Can you empirically prove that science is a reliable means of understanding and analyzing truth?

Question

Athiests look for empirical truth, and say that they will never believe in God unless he can be empirically proven to be real. But how do you demonstrate that empirical evidence is a good way to understand truth WITHOUT being circular in your argument? How do you know that poetry, or impressionistic painting, or the Bible, or rythmic drumming is the best way to understand truth?

No one so far has demonstrated a that I should believe that empirical EVIDENCE (sorry, you braniacs, not PROOF) should be considered a valid method on understanding truth.

Please don't waste time trying to make assumptions about what I believe, what I am trying to prove, or where I get my beliefs from. The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that all knowledge is ultimately based on circular reasoning; but perhaps I'm wrong. So give me some evidence that empirical measurement and experimental reproduction should be considered a more valid method of discovering truth... even truth about the natural world, than poetry, the Bible, dance, or assumption.

But if you use empirical evidence, you're circular.

Answer 1

Empirical evidence cannot be trusted unless we are certain that the senses with which we collect empirical data - eyes, ears, nose, hands, etc. - are reliable. Plato explored this idea with the cave allegory: if we are all prisoners forced to stare at shadows, then we really shouldn't believe what we see.

I have no reason to doubt my senses, but I can't prove it. I am willing, however, to admit that there is most likely more to this existence than meets the eye - that there are mysteries the truth of which science cannot explain.

Two points: science is a legitimate means to arriving at truth, but there are other ways, as well. Extremists at both ends of the spectrum - those who hate science and those who rely on it completely - need to temper their views.

Answer 2

|"Empirical" is not the same as "objective". To be purely objective means stripping away all subjective influence, which literally leaves nothing, since all phenomena are mental. The relevant point is corroboration - can another person corroborate your finding. So empiricism is really a special form of rigorous intersubjective agreement based first on experience. The problem is that the nature of experience itself is not well understood, so the empirical science lacks understanding of it's own basis. Theentire feild of Consciosness Studies has emerged to deal with just this problem. So as for your question about "can we demonstrate (nothing can be proven but tautology) that empirical science is reliable?", the answer is "not yet." Ultimately every means of getting to absolute truth has been criticized and found lacking. But even a religious claim is generally based on experience and reasoning, so empiricism is what we are left with.

Answer 3

You might enjoy going to college. Barring that, the scientific method is not a way of "analyzing truth," or even really "understanding," but a way of "knowing" (from the Latin "scientia"). Because many people can reproduce the scientific method and all get the same results from the same experiment, it is a good way of knowing that certain things happen under certain circumstances (to be simplistic about it).

The scientific method would be a bad way to try and prove the "existence" of "God" because of the difficulty in defining either variable.

Response to additionial details: you haven't supplied any means of defining "truth," be it relative or absolute. How could anyone supply any empirical evidence for something you haven't adequately described?

A better question might be "what are the weaknesses of relying on empiricism and logic to describe truth?" If you rely on your own experience of truth, you remain an empiricist, and so I can see why you think your argument (with yourself) would be circular.

Answer 4

Nothing is ever proven absolutely. Only simple minds believe in absolutes, and Religion deals in that. I doubt that I could prove anything to you, for your mind is made up before you hear any evidence. If you cannot comprehend Logic and Scientific Method, there are preachers galore who will tell you wild tales that cannot be proven by such mature methods, and they will be more than happy to take your money in regular offerings, special offerings and building funds. Science and Logic prove their value in discovering real knowledge, but one must have a good brain to use them and comprehend what they discover. Religion deals in pretenses of knowledge. If zealots don't know but feel a need to know, rather than working hard at studying and thinking, they just say, "God did it". That is no answer at all. The existence of gods (yes gods) cannot be proven, whether one means Yahweh the Hebrew god, Brahma the Hindu creator, Tien Ti the Chinese Emperor of Heaven, Allah the Moslem god, etc., etc. ad nauseum. Indeed there is no evidence for their existence...and much evidence against. Science has proven its value,but religion never can. You are just playing silly games in a feeble attempt to supportyour preconceptions. It won't work with superior people.

Answer 5

Godel's incompleteness theorum states that for any system of facts, some can be determined from others, but some cannot be proven from that set. This means that in any logically consistent group of facts, some can be proven, and some must be accepted axiomically.

For example, the statement, "Given a line and a point not on that line, there is one line through that point parallel to the given line" is unprovable. The reason is that it, like the other axioms of euclidean geometry, are valid for euclidean, BUT, all the other axioms of euclidean geometry hold true for hyperbolic geometry EXCEPT that axiom. This means that the statement is in essence unprovable in euclidean geometry -- it is itself a simplest form axiom -- a fundamental axiom.

When testing fundamental axioms, one cannot use proof, not a scientist, not a christian muslim jew bahai scientologist fsm'er, etc. The only decent way of judging fundamental axioms in my opinion is occam's razor -- the simplest explaination is usually right.

Big Bang vs. Creationism: I can believe the universe just started, and its start has something to do with mathematically determinate rules, or, I have to create this whole God thing. Winner via Occam: Big Bang.

Evolution vs. Creationism: All the evidence points to evolution. It is possible though that god created everything in six days (seven according to the second creation myth in Genesis, and rested on the 8th day -- funny, that the very first book in the bible has such a glaring contradiction), and laid fossils and stars and everything else out in such a way to APPEAR that they are billions of years old. Winner via occam: Evolution.

In short, occam's razor never favors the supernatural explaination until all else has been disproven.

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And anyone who claims that atheists really believe in god but just hate him... isn't right in the head. Atheism, by its very definition, is a belief in the non-existence of god. Anyone who believes in such a great and loving and all powerful being would logically come to love such a being -- I know I would. The only problem is, he doesn't exist. For me to hate him, he'd have to exist. I don't believe he exists, so I don't hate him. I just don't believe a god exists.

Answer 6

This is a silly question, even ignoring the mistaken reference to proof (science is about finding evidence, not proof: proof is for math and logic. I would believe in god if there were evidence for god. I don't insist on proof).

Science has demonstrated its power to tell what is true. Yes, we use empirical evidence to support the claim that using empirical evidence shows us what is and is not true, and in some sense that's circular.

BUT...if you intend to complain about that circularity and doubt the power of empirical evidence, you must be prepared to deal with the consequences of that decision. You can't say "I don't trust empirical evidence" and then turn around and rely on empirical evidence for your own assertions. Either you accept that it works - and therefore that science is spectacularly successful - or you deny that looking at the world is a way to understand the world, and reject that method entirely.

If you reject the power of looking, of empirical evidence, you reduce truth to mere persuasion and power: you adopt a "might makes right" position, at least if you ever expect anyone else to act in ways consistent with your understanding of the world. In my book, that's simply unethical and completely incompatible with democracy (as John Rawls so eloquently pointed out).

You also are going to look like a complete nut, and if you really act on your conviction, you're going to be dead pretty quickly. I don't believe for a moment that you'd take that route - you know as well as the rest of us do that looking is the best way to see, and there's no way in the world that you're really going to reject it when the chips are down.

It's said that there are no atheists in foxholes, but in fact in life or death situations it's those who claim to reject science who suddenly abandon their convictions, well aware that empirical science IS the best way to understand the world. When that shell is coming at you, those who put on their helmuts and duck are the ones who survive. Those who said their prayers the night before either put on their helmuts or die, and the prayer does nothing.

Answer 7

The problem here is that the whole question relies on some given, inherent "Truth." Humans are social beings, and truth is a social construction. Therefore, there is not just one "Truth" but lots of them. It does us no good at all to try to find a "Truth" that isn't there; we should try to figure out what is useful for society instead. Poetry can be more true than science in certain circumstances, and vice versa. Our society has tended to be pretty scientific and technological, so we tend to put science on a pedestal, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.

Answer 8

What you are asking is in itself nonsensical.

You did not define what "truth" is. All that you are asking is how can truth be best perceived. Science doesn't bestow truthfulness. It tests truthfulness. So you need to have a phenomena and then you can use SCIENCE to test it's truth claims. MATH is not science, but can also test truthfulness. ART does not test truthfulness, it tries to depict it in some way allowing the viewer to perceive it. The same with drums and so forth.

The Bible, has nothing to do with Science. It is not a scientific book. It tells us our origins, the account of a bloodline, the fall of the bloodline and the finished work of Christ, redeeming all men. But it doesn't mention quantum theory.

“He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” Acts ch. 17 v.26-27

Answer 9

Truth is not a Unique individual -- it is Everything that Exists. There is no amount of other words or science that could tell the absolute nature of Truth because its size and quantity is so immense. Its closest relatives are Description, Speculation, Theory, Perception. Its neighbors are Allegation, Rumor, Gossip, Faith, Imagination, Dream, and Literatures. But even its relatives and neighbors, being Existing, is part of the Truth.

Answer 10

specific faith is fiction, and a fairy tale, jointly as technological know-how is data, notwithstanding if it is misguided, it accepts and provides the recent looking. yet faith does not exchange as a results of fact it became into god written. on the instant all that god wrote is truning out to be incorrect, like Adam and Eve. technological know-how has mapped the whole gene pool and this rejects Adam and Eve, Why did god lie??? i do no longer bridge the hollow, i purely crossed the hollow to the different component and survive reason and information, there is not any conflict, no ambilalence, or contradiction. life is captivating, while you're asking approximately my values, then i'd say that we dont desire faith to instruct us ethical values, as human beings we've the capability to reason, examine our thoughts and do issues to the component that it does not harm others. If we set our limits for this reason some distance all of us comprehend we are doing stable.