[MD] The End of Faith

[ian glendinning]

Steve, Platt, Ron et al

> Platt:
> >The whole scientific enterprise is accepted on faith.
>
> Steve:
> I don't accept science on faith. I apply the same standards for scientific claims
> as to claims made by anyone about anything.

Steve, you are confusing "the scientific enterprise" with specific
bodies of scientific knowledge. Yes, scientific knowledge is
contingent on empiricism, but Platt is in some sense correct - much as
it pains me to say ;-) - even if "whole accepted on faith" is the kind
of thing only an extremist would say.

There are several articles of "faith" in science ... ultimate
intelligibility is one (as Ron indicates) ... and objectivism (SOMism)
is another (despite the weirder aspects of quantum physics - observer
participation, non-locality, many-worlds, whatever, etc.) ... and
another is the myth that science is (not just should be, notice)
value-free. Scientific method is not itself testable by scientific
method.

Few scientists would stand up and claim those articles on faith - it
would be very unscientific to do so - but few would disagree with them
despite being unable to formulate any empirically testable hypotheses
about them.

See Nick Maxwell.
Ian