Does it take faith to believe in science and logic?

Question

Since these things cannot be tested (otherwise it would be question begging and circular reasoning), does it require faith to believe they represent reality?

Personally, I don't think it does, but I'm just curious what others think.

Answer 1

I think that could be argued from a logical perspective. After all, without a control to test against, how could you know. :P

*Don't be surprised by all of the 'scientists' who answer but have never philosophically considered the topic you bring up. Logic is something we are forced to assume we are right about due to the fact that we cannot test it outside the system because we are part of the system. It does not mean logic is fallable but it also does not mean it is not. I am providing a link with an argument by a noted professor from Notre Dame using the existence of reason as an argument against naturalism. Note this is a specific topic and should be read as such.

*quote from Darwin in the link:
Darwin himself expressed this doubt: "With me," he said,

the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind

of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's

mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

Answer 2

Shaz is totally correct in his evaluation as to what faith actually is, but has made a common mistake when trying to link that to science. Science is not something you believe in nor is it a fact itself. Science is the method of having an idea, and then testing it over and over again in as many ways as possible. You should test the idea in multiple ways to see if it always holds true, independent of the other variables in the experiment. You are not testing the idea to prove it right, but to prove it wrong. That is the key mindset for a scientist, and also why many people dislike them if they don't understand the humility that requires. Once an idea has been critically evaluated, sceptically criticized and tested over and over and over again, and still shown to hold true, then and only then do you have a viable idea. Even once this happens, the idea should never be heralded as the gospel truth, doing so is not following the scientific method. To be a scientist, you must except you will never know which ideas are correct for sure, but can only limit the possibilities by ruling out what isn't true, and making observations on what is repeatable fact. It is all about probabilities of ideas being true. And when you have a lot of facts and ideas that have only ever been found to be true, you can attempt to get them all working together in conjunction. If they do all fit together and work without any problems, then you have yourself a solid scientific theory. It may be one of many theories, but no faith was required, nor should have been used, to get there. A scientist never picks out one theory amongst others as correct, but holds them all as possibilities- the most likely of which being the one with the most correlative truths and facts supporting it. A scientist must accept that they cannot have an ultimate understanding of everything, or indeed anything. Even through collaboration with others who dedicate their lives to the same cause, you'll only get a tiny glimpse of the greater picture. But that glimpse, no matter how small, is worth more than all the faith and belief the world has put together. Because that glimpse is based only in truth. This by no means means faith is a bad thing, it can make light of the darkest situation, where cold hard science has no place. Just don't get the two confused! Peace!

Answer 3

No. Faith is involved when something cannot be proven true about a set of ideals or dogma. Science by definition is how to prove that something is true or is false, same with logic. They are not really something to believe in, they are just a process to find out facts. It takes little faith to believe in facts. You cannot fly, You throw a rock it comes down at an equal and opposite angle, small objects are pulled toward objects of greater mass. What kind faith does it take to believe cold hard facts? It takes faith to stand against science, reason, and logic not the other way around.

I suppose however it does take faith that the universe is as we see and feel it. Then again all life operates on that faith and it is different then the faith religion requires.

Answer 4

Yet another lame attempt to put religion and science on the same level. Religionists have always had a bad case of physics envy, and probably always will.

There is only one postulate that science must accept in order to do anything, and that is the one that says "Nature is Knowable." This premise allows us to investigate nature with enough confidence to justify the effort, and so far the effort has been spectacularly successful. The results do not "prove" the initial postulate, but they confirm it to such a high degree that it is a safe and useful hypothesis.

Believers just don't get that there *is* no "absolute truth" and since science doesn't provide such a thing there is supposedly something wrong with science. They also don't get that science is a *method* of discovering relationships, not a fixed set of facts or theories. Every scientific finding is provisional - subject to new data and interpretations at any time. This allows the introduction of new knowledge and the refinement of existing theories, the kind of thing that in religion is always called blasphemy.

Answer 5

To some degree, yes, but not in the same way religion takes faith.

Let's start, however, that there is no such thing as "believing in" science. Science is not a set of principles or a dogma. Science is a process of asking and answering questions. So, one "understands" science and scientific theories and principles, but they are not "believed in."

That having been said, science does require "faith" that our senses work as we perceive them to work. It requires faith that we can, in fact, observe the universe, and interact with it. It requires faith that things behave according to a set of rules that are knowable. In other words, I have faith that I am here, because I perceive myself to be here. If I'm not here, then I guess the whole science thing is not here either.

Beyond that, science is not about faith - it's about proof and reason.

Answer 6

Faith would be the wrong choice of word, without question, and belief would be just as weak.

When science makes a statement, it has already asked the hard questions and at least attempted to find the faults of its thinking. Science does all the testing and data analysis in a stepwise way and it does so in a methodically objective way as well. Believing by faith that something science claims is true, isn't necessary... one can accept the statements of science with confidence and move straight ahead to being convinced of almost everything offered through it. Moreover, science is an honest enough source to attach it's own qualifications to everything that it does, i.e., if there are reasons to doubt a theory, science is well ahead of those who would happen upon it later and hence science commonly identifies and speaks freely about the weakest portions of its own theoretical statements up front and quite openly. And furthermore... nothing in science is ever "etched in stone." Science will abandon untruth as quickly as it can once it has found that an error has been identified. Talk about integrity, eh?

Science does not require faith... its publications are honest and unbiased - it is a bona fide source of trustworthiness.

(Please note: I am not speaking of "Creation Science" -- it is a total farce.)
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb62/Randall_Fleck/Not_Science_GIF-1.gif

[][][] r u randy? [][][]
.
In rebuttal to other responders, I've read:

"Have you ever seen an atom?"

Personally, no, I have not but science has, and not only have they seen it but they have isolated, photographed and manipulated atoms quite easily for the past fifty years - nuff said to that one, eh? ---

"Evolution: It's only a theory."

Absurd...! Theories don't get to be theories just because someone dreamed them up and called them that. Theories are logically formulated into hypothesis and studied by data collection, data analysis, data testing, and finally made into a conclusion. Still as a hypothesis the conclusion is then validation (or not) by reconducting the entire process at the hands of others outside those of the original poser to the hypothesis. This is usually done perhaps hundreds of times and by plenty of different groups before an hypothesis becomes a theory. It's a very rigorous process of discovery.

To say "just a theory" is the equivalent of saying about the Atlantic Ocean that it is just a puddle. Nuff said to that one, too....

Now ... Are there any other BS ideas that need sorting out?

This is a disgusting display. Stop talking defensive nonsense, folks! It's just plain stupid of you. Science is a wonderful tool of man... It has and will continue to provide you with the solutions to problems and the real answers to questions... Denying the truth of and the value of what science discovers for you; it's improvements to agriculture, fabrics, medicine, etc., as well as it's growing knowledge of genesis, is a low blow and a cowardly slap in the face to all of mankind. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for thinking as you do and for offering such fiddle-faddle in defense of the indefensible.
.

Answer 7

No. Not in the sense that the word "faith" is used to describe religious beliefs. "Faith in science" means confidence that the methods are sound (after much testing and repeated successful and consistent results); faith in the sense of "faith in God" is the belief that God exists in the absence of evidence sufficient for belief. The type of faith that ignores or requires no evidence is not the same type of faith that science requires.

Answer 8

No. That is why we don't BELIEVE they represent reality. We simply study the available evidence and conclude the most plausible explanation for what the evidence shows. It has nothing to do with belief as you suggest. To BELIEVE in something scientific would require faith. So instead of BELIEVING, we study theory that is supported by an abundance of evidence that can be scrutinized. In a nutshell, we don't BELIEVE anything. Some things appear plausible to us, some things don't. It's that simple really.

Answer 9

No, science is a progressive study, logic has it's own standard. One I don't like is "A and B get together about C for the benefit of D. There is always the classic if/then. So it may be about reason and the individual.

Answer 10

Yes, to some degree. Unless you are actually a scientist who spends time in the lab and runs experiments for yourself you are basically relying on what you've been told. A lot of phony scientific evidence has been presented in the past and until these things were exposed as hoaxes people blindly accepted them. That is, of course, arguing this point in its simplest form. It's still worth noting that for the most part it's easy to see science at work in our daily lives.