With science ever evolving.....?

Question

Science is ever changing, discovering recently some things that have always thought to be true, such as recently discovering their were flying creatures long before birds, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061213/ap_on_sc/gliding_mammal
and the recent idea it was not many meterorites that killed the dinosaurs, but could have been just one.....

How can anything be given an absolute? Knowing that science is, and will continue to discover new and vast things that have yet been not discovered, to prove or disprove what is so far considered truth, how is a basis of belief in science ANY different than a belief in religion, when neither one can be completley proven?

I agree science does not claim to be absolute, but many who believe in evolution claim it to be fact? Can it be fact when it cannot be yet absolute?

Answer 1

You are way over their heads with that one.

Answer 2

Science is a collection of knowledge forged with the scientific method, which requires observation and experimentation. Science is a way of organizing information and rating the truthfulness of that information. There is a reason an idea might be called a hypothesis versus a theory versus a fact.

The bottom line is that science changes it's ideas based on new evidence, and not on the whims of preachers or popular opinion or anything else. This is compared with religious people who typically believe in one book that they hold to be always true without any reason or corroborating evidence. Ultimately, scientific knowledge is verifiable, while religious beliefs are not.

Evolution is both a theory and a fact. The problem is that you are in the midst of a political war where you are being given mental frames to view the issue that distort the truth. Micro-evolution is an observed fact. Macro-evolution remains a theory as the exact mechanisms that drive evolution across species are not yet understood. However, there is so much evidence for macro-evolution that it is not a debated topic within the scientific community. The entire controversy has been started and perpetuated by religious people who feel their beliefs are being threatened by the science of evolution. They have been proven wrong countless times for decades, and yet they continue to spread the same ignorant 'arguments' (such as evolution and the second law of thermodynamics), rabble rousing youth who haven't been educated on the subject yet.

It's funny how no one opposes other scientific theories, such as gravity, heliocentrism, tectonic drift, etc...

Answer 3

Basically, science is the study of the physical world. What changes or is disproved are theories after the study of more observation and facts. Once a theory is proven to be true it becomes a law. What makes a law constant is when you conduct an experiment and get the same results every time. For example, you pick up a rock, release it from your hand, and it falls to the ground every time.

As far as religion is concerned, I am not sure if you are talking about specific religion or all, but religion deals primarily with spirituality. Science is only the study of the "physical" world. There are no tools to scientifically measure good, evil, love, hate, happiness, anger, sadness, greed, lust, joy, hope, and faithfulness but we do know these aspects of spirituality exists because we all have experienced these.

Answer 4

Facts don't change. New facts are added. The bird fossils did not disappear. The fact that a "flying" (actually gliding) squirrel predated birds does not poof birds out of existence. The K-T boundary is marked by iridium rich soil, worldwide. The indicates meteoric activity -- many or one, and finding the crater ended the speculation. Evolution has been proven in experiment after experiment. The fossil record isn't complete, but as you've seen, new data is being added.

Science cannot completely prove anything, but it is the meticulous process of examining vast evidence. Gravity still isn't proven, but we made it to the Moon. Religion is virtually devoid of evidence and cannot be proven at all.

Answer 5

Boy have you missed the point of science...

Science isn't about *belief* -- it's about a rational and logical evalutation of the evidence at hand. We reach conclusions based on the evidence we have, and always leave open the ability to get more knowledge and evidence later on that can help us reach even better conclusions.

Compare that to religion, where supposedly all "truth" was "revealed" thousands of years ago to ignorant sheep-herders who knew nothing of how things really work, and whose entire world was a few hundred square miles. Religion denies that there can ever be "new information" that will modify their beliefs (and those ARE beliefs, because they're based on superstition and myth, not on evidence). That closed mindset keeps them from ever progressing. Case in point: the nuts who go around claiming the world is 6,000 years old "because the bible says so" -- yet over the past 300 years, there has been amassed hundreds of thousands of pieces of testable, verifiable evidence that proves that concept wrong...they can never admit they're wrong because the whole foundation of their beliefs would crumble.

Oh, and finally: scientists have known there were flying creatures before birds for over 150 years. And they've been pretty sure (but were looking for more evidence) that one large impact killed off the dinosaurs for 50 years. Neither of those are new, but there *has* been new evidence found to help confirm them. Isn't that wonderful? :)

Answer 6

Science can make new discoveries that make former beliefs obsolete and they will admit it. Religion can't admit to being wrong even when it's proven. Since the Bible was written we have learned that 2 of every species of living things on this planet weighs over 50 million tons. Noah would have needed an Arc a mile long. But religions tell the followers that they must believe that it's the word of God. Gullible believers fall for it and open up their wallets.

Answer 7

What's so important about things being "absolute"?

The big difference between the two is that science isn't stuck in that "completely proven" rut, which is exactly what keeps religion from pursuing the truth. The fact that science values changing your mind in light of newly discovered facts, it will always be more honest than religion, which values rejecting facts if they challenge religious tenets.

If you insist on being certain, you are almost certain to wind up wrong.

Later: Claiming that something is a fact does not depend on believing that it is "completely proven". Evolution is a fact. Is it possible that we'll turn out to be wrong about that? Sure. But that doesn't make it any less a fact, and to deny evolution is simply to be dishonest.

Would you deny that there is salt in seawater? I say it's a fact that there is salt in seawater, yet that has not been "completely proven", and it's possible that we'll turn out to be wrong about that. It's just plain dishonest to deny the truth just because one insists on "absolute proof". Proof is simply unimportant to our understanding of the world: the better question is "What does the best evidence tell us?".

The insistence on ignoring the best evidence is how the absolutist moron George Bush screwed up in Iraq. Changing one's mind in response to new evidence is a good thing, not a bad thing. Religion gets this wrong, science gets it right.

Answer 8

you ought to do not ignore that there became a time that christianity governed the international. It became referred to as "The darkish a at the same time as." Chrsitianity fought clinical progression, protecting europe in the darkish a at the same time as. The Pope Excommunicated Galileo for example. Any challenge to the creation myth became quickly condemned. faith evolves. The Bible advanced. First there became the former testomony, then there is the recent and proper testomony. in the Gospel of mark, the first 6 centuries properly worth of manuscripts ended with Mark 16:8. All later manuscripts ended with Mark 16:20. there are a kind of textual transformations, and the Bible did replace by using the years. present day catholicism is different from the Catholicism practiced in the course of the 4rth century, at the same time as the church became having its significant councils. The CounterReformation in Catholicism replaced the catholic faith to compete more desirable ideal with Protestantism, which also replaced the religion of Christianity. twenty first century christianity is amazingly different from first century christianity. subsequently, faith does evolve, and the pope now and popes in the destiny will proceed to operate to "gods commandments" and the religions will "modernize" and evolve. by using the mere undeniable truth that religions evolve, educate that they are not divine. If some thing is authentic, it really is unchangeable, and truth. truth will be for everyone, everywhere, in any respect circumstances. The faiths evolving proves its lack of "truth." faith evolves without or with technological know-how. As guy evolves, so will his religions, and so will his gods...

Answer 9

That's ridiculous. That's like saying that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a valid belief, since it also cannot be completely proved or disproved.
You want differences? Well for one, science changes when better data are found. You said it yourself, scientists used to think the dinosaurs were killed by many meteorites, now they think just one. Compare that to Christians who thought the world was 6000 years old, found data suggesting it's over 4,000,000,000 years old, and decided to stick with 6000.
You're right, science doesn't completely prove things. It remains flexible, because it admits its own limitations. But it comes a hell of a lot closer to proving things than any religion.

Answer 10

I am reminded of Steven Colbert, from his show, The Colbert Report. He says he doesn't like facts because facts are always changing, whereas his opinions always stay the same.

I would rather trust a system where people admit they were wrong over one that won't admit to even a single mistake.

Answer 11

Science continues to contradict itself. Astronomers are baffled by 2 recent discoveries. The first discovery is that they measured the age of the Universe to be between 10 to 15 billion years old. But they also discovered Stars in our own Galaxy that are much older. How can Stars be older than the Universe they are in?

Also The Big Bang theory is under alot of scrutiny lately. I'll give you one simple reason why. In an explosion everything explodes in an outward trajectory. Thats what Scientists say happened to the Universe. But if thats the case then why are there photos of Galaxies colliding? Galaxies should not be colliding at all. They should all be heading in an outward trajectory.