[MD] Science and belief

[david buchanan]

David M said:
... science is full of concepts, metaphors, analogies, abstractions, that 
are tools for 'making things happen' as a recent award winning book on 
science of that title says. ..As science is a created/creative human project 
it is full of ideas, assumptions, metaphors, etc, that in no sense derive 
from the reality they are used to describe and control. Scientists believe 
in them because they have proved to have their uses, they work, but they 
cannot be confirmed by experiment.

dmb replied:
Dave, you're not making sense. If the metaphors and concepts of science are 
good for making things happen, then what sense does it make to say they are 
not derived from the reality where those things happen? If the have been 
proved by their uses and they work, then what sense does it make to say they 
have not been confirmed? Where did you get the idea that proven usefulness 
does NOT constitute confirmation? I mean, what more "proof" do we need? If 
the wave analogy works to organize the data in a useful way, then its a good 
idea. I realize that at a certain level its usefulness begins to break down, 
but that doesn't alter the success it had in other areas. Anyway, this is 
just another example of the same bogus criticism...

If there is no such thing as perfect proof or absolute truth then its a bit 
ridiculous to criticize sceince for falling short of them, you know? Its 
kind of a pointless point made against a straw man and its really getting 
boring. This is the sort of argument that the fundamentalists use all the 
time, by the way. I mean, I've heard this line of attack from them all my 
life. Its one of their standard talking points.

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