Is science founded on faith?

Question

You say science and faith are different, and that while science has proof and is hence true, faith hasnt, and may or may not be true.

Then isnt science itself based on faith? You say that energy + mass cant be created nor destroyed, and your all theories are based on this. Isnt this just faith?

Answer 1

Yes, science is founded on faith. Here are a couple of the principles taken on faith in science:

a) What we observe and measure is real, and has an existence independent of the observer.

b) Observations can be organized and explained as resulting from underlying rules and principles called "theories".

Then there are some "axioms" and "laws" that are postulated and taken on faith. These form the basis for the development of theories, but they can be modified if found inaccurate. As such they are taken "on faith" until shown to be untrue. An example are the laws of conservation of mass and conservation of energy. When it was discovered that mass and energy were equivalent, that law was changed to conservation of mass/energy together. In that respect, the "laws" of science are not like religious faith.

Answer 2

Science is founded on reasoned models. A big difference between it and faith is that once a model is developed based on observations, it is tested. It is used to predict what should be observed and then is confirmed or either discarded or altered and again tested. Once that model has been revealed to be limited in the scope of its application, a more general model is sought, one that reduces to the original model in that limit.

Faith might say the universe is about 5,700 years old. If science agreed with that initially and then subsequent observations suggested strongly that it was off by many orders of magnitude, faith and science handle it differently. Faith might say that the universe appears older because matter was created to have such properties and the stellar and gallactic motions were initialized with an apparent past (as man might have been created as adults). Science would not stubbornly hold onto the older model or try to discredit the data since it didn't fit with it.

Answer 3

Mass and energy are conserved. Maybe you are right in that it is faith that we use. Faith in religion has no basis in reality. The Bible, Koran, Torah or whatever says so and that is the end of the story. There is no test for God and she might not even exist. Faith in science is based on reproducible results. If you care to do experiments yourself you will find them well documented and you can test them for yourself. If in the future a theory is found to be wrong then we would need some new theories.

Answer 4

Yes. If you get down to the very bottom of all theories, laws, theorems and what-not, there is always an assumption. That assumption is that the universe works in such a way that whenever some event happens, there is an effect and if that exact same event were to happen, the exact same effect would happen as well. Basically, we have faith that logic itself is correct.

Just for clarification, assumptions are acts of faith. Belief that something is true although there is no absolute truth to back it up.

Answer 5

science is not based on faith. science revolves around the hope that with enough time and the right tools and methods we can know more (about virtually anything) tomorrow than we do today. An important aspect of science is that you have to let the chips fall where they may, and not simply deny and/ or fabricate things when you dont agree with the data; after all, that would be faith.

Answer 6

No.

Mass energy conservation has been demostrated experimentally billions of times. No exception has ever been found. No faith is required.

What is required is an open mind. Were an example of this principle being violated found then science would have to change. It has done so many times in the past.

Answer 7

Any miracle or anything based on faith when explained with a logic becomes science. Its a saying that "Science can go only so far and then comes god". God is another form of faith.

Answer 8

SCIENCE:
"Such and such is a scientific law!"
"Well, why?"
"I will show you empirical evidence to explain it."
RELIGION:
"Such and such is a law of the true religion."
"Well, why?"
"Because I said so."

See the difference? Having faith in something means believing in something without proof. Science gets an idea about something, tests it, finds things to prove or disprove it and then re-tests and comes up with "Laws" or "Theories" based on the proven results.

Answer 9

Faith is the acceptance of a statement or a tenet that may be completely illogical.
No proof is needed or necessary.

Answer 10

Science is not founded on faith but on reason, logic, and empircism. Faith on the other hand asks an individual to suspend reason, logic, and empiricism.