Should Scientists have to believe in Science?

[kerry]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/science/12geologist.html?hp&ex=1171342800&en=d6803b73375ee4bc&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Carleton Hughes]

Oh, great Caesar's ghost help us now! The inmates are running the asylum for certain.

Once this poison spreads thru academe similar to where P.C. started we're through. What's next will inevitably be a crackdown on individual,original thought.
How can these cocksure,hubris-ridden idealogues be given any credence?

[Mistress]

Originally Posted by Carleton Hughes

Oh, great Caesar's ghost help us now! The inmates are running the asylum for certain.

Once this poison spreads thru academe similar to where P.C. started we're through. What's next will inevitably be a crackdown on individual,original thought.
How can these cocksure,hubris-ridden idealogues be given any credence?

Just so happens, today is Darwin's birthday...remember the difference between a genius and madman is but a hair.

[kerry]

As I see it, one related question is whether a scientist has a professional duty to hold as true, beliefs for which there is a widely established method for determining their truth? Or, is it perfectly acceptable for a scientist to reject such beliefs and substitute others solely on the basis of scriptural authority? Would it be any different if the scientist thought that both views were equally true even if they contradicted each other?
How is a scientist's epistemological duty in regard to such questions, any different than the epistemological duties of the average person? Are the people mentioned in the article, actually being dishonest in their graduate work by accepting scientific standards as true, writing dissertations as if they are true, but meanwhile rejecting the foundations upon which their work is based? Is there a duty to be honest in graduate school?
Would you be willing to hire such a person for scientific work or for the teaching of science?

[Carleton Hughes]

O.K,O.K...enough nebulous Socratic irony.

Centuries of Empirical thought and scientific,as well as cultural and medical developement are at the mercy of some agglomerisation of ancient Hebrew scriptures and moralty tales/creation myths added to and likely changed in translation thru the centuries,talk about silliness.

Let's take a the I-Ching,or mayhaps the Kama-Sutra or better yet,the Australian Aboriginy's tales of Dream-Time and base the fount of all knowledge upon that!

Wasn't it Anatole France who said the sillier the religion,the more divine?

How arrogant of us beneficiaries of Western thought to assume there is no preordained,divine hand in this morass!

[Botnst]

Science is a logical method to arrive at falsifiable relationships. I don't think it is something one "believes" in but rather, a tool used for analyzing certain types of problems.

Framed like that, it seems ludicrous to require a litmus test concerning which dogma within a particular discipline one must believe.

In fact, I'm in favor of scientific testing of creationism just as I would like to see a test of any other cosmology or theory of life's origin and species.

It is my personal belief that creationism is a silly waste of time. So what? I've been wrong many times before. Let a thousand blossoms flower.

B

[Matt L]

While creationism is a silly waste of time, it's unscientific to believe that evolution is a fact. It is scientific (and quite useful) to consider evolution the best falsifiable explanation for the facts.

[Carleton Hughes]

Originally Posted by Botnst

Science is a logical method to arrive at falsifiable relationships. I don't think it is something one "believes" in but rather, a tool used for analyzing certain types of problems.

Framed like that, it seems ludicrous to require a litmus test concerning which dogma within a particular discipline one must believe.

In fact, I'm in favor of scientific testing of creationism just as I would like to see a test of any other cosmology or theory of life's origin and species.

It is my personal belief that creationism is a silly waste of time. So what? I've been wrong many times before. Let a thousand blossoms flower.

B

Quite,remember the Scopes "monkey"trial in the last century?Darrow did a helluva job tearing apart Bryan and exposing him for the hollow hypocrite he was. It actually killed the poor bastard not long after.

[A264172]

Originally Posted by Matt L

While creationism is a silly waste of time, it's unscientific to believe that evolution is a fact. It is scientific (and quite useful) to consider evolution the best falsifiable explanation for the facts.

"A little nonsense now and then, is treasured by the wisest men" -Willie Wonka

[A264172]

Great, now science has heretics.

Originally Posted by kerry edwards

...a scientist has a professional duty to hold as true, beliefs ...

I find that bit suspect.

[Dee8go]

How can one believe in "science?" I would hope that scientists all believe in the efficacy of the scientific method. Or else how could they do their work?

No doubt, many scientists become overly enamored with their own hypotheses after investing so much of their time and effort (and professional reputations), and lose sight of seeking the truth. "Science" is a discipline as I understand it, not a doctrine.

"Evolution" is a theory that seems to be supported by scientific inquiry. I've never really considered the theory of evolution and the belief in creation to be mutually exclusive as some seem to, though.

Attempting to discuss spiritual matters using the vocabulary of science or science with the vocabulary of spiritual experience seems completely wrong-headed to me. I think it will always be doomed to failure.

[kerry]

Sure science has heretics. Geocentric scientists are heretics, as are scientists who believe the earth is 8000 yrs old.
To what extent must scientists apply the rule of falsifiability? Is it ok for a scientist to accept scriptural claims without applying tests of falsifiability?
Is it fair to say that the claim that the earth is 8000 yrs old has clearly been falsified and any reasonable scientists should reject the idea that the earth is 8000yrs old?

I think scientists do have a professional duty to attempt to falsify their hypotheses. Without such attempts, science would be nothing but dogma, equivalent to dogmatic religion.

[Dee8go]

Amen, brother Kerry!

[A264172]

Originally Posted by kerry edwards

...
I think scientists do have a professional duty to attempt to falsify their hypotheses. Without such attempts, science would be nothing but dogma, equivalent to dogmatic religion.

I agree.
But I also think that a doctor does not violate the hippocratic oath by watching a snuff film, and a priest does not violate his vow of chastity by wanting sex. Don't you think the science itself should be the test of it's method and not the scientist desire to catch the next episode of Star Treck after work. Should the scientist not be allowed to continue work on the 'transporter' just because it's make-believe.

[kerry]

Originally Posted by A264172

I agree.
But I also think that a doctor does not violate the hippocratic oath by watching a snuff film, and a priest does not violate his vow of chastity by wanting sex. Don't you think the science itself should be the test of it's method and not the scientist desire to catch the next episode of Star Treck after work. Should the scientist not be allowed to continue work on the 'transporter' just because it's make-believe.

But we're talking science FICTION in this case whereas in the case of the scientists in the article we're talking of people who read fiction as scientific truth.
Would you trust a geology teacher who told you he/she thought the earth was 8000yrs old on the basis of the chronology of the Bible? Almost none of geology would make sense if all of the processes that resulted in the current configuration of the planet took place in an 8000yr period.