Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bill on October 22, 2010 at 10:59pm

They don't have nearly as much fake science in Europe! But in France they might say "If wishes were horses, we'd be eating steak!"

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Permalink Reply by T A A on October 24, 2010 at 6:14pm

As long as atheists "believe" in science instead of "understanding" the scientific process and some science is just plain bad science, even "rational" atheists will be guilty of such behavior!

Some days I hope atheism does not grow too quikly, anytime a way of thinking grows in popularity too fast, that idea becomes so diluted as to mean near to nothing. I already see this happening to atheism, with believers just "flopping over" like people who change the party they vote for every time they go to the polls.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Jon Axl on October 26, 2010 at 11:30am

I agree with this statement and i quit often tell people to be cautious in blindly believing in science and thinking their way is the only way. When we do that we become no better than the religions we don't believe in.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Jon Axl on October 26, 2010 at 5:22pm

I am capable of understanding my doctor as is anyone with half a brain. medical science is learned from books, at least 70% of it is. the rest is learned in the field. the same goes for science. there isn't much about science that i can not understand. I can always do the research and run some test myself. I am certainly not just gonna seat around and let people figure it out for me and take their word for it.

"to be cautious in blindly believing in science "

Kinda almost took what i wrote out of context there.

You know scientist and doctors make huge mistakes all the time. Nobody is perfect and no one has all the answers. I just dont want people to BLINDLY follow anything. You can agree with science and trust scientist to make sound theories and not alter their findings, sadly that happens a great deal. But please do not have faith in science or believe in it like a religion or something. A great deal of atheist do this and it is regularly disused in atheist circles.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on October 27, 2010 at 1:42am

The example of health care is a perfect example of the imperfections of science. Visiting different doctors for a similar ailment will get you wildly different results. Visiting physical therapists for a herniated disc will result in conflicting suggestions to a healing path. I expect half the time health care professionals are just guessing at best course of action since so many human ailments are simply not understood by science yet. Our doctors are sometimes no better than quacks.

I feel for atheists who must put 'faith' in technocrats and medicine because I do not do 'faith' or 'belief'. After so many years spent in college and university in science, I know my brain well enough, I can take raw data and make sense of it. I can look at a statistical analysis and see the flaws. There is a lot of flawed science and if people don't have knowledge of statistics and biological/chemical mechanisms, then 'faith' is all they have. And to me that is just as bad as being religious.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on October 27, 2010 at 4:00am

It eventually self corrects, yes, over the course of years and years and years, law of averages.

You did not in truth address the issue of people with limited knowledge of science/stats, they are looking at science with the same faitful eyes as they did with religion, looking to science to solve all problems. Science has no purpose, it is only a method by which researchers investigate processes. And most scientists are not altruists, they research for their own curiosity, so people expecting science to solve all of humanity's problems simply do not understand scientific motivation.

People without scientific understanding cannot distinguish between bad science and good, so they end up actually enabling bad science by giving it a market of dupes.

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Permalink Reply by Pope OoO (Out of Order) on October 27, 2010 at 4:04am

People without scientific understanding cannot distinguish between bad science and good, so they end up actually enabling bad science by giving it a market of dupes.


Very well put!

Permalink Reply by T A A on October 27, 2010 at 3:35pm

@michel

...should be dropped... markets...

The market is probably the strongest force in our present Western lives, the goal of profiteering is the one of the most absolute values we can find in our society, so yes, the market is very strong factor in NOT dropping hypotheses that should be, and doing scientific research with small samples and non independant samples and non-controls, there is tons of scientific research every day done this way, the reason is usually markets... greed. Indeed scientific research is not immune to greed, it is permeated by it.

Permalink Reply by Pope OoO (Out of Order) on October 27, 2010 at 3:35am

I expect half the time health care professionals are just guessing at best course of action since so many human ailments are simply not understood by science yet. Our doctors are sometimes no better than quacks.

Hmm, interesting statistic!

Just teasing about "statistics", since they're only as accurate as the science that produces them, right? But more to the point, it's going to be pretty tough to top all the flaws in creation "science". I mean, that's fricken intentionally misleading, most of the time. Statistically speaking.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on October 27, 2010 at 4:05am

As you get older and your body ages and develops ailments, you will realise how often doctors and physiotherapists contradict each other ! :)

Medical and nutritional sciences are among the least "exact" sciences. Ahead of psychotherapy for sure! but the human body is still very very misunderstood. There was a very good report on CBC last night regarding how so much medical research is done in situations of conflict of interest. Conflict of interest usually causes bad science.

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Permalink Reply by Pope OoO (Out of Order) on October 28, 2010 at 12:41am

I wish I knew more statistics on success vs fail, especially in medical sciences. Anecdotal evidence and opinions from others considered to be "experts" are probably what most people depend on when making medical decisions. So not all decisions are as well informed as we like.

I didn't feel a strong need to add this reply to you, but I just (coincidentally) read a powerful anecdote from another TA discussion, that seems to fit here. This is not "pretend science".

Permalink Reply by Michael Jon Axl on October 27, 2010 at 5:34pm

"My point was that the trust I give is earned by that research and that learning. It's not faith nor is it belief when you understand (even partially) how the knowledge is built. It's not because I "believe" in science that I disbelieve in anything supernatural."

I have read a lot of post on here, yours included. Most atheist do rely heavily on science to argue a point. Once we have discovered that religion isn't what it claims to be, many of us turn to science for the answers. But, science isn't a institute for explaining everything. One of the largest problems i have with science is that there are so many opposing theories, in medicine, psychology, physics, and so on. Each scientist presents their findings and it is up to us to believe in it, or study the findings to the best of our ability. I wish more people did this but all to often you can see that people just blindly follow science the same way as religion.

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