[MD] Dawkins a Materialist

[david buchanan]

ian glendinning said:
...It's not the faith, but the kind of faith that matters. For all its 
objectivism, science also relies on faith (in its methods). It still has 
mysterious beliefs at its boundaries. The real point is "blind" faith in 
authoritity (a purely social quality), something science avoids.

dmb says:
Science relies on faith and has mysterious beliefs? Yes, so you have said 
many times and I have disagreed nearly as many. I can only assume that you 
mean something other than faith when you use the word "faith". The meaning 
of that term is such that your assertions here are nonsense. If faith is a 
belief held in the absence of evidence or in contradiction of the evidence, 
then your first sentence would read something like... "It's not the 
unsupported belief, but the kind of unjustified view that matters." Your 
second assertion would have to say something like... "For all its 
objectivism, science also relies on an absence of evidence (in its 
methods)." And, because I'm using the normal definition for the word "faith" 
here, I fail to see the difference between faith and "blind" faith. Its okay 
if your point is simply to add some emphasis or whatever, but as I 
understand the term, all faith is blind.

So, as you can imagine, I don't just disagree about these particular points 
when you say stuff like this. It also makes me skeptical about your ability 
to reason or think in general. I mean, its just seems really, really dumb. 
Please, help me out here. Explain to me how the scienctific method is based 
on faith. Explain it to me. In what sense does science have mysterious 
beliefs? I could be mistaken, but these notions look like drivel to me. I 
suspect you are being sloppy and are treating starting points, assumptions 
and such as if they were acts of faith. Or maybe you think a faith based 
belief is anything that we hold in the absense of absolute certainty or some 
other impossible standard. I don't know. You tell me. I'm just guessing. All 
I know is, according to my understanding of faith, science and the english 
language, your comments make no sense. Again.

dmb

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