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

[Mark Smith]

On 05.12.2007, at 19:58, David Cake wrote:

> At 6:36 PM +0100 5/12/07, Mark Smith wrote:
>> On 05.12.2007, at 17:54, David Cake wrote:
>>
>>>> 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.)
>>>
>>> 	Well, no.
>>> 	I might be pretty damn certain that, say, Pride and Prejudice
>>> is the most important novel written in English, or Hamlet is the  
>>> most
>>> important play. I can even acknowledge that other peoples opinions
>>> may differ, that its ultimately subjective, but dammit, I'm pretty
>>> sure that I am correct anyway. Doesn't make me unscientific - its  
>>> not
>>> a question on which science can usefully provide an answer.
>>
>> Come on Dave, you're smarter than that. You *know* that this *is*
>> being unscientific (even though this is entirely different to placing
>> blind "faith" in a religion).
>
> 	Your idea of what is being 'unscientific' is simply too
> strong - you think its unscientific to have firm beliefs on any
> subject not amenable to scientific analysis.

Obviously its necessary to make some basic statements that I would  
have thought were taken for granted...

I think its important to make a distinction between, on the one hand,  
opinions, views, notions, ideas and, on the other, belief and faith.  
True, there are many general uses of both of the latter words that one  
can associate with something that doesn't make it non-scientific, but  
religious belief/faith is something entirely different to holding a  
view about a favourite piece of music, or how beautiful a flower is,  
or for how long one is likely to retain either opinion, or indeed how  
likely it is either opinion is going to be changed by debate.

One can also think *about* religion, god etc in a rational manner as  
Stefano suggests. This does not make you religious, or non-scientific.  
One can even, in an agnostic manner, accept swathes of particular  
religion for their moral, ethical, practical utility, or even just  
because one likes the customs. I'd say that this participation in  
ritual and following of parts of code still does not make you  
religious. In my book, you become religious when you have (or profess)  
unstinting faith in a god and/or believe in the spiritual aspect of  
any fictional religious tract and/or blindly accept any religious  
tract as being "the way".

It is these latter two aspects that are definitively incompatible with  
being a scientist (though many will continue to "do" both, obviously)  
and I continue to contend that anyone willing to suspend so many  
facets of rationalism in this manner, whilst they may be able to  
function in both domains, can't really consider themselves to be a  
scientist.


> You are free to play this particular language game, but its damn  
> silly.

Its no more silly than yours Dave. You are looking for maximal  
flexibility in use of particular words in order to deny that there are  
any useful distinctions and I am seeking to be precise by, at least  
for the purposes o this debate, differentiating between opinion/view/ 
perspective/idea/notion and belief/faith.

> Chris is saying that many famous and notable scientists are 'non- 
> scientists' by your definition -

Actually, he named three and I dispute all of them on a particular  
ground. Lewis began to discuss one important aspect. What constituted  
agnosticism in the time of Leibnitz and Newton ? Its clear that it  
would have been another major philosophical leap (and a socially  
suicidal one) at that time to question the existence of god, or every  
last component of the christian bible story. On the other hand, there  
is, I am sure, a documentary record of Newton's struggles with the  
tenets of the church and indeed the creation story. The point is that  
as far as it occurred to them to go, they were indeed (to a degree)  
doubters and that was my original point on the topic.

A lot of what we know and what has been cast into grave doubt in the  
last 90 years, or so, was simply unavailable to Newton and his  
contemporaries. Consider Stefano's pre-rational -> rational sub-thread.

Taking things to the extreme, I could accept as scientifically  
compatible a stance from a scientist who said, well, I acknowledge  
that e.g. the bible story is looking very shaky indeed and on the  
basis of that, one really needs to question the whole shebang, but, I  
don't want to take the risk of burning in hell, if there is one and  
that's what happens if you don't do what the church says, so I'm going  
to play along and try and be a decent christian. I think this is a bit  
daft, but this is not incompatible with being a scientist. I'd even  
say that this person is not really religious per se. Having seen  
through it, they arrive at a different conclusion about how they are  
going to behave than I would. Such a person might even be of the  
opinion that it is more likely than not, that there is, or was a  
"creator". In essence they are a participant (and maybe even have some  
"mystic" characteristics (Einstein ?), but not a believing follower of  
a religion.

Does this help ?


>> You have to be open to the possibility
>> that it could be demonstrated to you that you are wrong.
>
> 	How can the 'wrongness' of a non-falsifiable hypothesis be
> convincingly demonstrated?

OK. That one was slackly worded by me. Try this instead: You have to  
be open to the possibility that your opinion/view/perspective could  
[be] change[d].


> I mean, I can conceive that I might change my mind about the
> relative importance of Hamlet in english drama, but it seems pretty
> unlikely, and there is certainly no magical test of dramatic value
> that might convince me otherwise.


How about if a better play was subsequently written ? A true religious  
believer (as I see it) is required to go into denial about this, or  
anything like it.


> Or I might be convinced that a particular shade of blue is
> THE prettiest colour, or that Talisker is the best single malt Scotch.

These are opinions arrived at as a result of experience. That would be  
like if you spent 5 years as a participating (no requirement for  
belief) Jew and then 5 as a participating christian and then 5 as a  
participating muslim and came down at the end and said that you found  
islam "better" than the others.


> You keep wanting to cast religious faith as a special kind of
> opinion people hold, unlike any other in its epistemological status,

It most definitely is different from *most* other opinions.


> purely so you can deride those who hold such opinions.

Nonsense. Unless you mean that calling it non-scientific and  
incompatible with science is derision. I find it amusing that some  
people bend over backwards to accommodate this incompatibility just to  
make the set bigger and to avoid exclusions. (No implication there  
that I plan to instate testing of scientists and issuing of "I'm a  
real scientist cards". We need all the practical help we can get, and  
if that comes from folks that believe in mumbo-jumbo, then as long as  
its good work, I have no problem with that.)

> Its not going to happen, and your argument is constructed backwards.

What's not going to happen Dave ? Did I suggest that anything was  
going to happen ? Many people hold my opinion and some of them even  
voice it in public sometimes and many people hold your opinion. What  
is it that you think that I think is going to happen to change that ?

I made it clear at the outset (creationist agents infiltrating  
schools), that I see a threat. When asked why, I embarked on this  
rant, the essence of the problem being that there are far too many  
people out there, who, as a result of being insufficiently  
scientifically competent and/or cleaving to a religion themselves, are  
likely to be "winnable" for the creationists, irrespective of how  
professionally scientific and courteous we "scientists" are in dealing  
with their nonsense. Looking at the whole set of scientists, one  
wonders how many of them are going to stick it out on the side of  
science. The "religious scientists" (to quickly give a name to these  
people we are talking about) are going to be more susceptible to the  
"charms" of the creationists.


> Because the truth is that its scientific hypotheses, not
> religion, that have a special epistemological status - but all
> scientists hold many beliefs that are *not* scientific hypotheses,
> because not all hypotheses are falsifiable.


Scientific hypothesis does also have a special status in this regard,  
you are right. I don't recall writing anything to the contrary.

We come back to the words belief and faith. Try this simple test. If  
you can substitute them with an alternative word such as opinion,  
view, perspective, notion, idea with no dilution of meaning, then I am  
just fine with all such views, notions etc.  If you can't, then you  
are likely dealing with someone who I would contend is not completely  
"scientist".

But I'm definitely going to have to drop this for now, a lot of urgent  
stuff has come up.

Mark.