the quick ctrl+F function). My argument–despite Rose’s misunderstanding of its nature, as it was ultimately something secular and “respectable” (my own choice word) believers could agree on—was not about the origins of the universe, and therefore my argument is *not* incomplete. The challenge, or else “burden” to “fully complete [my] argument” does *not* exist. Nevertheless, I will gladly correct her and bring her up to speed on modern physics. And I will address things she skips over to quickly for the sake of readers and other potential interlocutors (but you may skip to paragraph six as it is finals season).
The “Beginning” (following Rose’s use of lofty majuscules) is not such a dilemma as she makes it out to be. She seems to have found hope in pop science, not real scientifically demonstrated fact. The deeply mistaken popular conception of the Big Bang is something like this: “Well, there was once nothing, but then there was something. This something was a singularity of seemingly infinite density that suddenly expanded.” This is the usual story, and those the Abrahamic tradition—especially Christians who think they can read the handwriting of their deity in most any trivial happening, as some 60% of American Christians report having had at least one religious experience of the imminent presence of the divine—take it as conclusive proof that God must have done it. Need I point to (if only to satisfy Rose and fulfill her prediction) the great feat of hell-bent illogic going on here?: “Well, I cannot explain it so it must have been God!” Brian Greene’s latest laymen’s guide to cosmology, The Fabric of the Cosmos, is unequivocal on this point: the singularity could have existed forever (whatever that means, because as I finite being I have great difficulty wrapping my head around it, and accordingly the notion of an infinite hell where I, a godless and lowly unbaptized heathen, will suffer *infinitely,* for all time, is beyond my own comprehension—as it is the reader’s too; thus do pardon me if I laugh). The Big Bang does not actually explain cosmic *origins* at all (p272). Further, the analogy is deficient and misleading to many laypeople.
However, I think I need not go far into all that as Rose implies that she gets this in paragraph three. Indeed, M-theory, repetitious inflations, etc. are evidenced and reasonable scientific arguments, unlike a fiction called “God,” which no serious scientists entertain, and surely not insofar as they are professional scientist but only on lazy Sundays. You will only find God mentioned in physics journals if you venture to the Islamic Republic of Iran, where you might encounter such articles as “Time and the Perspective of God”. (Perhaps that was one of the other modes of knowing/alternative sciences Paul originally meant to convince us are legitimate in the first reply?) To be unequivocal, when Rose states, “Once again discussing the Beginning, you must acknowledge that we have no answer. This leaves us with an issue: if science has no answer (yet, or possibly ever), to where do we turn?” I can only point out, But know respectable scientist would suggest God is the answer to the great whodunit. Go through the relevant science departments and ask who is willing to stake their reputation on such a baseless claim, on such pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die thinking.
Furthermore, it is important to consider historical analogies to demonstrate how embarrassingly bad Rose’s argument is. Surely some dogmatic fool must have held out that God exists because we are animated and thus have souls. This infantile silliness continued until the historically noteworthy case of Phineas Gage (confer your introductory psychology books, underclassmen) and a very basic understanding of consciousness developed (though it still has not progressed beyond the tip of the iceberg yet). And so the soul disappeared from all serious discussion among educated people, though it came as unimaginably devastating blow to established religion, and especially the Church of England. (Other famous examples can be recalled quickly if the reader cares to do any work for him- of herself.) Ultimately, in considering this example, Rose must admit that saying, “Well, you ain’t got the answer yet” is a disastrous response, and soon she may very well eat crow if the CERN particle collider can yield more evidence in support of M-Theory. That is, there is good reason to be optimistic about what scientific knowledge is just around the bend, i.e. imminent.
But maybe I should be charitable to Rose (and address her head on, as the above is enough to clue in the audience). Instead, Rose means to advocate agnostic fence-sitting. But, as with all things so tepid and spineless, there is an irrationality sitting at the heart of agnosticism. I believe that the eminently practical criterion alluded to in my article can help Rose out of her great philosophical confusion (and willful malfeasance?). Accordingly, I will now take on my interlocutor directly with the very same supremely rational tactic she praised as “flawless” and “exceptional.”
Let us be eminently practical. What, then, is atheism but pro-naturalism? It embraces the most basic reality of the natural world we see around us. This is the sort of stuff there is and these are the kinds of processes that go on. Sometimes we encounter amusing tricks, such as when a stick appears bent when inserted into a pool of water. But at the end of the day there is the natural world and us, the creatures in it. Religion, by contrast, is fundamentally committed to positing supernatural realms and the transcendent entities which inhabit them. But whence the justification for advancing the supernatural? Be pragmatic. Why either believe in the supernatural (theism) or hold out any real hope (agnosticism) that there really are such things?
I think Rose is actually intelligent (although she botched square one and misinterpreted my article as being about something which, as I have said (see the first paragraph of this reply), it is not). Thus I think she is grasping at something real—viz. the distinction between weak and strong atheism. Strong atheism is a term popularly used to describe atheists who claim the statement “There is at least one god” is false. Weak atheism refers to any other type of non-theism, by which a person does not believe nor entertain the possibility that any deities exist, but by which he does not claim that same statement is false. Though I think both are compatible with the eminently practical criterion, weak atheism may very well be the only tenable epistemological position, however, because it does not go so far as to make an outstanding claim as “It is false that there is at least one god.” After all, who has traversed the universe and turned over every stone looking for deities? I have not. To be sure, the task of decisively delimiting atheism and agnosticism is difficult because each of these words share a “family resemblance”; that is, we cannot readily expect to find a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for their distinctive use. But agnosticism lends some very basic credence to the idea that there is a god only because it cannot strictly—and on wrongheaded hyperbolic criterion—disprove that there is at least one god, for who has turned over every stone (and perhaps because the agnostic’s parents and insular community all said that it is so).
But there is linguistic trickery going on here: In its original conceptual form, the positing of gods is undoubtedly a positive assertion. Agnosticism plays silly games with itself by trying to see matters from the other—and wrongful—end of the periscope and rephrasing a necessarily positive claim about what there is really into a negative one. That is, agnosticism confusedly says “I must prove wrong (negation) the notion that there is at least one god.” That’s not true. The weak atheist recognizes that is a herculean task (to turn over all the stones) but still objects, “But I need not do that. That’s silly.” To be clear, adults with imaginary friends are silly until proven otherwise. Be eminently practical. Why lend the idea of the supernatural any credence? There is no rational reason. Claims about gods are positive claims, thus the onus, the burden of proof, is on those who propose them. Rose only has irrational childhood indoctrination to account for her countenancing such silliness.
To conclude, I did not make a judgment on weak v. strong atheism is my article, primarily because (and sorry for belaboring this again) my leading article had *nothing* to do with the matter of atheism at all (and accordingly, this entire post during finals week is my gift to any and all readers, by which I hope to help others out of their confusion). Any respectable theist could have written my article (admittedly minus the fun digs, asides and parentheticals). However, only either of the abovementioned varieties of atheism is a reasonable and defensible possibility. Agnosticism is, to abuse a quotation from Columbia’s own John Dewey, “indefensible and a timid halfway position, a concession and compromise unworthy of thought that is thoroughgoing. It is […] a view entertained from mere tendermindedness, as an emotional hangover from childhood indoctrination, or even […] a manifestation of a desire to avoid disapproval and curry favor,” perhaps with one’s dear religious mother (A Common Faith, p3).
I say, do disabuse yourselves of your indoctrination, Rose and all readers alike. What are you so afraid of?
Now, am I understood?
Another example of looking at things from the wrong end of the periscope: “The law of gravity has not failed me hitherto, but as I cannot disprove that it will at some point fail me I must entertain the possibility that it will.”
Flatly wrong. Be realistic and eminently practical.
When you can dance on your ceiling like in a bad Lionel Richie music video from the 80s, then call me, Rose?
Are you ready to swiftly dispose of another in the line up here?
Does one body of knowledge rule out the existence of another?
You know this already, but for the record:
Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge”) is a systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories.[1] As knowledge has increased, some methods have proved more reliable than others, and today the scientific method is the standard for science. It includes the use of careful observation, experiment, measurement, mathematics, and replication — to be considered a science, a body of knowledge must stand up to repeated testing by independent observers.
A scientific hypothesis is an educated guess; a scientific theory is a hypothesis, which has been confirmed by repeated observation and measurement. Scientific theories are usually given mathematical form, and are always subject to refutation if future experiments contradict them.
It is an ever on-going process like using a less precise instrument/machine to make a more precise instrument/machine and so on.
One of the most studied hot topics today is Global Warming. Proponents and objectors even in the strict scientific world disagree to polar (pardon my unpardonable pun please) opposites on interpretations of the “Scientific Findings”. Therefore, what do we really know? We know that only a few agree to disagree and that the rest would rather fight than switch, most likely because of personal and political opportunities. We do know that we have been coming out of an Ice Age for at least 10,000 years.
Many notable discoveries of knowledge apply under certain conditions and do not under others. Newtonian Physics applies very well here on our planet, other places in time and space not so well.
Even though you trust in your reasoning abilities in order to make such bold statements, why should we believe you? Can we interpret your discourse based upon the scientific method? A hypothesis is the beginning of the road to a theory.
hy•poth•e•sis
1. a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.
2. a proposition assumed as a premise in an argument.
3. the antecedent of a conditional proposition.
4. a mere assumption or guess.
Chaos evolves into order?
or
Greater order begats lesser order?
Why would anyone seek to know something they believe is not there?
You contradict yourself, so shall we throw the baby out with the bathwater?
A multicolored sunset . . . a scientific person rationally interprets it as the result of electromagnetic radiation refraction in an atmosphere composed of liquids and solid particles suspended in gases,
another time it brings tears to the same scientist’s eyes because of it’s incredibly beauty. What is your interpretation? Do not he laws of physics apply in both results? Can the scientific method be applied to feelings, intuition, senses beyond the five? Sorry Mr. Spoc, we are not all like you nor do we want to be. Science has yet to discover God and cannot because it is a matter of faith at this moment in time. That is why we have the words Faith, Hope, and Love. Put these to the scientific test if you will. They still exist regardless. Science has yet to discover many, many, and many more things. A creator of what we experience here is likely grander than it’s creation. Do you fathom what you know to exist? I believe (therefore I am) that you cannot see the forest for the trees. Your knowledge has puffed you up to where you proclaim that what you believe or don’t believe is the one true whatever . . . . are you some kind of a scientific extremist zealot. Your reality is relative to you. Can you tell me for sure what does not exist in the depths of the oceans? Can you tell me what does not exist in the far reaches of space? Can you tell me that there are not parallel universes that we cannot see? Can you use science to rule out the existence of something only because you cannot see, smell, touch, hear, or feel it? To proclaim the non-existence of a creative living power is rubbish and is solely based upon your own “SCIENTIFIC RELIGIOUS” convictions. You may not be alone but if supporting numbers are the criteria then you are at a loss. Sorry, but you have unwittingly revealed your faith.
Hello. I think your essay is interesting — though why are your responses to the comments so antogonistic?
But anyway, I just wanted to weigh in with a quote:
“Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth as far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet.”
— from the Feynman Lectures on Physics.
This needs to be a part of your epistemology of science: the only thing we know perfectly is that our knowledge is imperfect. “Science” as you call it in your essay is merely a set of approximate models, that seem to work in all situations we have heretofore examined. You mention to Rose something about dancing on the ceiling. Before Einstein, it would have seemed pretty outlandish to propose that Rose’s weight would change depending on how fast she was moving. And yet that is exactly what relativity states.
I’m with you — I’m an atheist and the arguments you mention anger me as well. But don’t fall into the trap of fighting fire with fire. Instead of countering the “how do you know” arguments by insisting “well, we do know, because of reasonable blah blah etc,” why don’t you counter with — “we don’t know, and that’s the whole point, the beauty of it?”
Science succeeds precisely because it makes theories bow to results. It cannot fail — it’s built into the system. But to avail yourself of that system and work within it, you have to abdicate the throne of professed absolute knowledge, and leave it empty. You can’t replace it with a less ostentatious, simpler chair of “more or less reliable knowledge”, which is what you seem to have done in your essay.