Thwere's no way to tell that Science is superior to instinct. Reason: Science works with induction e.g "If I let loose of a tennisball for 50 times, it falls on the ground...so it's pretty safe to say that gravity is true"

But how do I know that this method of gaining knowledge is inevitably true? "Because it has worked in the past! I've tried this scientific experiment for 50 times and it worked out everytime!"

So you're basically using induction to legitimize induction. That's circular reasoning and therefore not conclusive.

Science can surely provide a nice and stable framework to live in, but I find it ridiciolous how these hardcore atheists are always trying to prove their religion of science. I mean, it's a good thing to get people to think...but even the beginning of this video is flawed:

Science is NOT to consider every idea..it's to consider ideas which could fit the scientific mind model. Thats a HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! difference!!!

Nobody knows for sure wether induction or even logic is for real or just some cultural construct. We can argue as much as we want: It all boils down to personal belief..and I see no reason why science is superior to belief in ghosts. There are TONS of cultures out there, who have lived for thousands of years happily with these beliefs. They were holding their Universe together...just like science does for us..

We all have these background assumptions we never question that were planted at the time of the greek philosophers..but we also have survials of pagan roots in our culture so it's merely a matter of competing world views and I refuse to play that game. It's silly.

WOW, said extremely well obliguhl. It funny and kind of ironic you posted this because I was going to post something spot on today but I happened to sift through these threads and found this.

I agree totally though, just as the paragraph in my sig says:

What lies outside the realm of science? Or logical rational thought? Obviously some things will but that doesn't defeat the purpose of this guys argument in the least.



This is not a good argument. Science isn't just about repeating experiments but about finding the mechanisms which explain the result you get. Gravity is the explanation behind why the earth orbits the sun and why we fall to the ground. We can measure the strength of gravity and predict how it will work. Theory and experiment match. Thats how science works so therefore it is conclusive. If science wasn't conclusive it would not have accomplished all that it has. There are millions of examples.



I think most atheists are motivated to point out the absurdity in most peoples religious beliefs. Its like if some 30 year old came up to me saying he believed in santa claus. I would probably want to explain to that person why they are wrong.



Yes but many of the those beliefs turned out to be wrong. Personal beliefs can be wrong.



This is another ill founded idea. We question things all the time. Where do you get the idea that all western belief is based around greek philosophy? Science has trumped many of these old philosophies and yes also used them. This argument holds no water.

Its not silly either. There is a world filled with un-informed people brainwashing another group of people who can't think. This is a serious problem.



Well there are not two sides to every issue. Just because you experience what you think is psychic phenomenon does not mean that's what you experienced. Simply saying that well one view has some points and the other view has some points so I won't believe either or just believe whatever I want doesn't say anything about whats true and whats not.

The video is pretty good. I consider myself scientific... but many so-called scientific people HAVE said things to me like 'ghosts do not exist', so they too are closed-minded according to this video's own definition! For the benefit of such people:

The scientific method is not perfect, it's just the best we have to work with. I find atheist humanists to be as closed-minded as the religious. Many of them believe scientific theory to be true, so they are just as guilty of blind faith, even if their reasoning is more coherent. One can only say that a scientific theory is the best model we have to date... not that it's 'truth'. Scientific knowledge is always provisional.

Nietzche warned that science is the new religion. On the delusion of truth, he also said that logic relies on the dominant tendency to treat as equal what is merely similar, and nothing is really equal. 'What are man's truths ultimately? Merely his irrefutable errors.'

Thomas Kuhn exposed the naively progressive view of science. He found that one particular theory or paradigm is always taken for granted as the right way to examine the world. A paradigm accumulates unsolved 'puzzles' which cause the particular belief system to collapse. Science actually 'progresses' through sudden revolutionary changes as one paradigm is replaced by another. Scientific belief isn't that much different from religious belief: new science gets accepted not because of the persuasive force of striking new evidence, but because old scientists die off and young ones replace them.

Of course, I'd rather have a scientist in the whitehouse than a religious zealot who talks about god all the time (still waiting for this to happen!).

I have to say the last point about not letting your mind fill up with rubbish should be heeded, the new-age world is unfortunately full of it! At least, with the definition of rubbish being ideas presented as true without evidence or with falsified or erroneous evidence... pseudoscience being the sneakiest one to watch out for.

Science isn't about believing. Its about discovering. That's why science and religion are not on the same level. They cannot be compared this way.

Science isn't meant to be about believing. The reality can be different.

^^True. But lets take the issue of god. Not all atheists don't believe in god because of blind faith to science. No they don't believe in god because there is no evidence for a personal god anywhere.

Oo I thought of a better example. Lets look at global warming. There are tons of people who either believe in global warming or don't believe in global warming. Both claim to have scientific evidence on their side. So this is a good example of science encouraging beliefs. The problem is when scientists try to prove that their belief is correct and not simply figure out what IS correct.

The problem is that some unproven scientific theories are taken as fact by many scientists and so they become just as filled with beliefs as religious people. For example, the “BIG BANG THEORY”. What a truck load of nonsense that one is, and yet many “intelligent” so called scientists believe it to be true without even going back in time to see if it is actually true or not. It’s completely based on mathematical projections into the past based on what we currently see in the universe. What a bunch of nonsense.

You can never know how the universe was created because YOU WEREN’T THERE TO SEE IT. Any scientist fool enough to believe such nonsense is NOT a true scientist.

In my time I’ve run across many scientists who fail to grasp that believing in an unproven theory is the same as believing in God. There is no proof of either.

I strongly believe in God because of personal experiences I’ve had with God. But as a scientist I know I cannot give any evidence of God’s existence to you so I will never tell you that God exists. I will tell you that I BELIEVE God exists and never tell you it’s a fact. Its nonsense to tell you that I know God exists for a fact, because there is no proof.

I hate so called scientists that accept a bunch of unproven theories as facts, many of which eventually turn out to be wrong. It’s stupid. They make science look bad. That is not what science is about. Unproven scientific theories are not facts and should not be viewed as facts.

Before I became a scienist, when I was sitting meditztion in my cave, back in 1986, I rejected science too. I saw it as a limitation and an intellectual copout. But then I had a revelation that...I WANTED to do science, and had been forcing myself to reject what I really wanted to do. So I went to school, finished my degree in genetics (that I had abandoned unfinished in 1973), and then earned a PhD in molecular and cell biology (and went to med school in my early forties, too!--what a glutton for punishment).

Through that experience I did come to admit that science is really the only OBJECTIVELY PRODUCTIVE THING humans have ever done. Science works! So far it's the only thing that has allowed us to discover truths that we didn't previously know, and DEMONSTRATE those truths by communicating and applying them. A practice that can be a continuous engine for discovering transferable truth is not something to casually dismiss. Let's not forget, the first Amazonians who discovered the effects of ayahuasca were SCIENTISTS--they were applying scientific principles and experimentation to elucidate uses for local plants. Certainly, it's only modern science which has allowed for the extraction methods we now all use to attain relatively pure DMT.

All of which does NOT mean that there's necessarily no other way to discover truths--or that there are truths that may not be well-suited for science to discover. One problem with those other truths, however, is that they can apparently never be objectively confirmed (if they could, they would be translatable into science, i.e., they would then BE science).

Still, just because we know science works is no reason to DROP any and all other attempts to find truths. Someone who doesn't allow for MULTIPLE ways of discovering truth is artificially forcing boundaries on himself--no doubt for psychological/personal reasons rather than epistemological ones.

PS: I ultimately discovered that my "revelation" about personally doing science was what the Japanese Buddhists refer to as a "makyo," not a revelation but a sort of purging/venting of a psychological knot. It was true that I had an interest in science and falsely tried to quell it...but science was not the complete and finished goal for me. I suppose I could say that instead, it was my personal revelation about not artificially constricting myself...

Ideally, scientists don't "believe" things, and scientists don't declare things "true." Scientists "confirm" hypotheses by testing predictions; and they seek to develop the most "robust" theories--ones that fit as yet undiscovered data.

I'm not a physicist, but I've met many VERY CAREFUL physicists. I'm confident that the "big bang hypothesis" is currently accepted to BEST fit the current data and observations available....that's all that science can do. When you dismiss it I'm betting that you personally don't even have a good handle on the data themselves (I say that not to disparage you, but because that sort of data is HIGHLY complex and specialized).

Lot's of people dismiss parts of science that they don't like--without ever realizing HOW MUCH DEDICATED AND SINCERE WORK IS INVOLVED in developing that science. As a biologist, I see that kind of uninformed dismissal all the time regarding evolution...

There is a difference between the big bang and the idea of god. There is evidence for a big bang. The cosmic microwave back round radiation is literally radiation left over from an earlier smaller denser universe. Looking at the stars and radiation in space IS looking into the past. There is also the redshifting of stars in space that shows the universe. These are two very powerful pieces of information. The picture the cosmic microwave picture paints of the earlier universe matches mathematical prediction. Now with the LHC scientists will begin to test the conditions of the early universe to see if our predictions about what it was like when the universe was very hot and very small are correct. You are right we can never go into the past but we can look into the past various ways. We also can look forward to the future of our species and preservation of this knowledge so that in a few millions years we will see if more of our predictions are correct and perhaps travel to the stars ourselves or whatever form we evolve into. Personally I think the big bang will be refined and we will see there may be more going on then what we so far have evidence for.

Now where is the evidence for a diving creator in the workings of the universe? Besides personal anecdotal evidence. There isn't any so that's why I don't consider such questions scientific. But for example something about ghosts we can one day prove and disprove. I think there is a lot of evidence pointing out that ghosts are just hallucinations and tricks of our mind. This could be framed as a scientific question.

I 100% agree about how scientists try to turn ideas into beliefs though and I don't think thats the role or intent but it certainly happens.

The "BIG BANG THEORY" is nothing more than a theory. Once a scientist starts believing things like that are true and doesn't separate that from fact, they are fallen scientists. This is what turns many intelligent people away from science.

I very well understand the “BIG BANG THEORY” and have argued about this with many scientists and I start getting the idea that many scientists very badly what this to be true and are willing to stop being scientists in order to accept it as a fact.

If you cannot see that it is completely impossible to prove how the universe came into existence, you are not a true a scientist.

You cannot prove how the universe came into existence because you were not there. All you can do is gather data based on what we currently see, that’s it.

The "BIG BANG THEORY" is such a load of nonsense that it requires changing the laws of physics to believe in it.

I think this single theory has made a lot of people lose complete interest in science and turn to religion. There is absolutely no proof of it. It’s completely based on mathematical projections based on our current understanding of the universe and that’s all.

For me the "BIG BANG THEORY" is so utterly ridiculous that its laughable and I fail to see how many so called scientists are willing to fall for this crap. Study something of value. Attempting to find the origins of the universe is completely impossible. Completely. It cannot be done. Period. Unless you can go back in time to see it or create a new universe based on your theories, then all it is is a theory, nothing more.

^^You are probably right that there may be a point where we have to say we give up because we can't find any evidence from any further into the past. But you are dismissing two very major pieces of evidence that backs a smaller denser hotter universe in the past. We have not reached the give up point yet. You are also dismissing efforts to refine or further understand this theory in order to make a better theory. That's the point of science to see if its correct or not. Evidence from the LHC may help further our understanding of the early universe. It may prove we are way off track or it may give more evidence.

Also there are satillites being built to look for gravitational waves which may suggest that there were events "before" the big bang. We may one day learn that our universe evolved too.

You will never understand it completely. It's impossible. Because you cannot go back into time to witness the creation of the universe, or make a new one based on your theories, you will never know if its just a theory or not. Never. It's as impossible as proving God exists.

Science has NOTHING to offer OTHER than "theory." Theory is the culmination of the scientific process.

One can make what they will of current "theories." All the "accepted ones" represent--and can EVER represent--is the current consensus on the "best explanation" that explains the data. Those with "better" theories are encouraged to submit their articles for publication--in the hopes of gaining a consensus on the new and better theory. Everyone wants an even better theory...

Your wrong that we can't figure out more but you are probably right that we can't figure out everything.

No theory is ever expected to be known as "true." It's only expected to be the best one currently available to fit the data.

Many people would have expected Newton's theories of motion and gravity to be "true"--they seemed to work PERFECTLY...until the new Michaelson-Morley data came in...

New data can overturn ANY theory. Since it can never be claimed that there can be no new data, it can never be claimed that science has an inviolable "truth" to offer.

Guys like you are my inspiration, really.

I'm 26 now, wanted to be a marine biologist when I was 6, quit school when I was 16, going down the drain as a figure of speech, only to find out a couple of years ago I did myself one of the biggest injustices I encountered in my young life.

Just got my high school degree, and am planning on taking on engineering, maybe a master in astronomy and gaze at the skies for the rest of my life (one must dream big in order to accomplish at least moderate succes).

This is maybe of topic, but I wanted to give you a big shout out. Guys like you are my heroes.

Thanks Pebble. But I'm not so sure "hero workship" is justified. For me, science became something that can be "fun and interesting," but which lacks answers of the type I'm personally seeking. I'm happy for what I've learned in my studies--but I sometimes think I could have spent my time better. If I could go back in time I surely would have taken a different path...

The absolute best thing about it, for me, was meeting smart people. I did my academic work at the absolute pinnacle of the American University Establishment (hehe). I met people who were smarter that I ever thought people could BE! I would say THAT was the real learning experience--but I also learned that they had no greater access than any of us to the kinds of personal "truths" that are really most important to our lives...