I can’t reply to the question I was asked, so I reply here:
How many have I verified? I’m not sure of the #, but I’ve verified much of classical physics, chemistry, astronomical observations, and lots of things in electronics (some of which rely on quantum mechanics) and electromagnetism.
But as I said, they question is not whether you or I have personally verified everything, but whether they are verifiable in principle, by anyone. The claims of chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc, are verifiable. The claims of a holy man are not.
Man is imperfect. The scientific method is a process that verifies, humans implement and observe the output. With religion, humans "observe" more than they can verify. Religion admits as much that it lacks verification, that's why it has faith.
Religion wants the best of both worlds, saying it is endowed with logic and verification yet when pushed you get the same tired argument about faith and 'gods exist outside logic'. At the same time it wants to say that it doesn't have to participate. Why should your side be special? Why can't I ultimately resort to illogic? Who knows, maybe my atheistic views are derived from a system so abstracted from my intellectual senses that I can validly resort to claiming they may ultimately stem from a time/place far removed from logic also, I just don't claim that it's an anthropomorphic entity like a god.
And yet, this mythical common man--who you say has to just choose who to trust--will find that if he chooses to build civilization by trusting the imperfect holy men, it will pale in significance to the civilization built by other common men who choose to trust the imperfect scientists.
Except you can find another group of holy men who disagree with that group. And a third group that disagrees with those two groups. The number of groups ends up quite large, and nobody can quite seem to figure out a way to test whether one group has it a bit more right than the others.
Why do you think that matters?
You might as well ask "what makes you trust your own perception when you verify scientific claims"?
As it happens, literally every time you switch on a light you are, in fact, verifying multiple scientific theories. Not to mention interacting with your phone or computer to type your HN comments.
>what makes you trust your own perception when you verify scientific claims"
Because it is with my own perception that I sense the rest of the world with it. So that is all that one should care. Let me know if you don't get this. I ll elaborate..
One of main reasons the scientific method has been so successful is because it forces us to challenge our assumptions that our perceptions of the world are correct.
My second reply is that it’s important whether things derived from two different claims actually work.
Make two hospitals: one which follows standard Western medical practice, and the other which does not and instead performs prayers over its patients. I can predict which hospital will have better patient outcomes.
> I can predict which hospital will have better patient outcomes.
That is quite besided the point. The point being every patient who goes there believes the hospital us doing western blah blah blah...
Let me simplyfy it even more. The common mans dependence of "science" is based on beliefs. Just as it was on religion at an older time.
That scientific method is more trust worthy, does not make that dependence not based on belief. That is the weakest link in the chain, and that link is common to both science and religion.
You seem to be focused on the so-called common man and his inability to do anything more than just believe things. I think you do this common man an injustice.
Let’s say this common man is religious (pick one) and is going about his day and is injured in some accident. He is taken to a hospital, and one which he knows is aligned with his religious beliefs. Upon arriving the doctors triage him and tell him he’s bleeding internally. But then they tell him that they have assembled a team of highly respected members of the religion to which he adheres and these persons are revered among its followers. They are about to lay hands on him and pray for his internal bleeding to stop. He asks if they will also be performing surgery, to which they reply that no, their god is loving, caring, and will hear the prayers of the faithful and heal him.
Now if you really are talking about the truly common man, this common man will, with whatever strength that remains, object quite strenuously! He will insist that a doctor perform surgery on him immediately and stop the bleeding.
And why does this common man do this? Because what he really believes is that while his religious beliefs may provide some type of assurance and comfort, when the rubber meets the road, he’d like some science, please.
The difference being what those beliefs are based upon.
I'd recommend a read through Plato's Socratic dialog Theaetetus. Then think through whether the progression of sensation, true belief, and justified true belief does or does not form a sequence of increasingly better ways to think about the world.
As for your last sentence, although I could say the same, I think you will agree that it would serve no purpose.
Ultimately everything that you can't verify comes down to beliefs which is many things for the common person. But all disciplines aren't equal in this domain. Science began being formalized with the scientific process, it was founded upon principles of rigorous verification. Religion was founded, generally, by a human or humans trying to "verify" the gods' wishes by very abstract and obtuse senses such as 'feelings'. Science may start with feelings or certain intuitions about what should be but then it has to be ran through a proper process that is repeatable and proven no matter how the scientist feels.
> Tell me, how many scientific "claims" that you rely on a day to day basis, have you verified personally?
Many. Science claims when I push the brakes in my car I will slow down due to the friction. Seems to be working pretty well so far. How does religion explain it?
You fell into the trap of thinking that each person needs to verify each claim in order to put general trust in science. That's not how it works. If I can pick a random claim and given enough time and effort can verify it with a high chance then I can reasonably be sure the other claims are most likely correct. Not all of them! There are scientific claims that are incorrect. We know because they have been shown to be incorrect. But that doesn't invalidate the rest of the claims. And yes there will be claims that I personally can't verify so I'll have to use my own judgement to trust them or not. Over time someone will emerge to prove them wrong if they are indeed wrong. Unless of course they impossible to falsify like the existance of god. But then I just can ignore that claim if it can't be proven either way - no matter if it's a claim in science or religion.
With religion I can't verify much at all. Can I verify the existance of god? Nope. Can I verify earth was created X thousand years ago? Nope. Can I prove that my prayer will get some result? Nope. So logically my trust in the other religous claims is very low.
We had science classes in school. Physics and Chemistry for example. I remember doing experiments all the time to check if something was really working the way it was claimed. It checked out every single time. We also had Religion classes. I don't remember a single time that we tried to verify a claim. Not even an attempt! How do you build faith in a system full of claims with no evidence? As we kids grew older and developed a stronger independent way of thinking instead of blindly believing what the teacher told us, more and more of us started questioning those claims and were left utterly unsatisfied and ultimately left the religion class and switched to ethics instead.
>You fell into the trap of thinking that each person needs to verify each claim in order to put general trust in science.
I am not falling into any trap. Science and religion has its legit original purpose (religion was never meant to explain nature, though it does it as part of its own way of accomplishing its goals). But both are prone to exploitation by selfish entities, because of the need or requirement of laymans belief in the ir claims.
So ultimately, a religious claim and a scientific claim that cannot be realistically verified by 99.9 % of people are both similar, and both can end up casuing similar evils.
As I mentioned elsewhere, you cannot prove everything only by science. In Islam, we have logic and the honest news as two other sources we rely on to study and deduce facts about our reality.
No you didn't. The specific thread here of the conversation is not about scientism anymore. But if you want to go back, the original discussion was about science vs religion and not scientism. Nobody in here claimed they adhere to blind faith in science and that science can explain everything. The opposite was stated.
Some people have blind faith in scientific claims. That's not science though and it does not invalidate science. A big principle of science is to do exactly the opposite and not blindly trust in something. Every system gets corrupted by some people but it does not mean the system is bad. We're talking about the same thing over and over.
