With apologies to Wellington Grey, here’s a comparison of how to evaluate ideas using science versus religion.
Click the image to enlarge in a new window.
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25 March 2007 at 3:40 am
I think you’ve just about summarised your blog in a flowchart. That is seriously elegant. But nothing beats the panflute flowchart.
25 March 2007 at 4:37 am
So, reading all these blog entries you make about “science vs religion”, I’ve had a couple of thoughts.
1. I don’t actually know very many Christians. I was brought up atheist, and these days lean more towards agnostic, and always used to think that this was how everyone else must have been too. Studying philosophy and physical science tends to result in meeting people who are either never religious, or lapsed at an early age.
2. Even a scientist needs a certain amount of faith. The belief in basic things like, say, that there’s an external world and our senses tell us something useful about it can’t tested in any scientific sense, but your flowchart tells me “it would be unwise to do anything serious with it” … For me, at least, the flowchart for believing such ideas looks remarkably like the religion one 😉
3. Can’t we all just get along?
25 March 2007 at 7:36 am
Hi, cameron patrick.
I’d like to challenge your point 2. I like how you mention the idea that there’s an external world out there that we’re only able to discern a teeny part of. But to say that we need faith to accept the observations we make about it is quite incorrect.
I don’t have to rely on faith that there’s a table that I’m sitting at; I can call in other people who can make the exact same observation: yep, there’s a table. For faith-based ideas, however, there’s no way to evaluate, which is why equally people come to such widely differing conclusions.
As a scientist, when I read an article, I have a belief that the author actually did the experiments and isn’t just making it up. But this isn’t faith in the same way as believing that Mary was a virgin or Mohammed rode a magical horse to heaven. Given time and inclination, I can replicate the scientific experiment myself. Not so for the others.
25 March 2007 at 7:26 pm
I love the panflute flowchart!
the problem with Daniel’s flowchart for me is the ‘it would be unwise to do anything serious with it.’ There are many ideas outside both science and religion which cannot be tested scientifically but with which it could be quite good to do something serious. Philosophical ideas about abstracts like justice, freedom etc. as well as ideas that inspire the arts might be an example.
26 March 2007 at 9:15 am
Good point, snow queen. I spent a good deal of time looking at that bubble and wondering what to do with it. At first I had written “Bad idea” but rejected that because I was thinking along your lines. Still, you have to be very very careful about believing ideas that you can’t test.
I wanted to say, “Be careful about accepting such an idea, and it’s best not to, but some ideas like that can be useful, so go for it if you feel you must, but it’s not smart to get too committed to such ideas, and you should be prepared to update it or dump it if it contradicts observable reality.” But I didn’t have the room.
I think the current wording is what I want to say. Theories you can’t test or falsify are not good solid theories. Maybe they’re the best we can do for now, but don’t fight and die for them, or anything serious like that.
I like the ‘flute chart.
26 March 2007 at 10:44 pm
Would you fight or die for science?
27 March 2007 at 4:23 am
Nihilism is remarkably hard to fight with any complaint other than “it’s a stupid idea and I refuse to believe it” or SCIENCE: IT WORKS, BITCHES.
“I don’t have to rely on faith that there’s a table that I’m sitting at; I can call in other people who can make the exact same observation” – that only demonstrates that you think there are other people sitting at the table; and that the noises you think they are making are signifying that they also believe that there’s a table there.
“Given time and inclination, I can replicate the scientific experiment myself.” – but (a) generally you don’t, and people have got away with a lot of crap science in the past because of this; and (b) you’re still assuming that there’re nice predictable laws of physics that are invariant over change in time and position in space.
Anyway, I’m going to stop playing devil’s advocate now since it’s boring and I don’t actually believe any of these positions myself. 🙂
27 March 2007 at 5:05 am
Would you fight or die for science?
I’m trying to think of a situation where that would be required.
While I’m thinking, I’ll just mention that if something did a better job than science, I’d dump science and use that.
27 March 2007 at 8:54 am
Assuming that some things simply can’t be subject to experimentation, how do you assess them? The ‘Religion’ stream is maybe a bit too floaty and sarcastic for that. Also, I wouldn’t bother changing “bad idea” to “be careful […]” Generally the ideas that fall into that category, you can’t be half-assed about. I know what you mean about needing to ditch beliefs if disconfirming evidence comes up, but like with religion, for example, you just can not include that clause in your belief. “God, I’ll believe in you until I find out you don’t exist, okay?” It doesn’t work very well.
27 March 2007 at 7:13 pm
My personal fav is the looping “pray again” logic. That one used to drive me nuts. If you don’t beleive then your not doing it right, so go back and try until you feel about it the way we want you to feel. And Daniel, if you don’t think thats brainwashing I want to know what is?
The belief in basic things like, say, that there’s an external world and our senses tell us something useful about it can’t tested in any scientific sense
Well there is a test (a logical step) that can be taken here. Assume that nothing does exist as a starting point and see where that gets you Vs. Assume God doesn’t exist and see where that gets you. If you assume the first point you will starve to death (unless you gain enlightenment first-joke for Snowqueem) but if you assume the second position nothing changes in the world around you. (except you get flamed by a lot of wackos on your blog)
2 April 2007 at 11:30 pm
Dan have you come across this:
here
2 April 2007 at 11:32 pm
oops – sorry I meant Daniel!
3 April 2007 at 4:30 pm
I did save a copy of the Mass Science Convergence chart; I’ve been meaning to take it into Photoshop and browse around. Maybe even find the tiny piece of the universe where my life’s work resides.
I liked the author’s take on it too.