Eyes Above The Waves

Thank you for a fair and reasonable response to a quite annoying quote (and I say this as an atheist). Also, the quote isn't even true regarding science. Philosophers of science heavily debate how much of science is purely discovered and how much depends on us; while reality is objective and fixed, the cognitive means with which we understand it are not. If Newton and Leibnitz had not come up with the calculus, for example, we might have very different scientific tools today - perhaps better, perhaps worse. We might in theory have the exact same scientific tools and scientific theories as we have today, but we might not - there are strong arguments both ways. - az

If you agree with the text, how do you explain that various religions over time, have suppressed or prosecuted other opinions? I still remember an old teacher of me (an old-school Catholic priest) that told us that we should learn science to pass school, but not accept it as the final truth, as only religion was the real truth. This was not only about evolution, but also other parts of science. It was in the 80's, but this priest has never accepted Vatican II. After a few hot discussions (he actually became violently and beat some kids), the majority of the class went atheist as a result, and even refused to take the final exam.

One of the implications here is that if the claims of religion depend on revelation and can't be converged upon through some other (reality-based) means, then it implies there is no reliable way of discerning what is true from competing claims of revelation (like Islam vs. Christianity). We must treat all claims of revelation equally. And if they _can_ be tested independently then it must mean there is some other way to derive those claims than revelation, which now puts them in the territory of science.

jhermans: I don't see what "various religions over time, have suppressed or prosecuted other opinions" has to do with any of this. Over time people have suppressed other opinions about pretty much everything ever considered important. Tack: "if they _can_ be tested independently then it must mean there is some other way to derive those claims than revelation" does not follow. For one thing, it's common even in formal settings to be able to check whether an answer is true even if you can't derive the answer from scratch. The P=NP problem is about exactly this issue. Another thing is that while some parts of the revelation might not be testable or derivable, other parts are and you can use those for comparisons. Another really important point here is that there *are* kinds of knowledge not derivable via scientific methods that we all generally accept as true --- for example, historical knowledge. No-one disputes that the Second World War occurred, even though science can't derive that fact. This idea implicit in Jillette's quote and apparently widely held --- that only facts derivable by scientific methods can be considered true --- is absurd.

Why do I get this on Planet Mozilla? I don't care about your religion and it doesn't really related to Mozilla.

Because Planet Mozilla can only syndicate my entire blog. I tag Mozilla-related posts but it can't use those tags.

Planet Mozilla should be able to syndicate just your Mozilla-related posts. Try pointing it at http://robert.ocallahan.org/feeds/posts/default/-/Mozilla

Thanks. I guess it's only possible since I moved to Blogger. Filed bug 714032.

I came here to say almost exactly what "az" said above, so I'll just be annoying and quibble instead. Jillette's blanket use of the word 'science' is elevating a messy concept onto an almost wholly undeserved pedestal -- he's really referring to "the religion of science". If he had said 'mathematics', then perhaps it would be reasonable. But 'science' in general is a huge wobbly edifice built atop a small number of truly reproducible, testable hypotheses, and if we were to start over from scratch, it would indeed look very very different. Heck, even what most people consider the unarguable truths of science are, if you look closely enough, still only approximations that ignore a ton of underlying complexity because it is convenient and useful to do so. Try mapping Newton's laws of physics into the quantum or relativistic realms. I don't see how that is fundamentally different from a religion founded upon some core ideas that have been passed through layers of interpretation and humans being humans. But Robert, I would have to amend your statement to say a /reasonable/ Christian, because there are many (in any religion) who insist that every layer of translation or interpretation was itself divinely inspired and so can be taken as literal fact -- despite being in direct conflict with other paths of interpretion. The whole "science vs religion" argument sucks, and the blame is on both sides. With the Wordpress hosted at blog.mozilla.com, you can restrict by tag. My Planet feed, for example, is https://blog.mozilla.com/sfink/tag/planet/ (I also use the tag 'Mozilla', but I don't necessarily want all Mozilla-related stuff to go to Planet, so I use separate tags.)

@Steve Fink: But 'science' in general is a huge wobbly edifice built atop a small number of truly reproducible, testable hypotheses You are so very, very wrong. Firstly, science's raw material is data, vast gargantuan amounts of it. We know science is working when theory reasonably matches the data and the evidence against the theory seem weak. Secondly, science is not only built up, it's dug down as we get closer to fundamentals. E.g. botanic variation is explained by seed genetics, which is based on DNA, is based on biochemistry, is based on molecular chemistry, is based on atomic interactions, is explained (to mind-bending precision) by quantum electrodynamics. There's NOTHING wobbly about it, there's just its limited predictive power faced with complex/chaotic systems (e.g. I can't tell what your brain is going to do next) and the fascinating limitations of knowledge imposed by whatever the nature of reality turns out to be. , and if we were to start over from scratch, it would indeed look very very different Oh, come on, that's utter garbage. Are you seriously claiming we wouldn't have, say, inverse square laws for electromagnetic and gravitational fields? Try mapping Newton's laws of physics into the quantum or relativistic realms. No problem, it's been done. Any new theory generally has in it the ability to explain why we assented to the old theory: "Billiard balls are orders of magnitude too big for quantum effects to be detectable", "The world *looks* flat until you can fly above it", "Milankovitch cycles do suggest a new ice age, but latest models put it millenia from now, meanwhile global warming predominates", etc. I don't see how that is fundamentally different from a religion founded upon some core ideas that have been passed through layers of interpretation and humans being humans. Then you're blind. In principle anyone can read a scientific paper and check the math/run the model/reproduce the experiment. What's the equivalent for religion? Meanwhile religious faith isn't falsifiable (well, it moves the goalposts or adjusts its interpretation of its texts when the word of God turns out to be bunk), it has almost no predictive power (and gets it wrong, c.f. Jesus' absurd over-promise and under-deliver on “But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God” and all those blown dates for the Rapture), it's not subject to experimental verification, etc., etc.