[Osx-nutters] The separation of church and state.

[Mark Smith]

On 05.12.2007, at 09:32, David Cake wrote:

> At 8:23 AM +0100 5/12/07, Mark Smith wrote:
>>

>> You cannot be a real dyed-in-the-wool scientist and really believe in
>> anything of this type.
>
> 	Depends what you mean by 'belief'. I agree that if someone
> says 'and this is not open to doubt, because I have faith', then they
> are unscientific.

I'd simplify it further:

If someone has faith, they are being unscientific. It doesn't matter  
whether, or not they acknowledge that the basis of their faith is, in  
principle, "doubtable". (You would have to agree that a scientist is  
bound to acknowledge this.) If *they* have that faith, *they* don't  
doubt it (by definition) and that is unscientific. Science requires  
doubt. It is categorically incompatible with faith.

Some people seem to think you can sort of have some kind of non- 
demanding, non-dogmatic faith as a kind of back-up for the stuff that  
you can't yet explain. That's called uncertainty. One *can* live with  
it without inventing hocus-pocus and by living with it, one is being  
definitively scientific. Ergo...

Mark.