Science has a radical distrust of certainty. Me too.

If you're absolutely certain that you know what is true, this is a very good sign that you're wrong. Also, that you are religious rather than scientific.

This is one of the compelling insights theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli talks about in the concluding chapter of his book, "Reality is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity."

In another post I'll describe why Rovelli views the as-yet-unproven theory of quantum gravity as the best approach to resolving the divide between relativity theory and quantum mechanics. For now, I liked what Rovelli had to say about the approach of science so much, I'm sharing portions of it below.

This really is brilliant. Nothing astoundingly new. Just stated in a fresh appealing fashion. Rovelli captures why I love science so much, and why I've come to dislike religiosity so much.

This acute awareness of our ignorance is the heart of scientific thinking. It is thanks to this awareness of the limits of our knowledge that we have learned so much. We are not certain of all that we suspect, just as Socrates was not sure of the spherical nature of Earth.

We are exploring at the borders of our knowledge.

Awareness of the limits of our knowledge is also awareness of the fact that what we know may turn out to be wrong, or inexact. Only by keeping in mind that our beliefs may turn out to be wrong is it possible to free ourselves from wrong ideas, and to learn.

To learn something, it is necessary to have the courage to accept that what we think we know, including our most rooted convictions, may be wrong, or at least naive: shadows on the walls of Plato's cave.

Science is born from this act of humility: not trusting blindly in our past knowledge and our intuition. Not believing in what everyone says. Not having absolute faith in the accumulated knowledge of our fathers and grandfathers.

We learn nothing if we think that we already know the essentials, if we assume that they were written in a book or known by the elders of the tribe. The centuries in which people had faith in what they believed were the centuries in which little new was learned.

Had they trusted the knowledge of their fathers, Einstein, Newton, and Copernicus would never have called things into question and would never have been able to move our knowledge forward. If no one had raised doubts, we would be still worshipping pharaohs and thinking that Earth is supported on the back of a giant turtle.

...A scientist is someone who lives immersed in the awareness of our deep ignorance, in direct contact with our own innumerable limits, with the limits of our understanding.

But if we are certain of nothing, how can we possibly rely on what science tells us? The answer is simple. Science is not reliable because it provides certainty. It is reliable because it provides us with the best answers we have at present. Science is the most we know so far about the problems confronting us.

It is precisely its openness, its constant putting of current knowledge in question, that guarantees that the answers it offers are the best so far available: if you find better answers, these new answers become science. 

When Einstein found better answers than Newton, he didn't question the capacity of science to give the best possible answers -- on the contrary, he confirmed it.

...The nature of scientific thinking is critical, rebellious, and dissatisfied with a priori conceptions, reverence, and sacred or untouchable truth. The search for knowledge is not nourished by certainty: it is nourished by a radical distrust in certainty. 

This means not giving credence to those who say they are in possession of the truth.

For this reason, science and religion frequently find themselves on a collision course. Not because science pretends to know ultimate answers, but precisely for the opposite reason: because the scientific spirit distrusts whoever claims to be the one having ultimate answers or privileged access to Truth.

This distrust is found to be disturbing in some religious quarters. It is not science that is disturbed by religion: there are certain religions that are disturbed by scientific thinking.

...To live with uncertainty may be difficult. There are those who prefer any certainty, even if unfounded, to the uncertainty that comes from recognizing our own limits. There are some who prefer to believe in a story just because it was believed by the tribe's ancestors, rather than bravely accept uncertainty.

Ignorance can be scary. Our of fear, we can tell ourselves calming stories: up there beyond the stars there is an enchanted garden, with a gentle father who will welcome us into his arms. It doesn't matter if this is true -- it is reassuring.

There is always, in this world, someone who pretends to tell us the ultimate answers. The world is full of people who say that they have The Truth. Because they have got it from the fathers; they have read it in a Great Book; they have received it directly from a god; they have found it in the depths of themselves.

There is always someone who has the presumption to be the depository of Truth, neglecting to notice that the world is full of other depositories of Truth, each one with his own real Truth, different from that of the others.

There is always some prophet dressed in white, uttering the words: "Follow me, I am the true way." 

...For my part, I prefer to look our ignorance in the face, accept it, and seek to look just a bit further: to try to understand that which we are able to understand.

Not just because accepting this ignorance is the way to avoid being entangled in superstitions and prejudices but because to accept our ignorance in the first place seems to me to be the truest, the most beautiful, and above all, the most honest way.

Comments

[Roger]

The great thing about truth is that all truth is subjective as no thing (physical, emotional, psychological, or any combination thereof) is a truth in or of itself.

One of the most liberating experiences there can be is the realization that just because some thing (as defined) is written in a book or is proclaimed by someone as being the absolute truth, it is actually just their conditioned and subjective opinion that you are free to reject on the basis of your own conditioned and subjective opinion.

Of course, there will always be things (as defined) that are true in now-ness because they are factually correct in now-ness.

But because of causality those facts are impermanent and insubstantial in or of themselves so can never be the truth.

[Spence Tepper]

A consumer of scientific information is a selective consumer picking what flatters their opinion. They call this common sense thinking. They assume what science hasn't tested is false. For them, the unknown doesn't exist. The unknown isn't real for them. Only what they can find in the shops is real to them.

But a true scientist spends their time on the frontiers of the unknown. They see knowledge as a small island in the vast ocean of reality. Everything in reality beyond that island is the unknown. The unknown. For the true scientist observation is more important than theory, because most of reality is in the unknown, and daily they are bringing it piece by piece into known reality largely through observation and testing, and secondarily, trying to understand that data, and through both conjecture and refined observation and testing. In stages, collaborating with their peers, openly sharing their experiences, they convert data into information, and information into knowledge.

Be a good scientist. Engage in observation, testing, communication and understanding as part of living. Make living the act of continuous learning.

Be happy to be wrong. Be happy to share and in dialogue, observation and testing, revise your thinking.

Reality won't change, but your awareness of more of it, your understanding of it, and your integration with it will grow.

[Dungeness]

@ Rovelli [Our of fear, we can tell ourselves calming stories: up there beyond the stars there is an enchanted garden, with a gentle father who will welcome us into his arms. It doesn't matter if this is true -- it is reassuring. ]

Hm, a scientist IMO would respectfully, humbly decline comment and certainly
not opine, patronizingly, that fear creates a bedtime story for scared children.
Religious or mystic literature often employs metaphor so rather than resorting
to psycho-babble, he could mention it in passing and admit his ignorance on
the subject. After all, being open to the vastness of our ignorance is a theme
of his otherwise very sensible remarks.

[ There is always, in this world, someone who pretends to tell us the ultimate answers. The world is full of people who say that they have The Truth. Because they have got it from the fathers; they have read it in a Great Book; they have received it directly from a god; they have found it in the depths of themselves. ]

I agree it smacks of exclusivity until you read "found it in the depths of themselves".
That's the mystic way which offers a path of mindfulness and devotion to replicate
the mystic's experience. Hardly exclusivity or charlantry unless you've pre-judged
or deem Scientism the only right way to pursue finding Truth.

[umami]

"A consumer of scientific information is a selective consumer picking what flatters their opinion. They call this common sense thinking."

Let's not confuse science with scientism. In the passages that Brian quoted, Rovelli refers to real scientists practicing real science, not selective consumers of scientific information.

"That's the mystic way which offers a path of mindfulness and devotion to replicate
the mystic's experience."

Indeed, Dungeness. What attracted me to mysticism was the possibility of direct knowledge. Religion and mysticism are two different animals, and their relation, in my thinking, is the same as scientism to science. Religion starts as second-hand information. How much fog over centuries?

So Spence, I'd like to suggest an alternate formulation: A consumer of RELIGIOUS information is a selective consumer picking what flatters their opinion. They call this common sense thinking.

Scientists aren't the problem. Fake mystics and false prophets are the problem. We shouldn't romanticize religiosity, because it fails regularly to protect from narrowness and ignorance.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Umami
You wrote
"A consumer of RELIGIOUS information is a selective consumer picking what flatters their opinion. They call this common sense thinking."

Yes of course. No surprise there.
But then it is the consumer of scientific information who has no interest in studying first hand they do the same. They select what flatters their opinion

And then they do something very unscientific. They claim that because no evidence yet exists for anything else, nothing else exists. And they call this practical thinking. This is the religion of scientism. No true scientist practices it. But for some strange reason a group of Atheists have chosen this approach to dismiss evoke who thinks differently than they do. Even other scientists.

And this makes Atheism, for those who practice this flawed thinking, just another religion.

[Spence Tepper]

Rovelli writes
"Had they trusted the knowledge of their fathers, Einstein, Newton, and Copernicus would never have called things into question and would never have been able to move our knowledge forward. If no one had raised doubts, we would be still worshipping pharaohs and thinking that Earth is supported on the back of a giant turtle."

It wasn't distrust at all. It was the same passionate love of discovery, love of observing reality, love of finding the treasure of a new Truth that lead these titans of science to build and refine on the earlier titans.

This is why the" supernatural" and religious belief should be examined. Not for the purpose of dismissing these, but for the purpose of understanding them. That can't be done by angry dismissal or efforts to erase the experiences of others.

Scientists spend their lives in investigation, in fascination with their subject. So if you are not fascinated with religions, why comment on them?

If you are angry, that is a terrible basis for science. It just doesn't carry you far at all.

Anger is well suited to politics. Politics is the arena of complaint.

But to observe and love what you observe enough to keep observing, that is quite opposite.

If you are fascinatinated with science, then why not study it?

I think the problem is uncommitted thinkers, lazy thinkers, frustrated thinkers, angry thinkers who just don't love Truth enough to engage in it, to devote themselves to a subject they find fascinating, investigating with an open mind, observing with an open mind, analyzing objectively with peer review on a foundation of love for our chosen subject

I think there are lazy thinkers who love their own ideas so much they would rather spend time promoting them, make excuses for them, and mount attacks of different perspectives rather than simply love their field and spend more time learning about that field.

The lover of Truth knows that every position is just a point in time and space, and deeper investigation invalidates much of the past opinion.

Every lazy thinker, even religious leaders, claim they are being scientific. But it's a different mindset. Love, passionate love of truth in any form.

When you are in love it is the object of your love you give all attention to, not your own secondary opinions.

"Love the art in yourself. Not yourself in the art."
Stanislavski

[Appreciative Reader]

"A consumer of scientific information is a selective consumer picking what flatters their opinion."

..........Nope. It is the SELECTIVE consumer of scientific information, THAT IS GIVEN TO SELECTIVELY CHERRY-PICKING BITS AND PIECES THAT FLATTER THEIR OPINION, that is a selective consumer picking what flatters their opinion."

Do you see the (perhaps inadvertent) sleight of hand in that sentence of yours, Spence, that is repeated in many other sentences in your comments here, and indeed is all that the overall argument that you're trying to present in this thread amounts to?

No? I'll try to illustrate it further. Here, look at this sentence. "The alleged mystic who makes cynical use of others' trust and gullibility to reach into their pockets and in some cases inside their pants, is nothing more than a thief and a sexual predator." As it stands that sentence is perfectly cromulent, eh? Then what I do is, I beg the question, and the portions within parentheses I simply take as understood, and don't spell out, like so: Take-2 and Take-3, as follows: Take-2: "The (alleged) mystic (who makes cynical use of others' trust to reach into their pockets and in some cases inside their pants) is nothing more than a thief and a sexual predator." And, Take-3, where the parentheses are gone: "The mystic is nothing more than a thief and a sexual predator."

Another example: Take-1: "People who wear fancy suits and drive fancy cars, who, in the dark of night, accost helpless old folks and rob them and at times kill them, are, in fact, thieves and murderers." Perfectly cromulent, so far. Now Take-2, with parentheses: Take-2: "People who wear fancy suits and drive fancy cars (who, in the dark of night, accost helpless old folks and rob them and at times kill them) are, in fact, thieves and murderers." And now, Take-3, with the parentheses taken for granted and disingenuously left unsaid, in a transparently disingenuous question-begging sleight of hand: Take-3: "People who wear fancy suits and drive fancy cars are, in fact, thieves and murderers."

----------

Do you see what I'm trying to convey, Spence? Look man, I respect you, and although I view them with (constructive) skepticism, but I'm in some degree of awe of your experiences, that you discuss here. And I've no dog in this fucking race, and am happy to embrace whichever POV comes across as reasonable. But this kind of utter and transparent disingenuity, it does your larger argument no favor, and indeed throws into some doubt the rest of the otherwise reasonable things you say here.

I'm not fucking Heimdall to Brian's Asgard --- the gatekeeper guy with the sword and the weird eyes, in those Thor movies and in the older Viking legends? --- and, fuck, it comes across a slightly dick move to keep on criticizing what you say here, so I'll not do that after this, after this comment. But every bit of the comments you make here in this thread is utterly and transparently disingenous, Spence, I'm afraid.

----------

You're basically making two arguments in this series of comments on this thread. The first is the blatant question-begging and misrepresentation that I've shown above. And the second is this:

"...it is the consumer of scientific information who has no interest in studying first hand they do the same. They select what flatters their opinion..."

..........Once again you repeat that same sleight of hand, the implications-and-qualifications-left-unsaid question-begging that all of your comments in this thread are full of; but this time with this one added element thrown in: you introduce the distinction between the consumer of science, vis-a-vis the producer of science.

That's a fucking red herring. The consumer of science is a consumer of science, regardless of whether he is also happens to be a producer of science. And a sincere and honest consumer of science is a sincere and honest consumer of science, regardless of whether he also happens to be a producer of science. And an insincere and disingenuously cherry-picking consumer of science is an insincere and disingenuously cherry-picking consumer of science, regardless of whether he also happens to be a producer of science.

This latter point? This producer of science and consumer science thing? We've had this very discussion, albeit using different words, like twenty times in the past. One of those times we danced this dance in a discussion spanning like maybe a hundred comments each, at the end of which you finally claimed to have understood, and agreed. And now this. Again. And what's more, not upfront, but slipped in disingenuously, with implications made within unspoken parentheses that are left unsaid, in what is a transparently disingenuous question-begging pseudo-argument.

---------

Like I said, it comes across a dick move to be pouncing on your comments like this, Spence, especially when overall I hold you in respect and esteem; and indeed is something of a fool's errand when you consider that, besides the respect-and-esteem thing, I personally have no dog in this fucking race. I'll stop doing that right after this. But you know what? There's many ways to try to apprehend reality and "truth". And the most basic and fundamental of those is honesty and intellectual integrity, which is simply a matter of trying to be as clear and as honest as you can, that's all. Doing just that, and nothing else, will take you some way, if not all the way, on your way to apprehending truth and reality; and not doing that will not take you anywhere at all, no matter how much you do all of the other things that can be done.

****finishes drink, picks up coat, and resolutely exits bar****

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR
My comments refer to a particular category of people who pick the scientific findings that defend their view, but go on to claim that nothing else outside their chosen findings exists.

If there are consumers of scientific information who don't do this, please accept my apology.

Personally I think they would be those who live as scientists, engaged in exploration and discovery, even in areas unknown to others.

But my black and white depiction may be a little too simplistic.

Perhaps there are those who can be objective in accepting scientific data that runs counter to their strongly held opinion.

It's certainly a theoretical possibility.

I guess the test of that would be those who are not scientists, not involved in exploration, nor interested in discovery, nor seeking peer review of their own findings, who nevertheless acknowledge where science has caused them, on a regular basis, to change their view.

That would be a theoretical possibility. I just haven't been exposed to any of those people yet.

[Appreciative Reader]

"Hi AR
My comments refer to a particular category of people who pick the scientific findings that defend their view, but go on to claim that nothing else outside their chosen findings exists."

..........You say that NOW. You NOW admit that you were only speaking of that subset of flashy men driving flashy cars while wearing flashy suits, who happen to rob and kill old men, not all flashily-turned-out men with cars; but that isn't what you actually said, and argued, in the comments here. Check yourself if that isn't so.

----------

"If there are consumers of scientific information who don't do this, please accept my apology."

..........No need to apologize, man. An in any case, you aren't really apologizing, are you? I mean, with that "if there are consumers of scientific information who don't do this"? Which is like saying, "If there are flashily dressed drivers of flashy cars who don't, in fact, go around robbing and killing old men, then please accept my apology for characterizing them as such"?

----------

"Personally I think they would be those who live as scientists, engaged in exploration and discovery, even in areas unknown to others."

..........You keep doubling down, instead of admitting your mistake, and despite that pseudo-apology. Don't you understand what I'm saying? Don't take this as a me-versus-you thing, or even a my-view-versus-the-other-view thing: just think through the simply the rest of this paragraph and the next: The producer of science produces maybe one or two "items" of science, and at most, if he's extraordinarily prolific, maybe a hundred items of science (discoveries as well as inventions); while all consumers of science, including this particular producer of science, consume literally millions of items of science through their life. The consumer of these millions of items of science ---- regardless of whether he personally also produces a relatively insignificant 100 items of science himself, or 10, or just one, or none at all --- can be one of two things, either an honest and sincere consumer of science, or else a disingenuous cherry-picker of ideas. What's not to understand? How does the one relate to the other? Why on earth would whether one produces a single unit of science or not, have any bearing on how one behaves as a consumer of science? (Or at least, there's no direct reason why. It may be that, statistically speaking, producers of science are more likely to be honest consumers of science; but that's like arguing that flashily turned out drivers of flashy cars are statistically more likely than dowdily dressed pedestrians to rob and kill old men; that's a whole separate argument, that needs to be made separately, and backed up empircially, and has nothing whatsoever do with what you're actually arguing here.)

----------

"But my black and white depiction may be a little too simplistic."

..........It's not "simplistic"; it is completely, utterly WRONG.

----------

"Perhaps there are those who can be objective in accepting scientific data that runs counter to their strongly held opinion.

It's certainly a theoretical possibility."

..........And perhaps there are flashily dressed drivers of flashy cars who do not actually rob and kill old men. That also is a theoretical possibility.

----------

"I guess the test of that would be those who are not scientists, not involved in exploration, nor interested in discovery, nor seeking peer review of their own findings, who nevertheless acknowledge where science has caused them, on a regular basis, to change their view.

That would be a theoretical possibility. I just haven't been exposed to any of those people yet."

..........You are asking me to believe that you haven't been exposed to any flashily dressed drivers of flashy cars who don't rob and kill old men, or to any dowdily dressed pedestrians who do rob and kill old men? I don't believe you, sorry. That's ...simply nonsensical.

Why on earth do you keep doubling down on a position that is utterly and transparently wrong? There's no need to ---- the mystic argument has enough heft to put up a good fight in the reality stakes, on its own and without needing to be bolstered up with pseudo-arguments (regardless of whether or not in the end it wins or loses the stakes).

****compulsively walks back to the bar to down two more drinks, and play that one last hand, and now walks beyond the swinging doors, swearing not to look back****

[Appreciative Reader]

Spence, please don't take my last two comments as a personal attack, man. No offense intended. It's just that you were so utterly completely wrong, and so inexplicably unable to see the very obvious flows in both of your two central arguments that your present in this thread --- and besides these two are your central arguments that you make across multiple comments in multiple threads --- that I couldn't stop myself from, admittedly somewhat compulsively, pointing out those very obvious flaws. Peace.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR
You wrote
"..........You are asking me to believe that you haven't been exposed to any flashily dressed drivers of flashy cars who don't rob and kill old men, or to any dowdily dressed pedestrians who do rob and kill old men? I don't believe you, sorry. That's ...simply nonsensical."

I haven't been exposed to anyone who robs and kills old men.

I guess we run in different crowds.;

[Appreciative Reader]

Desperate and content-free dodge-cum-attempt-at-snark noted, without further comment.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR
You wrote
"The producer of science produces maybe one or two "items" of science, and at most, if he's extraordinarily prolific, maybe a hundred items of science (discoveries as well as inventions); "

Whatever they undertake to understand they do so with a scientific mind set, in all fields they are exposed to, though they may only work in one field. That mind set precludes the false argument of conflating what hasn't been tested with being non-existent.

For decades consumers of science said there was zero proof of UFOs that could be verified therefore they believed UFOs were just a hoax and didn't exist. They argued that if UFOs were real we'd have hard scientific data by now.

Real scientists simply said there was no reliable information and therefore no scientific statement could be made.

Now, thanks to the government, and in particular the Pentagon, we have verified data that UFOs, who move in ways that are not possible with any known technology, actually exist.

So the consumers of science were dead wrong. Because they weren't thinking like scientists.

And the scientists were right.
Knowing how little science has measured, and how sensitive data is to misinterpretation, they save hard conclusions for things that have been tested and peer reviewed, and their firmest conclusions for the field they practice in. Unlike consumers of science, scientists never draw conclusions about the unknown.

Stuff that is unknown, consumers of science claim doesn't exist. They are wrong.

Scientists don't do that. They say "we don't know." Those three beautiful words are foreign to consumers of science.

They can become scientists if they should choose to test their own beliefs or avoid passing judgment in the absence of hard scientific data. Otherwise they are just consumers.

[Appreciative Reader]

"Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to [and in any case am unable to, even if I did want to] find you an understanding." [That last you must do on your own, or not at all.]

Stop fighting it, man. Just go back and read my comments one more time.

[Spence Tepper]

When a scientist views religion they don't do so with the idea of dismissing that religion. They accept that it exists and is a real organization with its own set of beliefs and practices. It's legitimacy is simply the fact that it exists and can be studied.

[umami]

Years ago I worked alongside many Chinese. One observed:
"In America cars yield for people. In China people yield for cars. Why? Too many people."

[Appreciative Reader]

When a scientist views religion they don't do so with the idea of dismissing that religion. They accept that it exists and is a real organization with its own set of beliefs and practices. It's legitimacy is simply the fact that it exists and can be studied.

Posted by: Spence Tepper | May 29, 2022 at 10:29 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've no clue what you think you're doing here, Spence, in our exchanges in this thread. Had it been someone else I'd have said they were simply trolling --- but I know you better than that.

Anyway, like I've been saying, keeping on jumping on the things you say would, from a certain perspective, appear to be a dick move. If you don't actually want engagement, but merely to be left alone to say unmolested whatever random things you wish to say, then that's easily done. Just, that isn't how I normally view your comments, as weird stuff to be left alone. Normally you do make sense. But this thread, specifically our exchanges here? Disengage for a minute, and go back and check back on your performance here, if you would --- for performance is what it amounts to --- and I'll wager you'll feel embarrassed. You've not been honestly engaging here. Now not engaging is fine; I can't, and don't, expect that others must necessarily engage with whatever I want them to engage with; and if you don't want to, that's fine; but this blatantly disingenuous performance where you go through the motions of engaging, quoting a sentence here and an para there, and then go off into transparent sidestepping and strawmanning and non sequiturs ---- all the while leaving unaddressed the crux of the solid criticism I'd advanced, well, I don't know. Well anyway, whatever: you do you, I guess, whatever form that latter "you" takes this week. For the last time addressing that last comment of yours, presumably addressed to me, that I've quoted above:

That's bull, all of it. The fact is that a scientist can be one of four things, as far as their take on religion and spirituality. A bona fide scientist, perfectly good at his job, can yet be a cross-eyed superstitious mess wallowing in blind faith when it comes to religion, and/or other superstitions. Or he could be utterly indifferent to religion and spirituality, not giving it a moment's attention. Or he could, as you say, constructively be engaging with and himself experimenting with and testing out the claims of religion and spirituality, whether the direct claims and/or whether, as you hint at, its meta-manifestation. And finally, he could just as well be an out and out anti-theist, firmly and virulently against anything remotely resembling religion and/or spirituality. There is no reason why a bona fide scientist should necessarily favor one of these categories. (Of course, in practice it is quite possible that certain categories are represented more, and some less --- Dawkins has discussed the preponderance of atheism amongst scientists, observed as statistical fact --- but that last is a matter of empirically backed statistics, and neither statistically nor logically remotely bears out what you're saying here.)

And the same applies to any and every other profession. Plumbers, football players, accountants, corporate types, analysts, clerks, bankers, musicians, comedians, strippers, actors, escorts and porn stars, whatever --- no reason to treat the scientist any differently.

Lest you pull a No True Scotsman here: This applies just as well to the figurative scientist as it does to the literal, actual scientist. A scientist in one area (a producer of science, to use your terminology), is a consumer of science in all other areas than the ones he's directly engaged with. I know a bona fide physicist who's given to cross-eyed superstitions when it comes to biology --- specifically the vaccine thing, and indeed the larger virus thing. Likewise, when it comes to religion.

Anyhoo: To say this is only to rephrase my main argument in this thread. You've seen fit to dance around my earlier and clearly spelt out comments on this thread, for reasons best known to you. Perhaps you'll do the same again, or maybe you'll be able to recognize your error (which in any case you've already acknowledged clearly in the past, although you keep trying to sidestep that part of it, as you sidestep the rest of it as well). Well whatever. Thought I'd put in the effort to type out one last post, pointing out the blatantly fallacious position you're advocating here for reasons best known to you.

Over and out. (From this thread, I mean to say.)

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR:
You wrote:
"The fact is that a scientist can be one of four things, as far as their take on religion and spirituality. A bona fide scientist, perfectly good at his job, can yet be a cross-eyed superstitious mess wallowing in blind faith when it comes to religion, and/or other superstitions. Or he could be utterly indifferent to religion and spirituality, not giving it a moment's attention. Or he could, as you say, constructively be engaging with and himself experimenting with and testing out the claims of religion and spirituality, whether the direct claims and/or whether, as you hint at, its meta-manifestation. And finally, he could just as well be an out and out anti-theist, firmly and virulently against anything remotely resembling religion and/or spirituality. "

That would be the personality of the individual who is, at work, a scientist.

What I wrote about was the person acting in the role of the scientist. In that role they approach subjects with rigor.

There is...
1. The Unknown that hasn't been rigorously investigated.
2. Raw data with some level of theory or hypotheses...
3. Hard scientific results from controlled conditions that replicate or verify a hypothesis backed by theory: Scientific Knowledge.

People like to think they are being practical by claiming some things don't exist. Practical consumers of science claimed for decades that UFOs were 100% non existant and a hoax.

Scientists claimed they were possible but there was not enough scientific data to verify their existance.

Then the Pentagon came out with hard data demonstrating that UFOs are real, flying craft that move in ways that are physically impossible by any known technology.

The practical consumers of scientific data were dead wrong.
The scientists were right.

Were their hoaxes and dreamers along the way? Yes. But their brand of error was no worse than that of the consumers of science.

[Spence Tepper]

What makes for a true scientists? The willingness to explore, discover, observe, investigate, develop theory, test that theory, disclose 100% of findings, method, etc for peer review. And adopt that peer review in refined further scientific investigation.

Why? Because the more we get into conjecture, into condemnation, into creating heros and demons, the further we get from truth. The more distant we are from practical behavior based on better understanding that makes for progress, no matter how practical or reasonable our conjectures sound. Conjecture not backed with investigation is wild conjecture.

Because sometimes reality is wild, and practical conjecture just won't do.

And the more we stay close to investigation, the closer we are to reality and truth.

[Appreciative Reader]

"That would be the personality of the individual who is, at work, a scientist. ...What I wrote about was the person acting in the role of the scientist. "

...........Gah. That's the No-True-Scotsman thing I'd pre-empted.

You can't insist that everyone must necessarily engage with every single thing. Nor can they actually do that.

Of the literally millions of things you engage with, even the most scientifically intrepid soul can properly engage, as in actually research, maybe at most a hundred or so things. All of the rest he must needs take on trust.

The key, then, to "consuming science", as you put it, is to know what and whom to trust.

To know the scientific method is essential, and sure, one tries to follow it to an extent in many things ------------ but by far the vast majority of things one MUST, of necessity take on trust! So, do you trust the actual science, or do you trust some crazy conspiracy theory, or some crazy religious twaddle, that is the question, when it comes to consuming science.

This is such a basic thing, and we've discussed this so many times! Yet you seem never to get it, even despite having already nodded in agreement in the past.

Producing science, vis-a-vis consuming science. Doing science, vis-a-vis employing a scientific worldview. Actually using the scientific method, vis-a-vis knowing which sources to trust.

[umami]

"People like to think they are being practical by claiming some things don't exist. Practical consumers of science claimed for decades that UFOs were 100% non existant and a hoax."

Spence,

Do such people prevent you from practicing science? If you waited for religious dogmatists to practice mysticism, you'd still be at the starting gate.

I don't see the problem, unless you're having trouble motivating colleagues and clients.

[Appreciative Reader]

OK, Spence, broken down as simply as I know how : --

Just because someone isn't engaging with Topic-X on strictly scientific terms, you cannot therefore accuse them of not being No True Scotsmen, sorry, scratch that, Not True Scientists.

Albert Einstein isn't not-a-scientist because he takes his doctor on trust on matters medical rather than scientifically researching every single diagnosis and every single prescription his doctor makes for him.

Stephen Hqwking isn't not-a-scientist because he takes on trust the mechanism of this wheelchair, rather than prying it open and proving every bit of it from first principles. And nor is he not-a-scientist because he does not himself go digging up fossils and comapring fossil records in order to verify evolution. It is fine that he trusts people like Darwin and Dawkins in those things, and indeed in the million other things he encounters.

Likewise, a scientist does not become not-a-scientist just because he does not personally research spirituality and religion. It is fine if he goes by the scientific consensus on this. It is fine to merely consume science, because in any case that is what you do for most things in life.

----------

That said, while Einstein doesn't do it, but for the pharma research company to research medicines and cures, that is fine, and as it should be. And while Hqwking doesn't do either, but it is good and right that the electronics of his wheelchair is researched by scientists and engineers, and that evolution is researched by people like Darwin and Dawkins. And it is perfectly fine for Spence Tepper ---- and in the past, for Brian Hines, and although with [hitherto] far more humble effect for Appreciative Reader as well ---- to "research" spirituality; but that does not mean that everyone else who does not individually research spirituality, and who, instead, relies on the scientific consensus to draw their conclusion, are therefore not scientific. To think that is ------ to hark back, once again, to our old discussion ---- not understand the essence of a scientific worldview.

---------------------

Incidentally: Remind me to never, ever, utter again the phrase "I'm done commenting on this thread." Makes me look utterly silly, because invariably I end up doing just that, despite everything!

[spence tepper]

Hi AR:
You wrote:
"You can't insist that everyone must necessarily engage with every single thing. Nor can they actually do that.

"Of the literally millions of things you engage with, even the most scientifically intrepid soul can properly engage, as in actually research, maybe at most a hundred or so things. All of the rest he must needs take on trust."

You may have missed my earlier comment about this. When viewing things from the position of a scientist, the only things taken on trust are temporarily, until the experimental results come in.

Building on sequential theory means that the hypothesis you test for your addition to that theory is also very likely testing every other result underneath it. In this way, which is a very rigorous approach, a controlled study really also tests all the earlier studies by helping confirm, or not, the theory upon which it is based.

The scientist trusts a great deal to put forth energy into conducting research to gather scientific data and where possible even experimentation. But that trust is temporary, and put to the test, AR.

Otherwise they aren't actually acting as scientists.

Consumers of scientific information trust science, but not with any intention of testing any of it. That trust is "practical" but not scientific.

Practical means what you use today, what you need today.

The danger in this consumer thinking is that what you don't use or perceive you may need doesn't exist. That isn't a scientific conclusion.

As for wild conjecture, sometimes it's necessary.

Today, consumers of science are so proud of all that has been learned. But they can't say "I don't Know", and instead say, just like the early pharos and church leaders "It can't be. It doesn't exist," simply because there is no current data supporting it.

Rutherford thought he had a pretty good idea, initially, of what might be the structure of the atom. But not so good that he wouldn't test it.

And what did the experiment reveal? At first Rutherford was shocked.
Finally, he got a purely crazy idea: what if the positively charged alpha particles passed through almost entirely because matter is actually mostly empty space?

Crazy, right?

Niels Bohr would later develop from this the architecture of the atom we know today.

Tiny particles in a vast empty space held together by nothing more than powerful fields of energy: The stuff of fantasy, but actual fact.

Once you see this, once you see it in the lab, reality takes on a whole other view. There is mystery, and the mystery isn't like anything we tiny minds thought. And as time and science have proven, we are terrible at conjecture. Without testing one's notions, they are generally wrong. Especially notions about the unknown.

In all cases, so long as there is a willingness to explore, discover, test, communicate and revise, all is good, even with wild and crazy ideas.

On the day of the shuttle disaster, the president of Morton Thiokol called the chief engineer who was stalling the take off and asked "Why are you doing this?"

To which the Chief engineer said " Because we've never tested to O rings at this low a temperature."

The president of Morton Thiokol said " There is no data to prove those rings won't hold! They've held in every test and actual flight we've had! Take off your engineers hat and put on a managers hat and get that shuttle in the air!"

The Unknown is real and should never be dismissed. The mind of a scientist would never allow it.

The consumer of science does it all the time.

[spence tepper]

As for Einstein, Hawking and other theoretical Physicists, the conclusions aren't made until the data is available.

This is why Einstein's theory of relativity, published in 1915, wasn't confirmed until 4 years later in 1919 by Arthur Eddington through scientific investigation and data of the sun's rays bending during an eclipse.

Proof is always still needed. Einstein was a professional theorist. And furthermore, Einstein used his own virtual laboratory with thought experiments of the movement of light. He tested his own mental model. Turned out his own internal model proved accurate in that instance.

Everything Einstein proposed had to fit the rigor of physics that had already been transformed into the system of mathematics. So, a level of testing and refinement even there, along with significant peer review.

Even theoretical Physicists take a scientific approach.

But to call anything scientific that is not explored, investigated, tested or not submitted for rigorous evaluation and testing just isn't science nor scientific thinking. Such conjecture is the religion of scientism and consumerism.

To claim "I'm being scientific in my thinking by adhering to the known laws of science and without testing" isn't actually scientific at all. Science discovers new laws all the time. It does so building a window to the unknown using existing laws. That is a gateway to seeing beyond existing laws. But it by no means is constrained exclusively to them. If that were the case there would be no theoretical physicists nor scientific investigation and experimentation.

Therefore, to claim all those things that are unknown don't exist is unscientific in the extreme.

[Appreciative Reader]

I give up! Have fun in non sequitur land.

[umami]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/14/im-not-afraid-what-stephen-hawking-said-about-god-his-atheism-and-his-own-death/

Steven Hawking, atheist:

“Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.”

"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”

[Dungeness]

@ Hawking [ "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. ]

IMO, "I don't know yet" is a more elegant answer.

[Appreciative Reader]

No, it would be a singularly stupid answer, pardon the plainspeak. Will the sun rise tomorrow? Will the Planck constant change its measure by a crucial decimal point tomorrow? Will the universe, having expanded thus far, suddenly start contracting from tomorrow? Will entropy reverse direction when the universe turns 15B?

The truly honest answer is "We don't (100%) know." And indeed, someone specifically researching these issues starts, a priori, with the "I don't know" position. But to imagine that, therefore, "I don't know" is the right answer for everyone, is to be utterly clueless about what a scientific worldview entails. Sorry, but there's no two ways about it.

Had Hawkins elected to research the God question, his a priori position would have been what you suggest. As it is, his dismissal of that question on grounds of parsimony and pragmatism is perfectly cromulent, just as he'd be perfectly justified in a priori dismissing invisible unicorns lurking in my garage. (Albeit if, for some reason, if someone elected to research my unicorn, naturally their a priori position would be that, pending the research, they don't know.)

Is this elementary reasoning so very difficult to grasp?

[umami]

Hawking also said, “One can’t prove that God doesn’t exist. But science makes God unnecessary. … The laws of physics can explain the universe without the need for a creator.”

Theists can take slight comfort in that, but if their theory reads, 'The Mind of an Atheist is Too Closed for Science,' Hawking's example disproves it. Supernaturalism was irrelevant to his work.

No big deal. Develop a new theory. In the spirit of science!

[Dungeness]

@ AR [ The truly honest answer is "We don't (100%) know." And indeed, someone specifically researching these issues starts, a priori, with the "I don't know" position. But to imagine that, therefore, "I don't know" is the right answer for everyone, is to be utterly clueless about what a scientific worldview entails. Sorry, but there's no two ways about it.]

You mean there's One Right Answer and if you flub it you're singularly stupid...
After all, It's "WE" not "I" or you'll self-immolate in the "clueless" dust heap of
those not versed in a "scientific worldview". Did it occur that "I" could signify a
simple placeholder for the implicit collective scientific community building a
scientific worldview... Signaling a hopeful approach in one day answering this
seminal question certainly deserves the effort/attention of an eternally curious,
engaged, scientific community and its luminaries.

[Appreciative Reader]

"You mean there's One Right Answer and if you flub it you're singularly stupid..."

..........I beg your pardon, Dungeness. That plainspeak of "singularly stupid" was "singularly" discourteous; and in any case wasn't quite accurate either (because it is perfectly possible for the best minds to be mistaken; and to happen, in one instance, to be wrong is most certainly NOT to be "stupid"). My apologies.

----------

"After all, It's "WE" not "I" or you'll self-immolate in the "clueless" dust heap of
those not versed in a "scientific worldview. Did it occur that "I" could signify a
simple placeholder for the implicit collective scientific community building a
scientific worldview..."

..........Actually that's exactly what did occur to me, and exactly the perspective from which I approached your comment, and found it wanting. Like I said, sure "we" "don't know" if the Sun's going to go nova within the next year --- we quite literally don't, not with certitude --- but it is certainly "wrong", if not necessarily "stupid", to stay agnostic about that possibility. (With one exception: and that would be the a priori position of someone who's set out to research specifically this possibility. From that perspective, and that perspective alone, absolutely, we "don't know" that, just like we "don't know" the answer to the question Stephen Hawking was addressing. But from any and every other perspective, an unequivocal "No" is the correct, reasonable answer, for reasons already discussed at length.)

----------

" Signaling a hopeful approach in one day answering this
seminal question certainly deserves the effort/attention of an eternally curious,
engaged, scientific community and its luminaries."

..........Indeed. Personally I share that hope, Dungeness, as far as the specific question you refer to. And personally I share your assessment of that question as "seminal". And personally I agree the question deserves effort at and attention towards exploration, exploration.

But because I personally think it worth my time and effort to --- figuratively --- research whether there's any chance at all of the Sun going nova within the next year, that does not mean that it serves me to pretend that the perfectly reasonable position, arrived at basis the consensus of science and indeed of all of human knowledge so far, that such a thing is nonsensical. And nor does recognizing that preclude the possiblity --- and the hope! --- that that consensus may yet change one day, who knows basis, in part, my own effort, or yours, or Spence's, or Brian's, or 777's, or manjit's, or Osho Robbins's. Or, of course, not. But, either way, I don't see that wilfully deluding ourselves as far as where the arrow of truth points at helps anyone or anything. Without unwavering commitment to truth, no "research", whether informal and subjective, or 'hard' and formal and of the more conventional kind, can possibly ever bear fruit.

[Appreciative Reader]

Whoops. On re-reading, that bit of what I wrote came out making no sense. No doubt the thrust of what I was going for is obvious, but still, correction: The first sentence of the last paragraph in my comment above should read as follows:

"But because I personally think it worth my time and effort to --- figuratively --- research whether there's any chance at all of the Sun going nova within the next year, that does not mean that it serves me to pretend that the perfectly reasonable position, arrived at basis the consensus of science and indeed of all of human knowledge so far, is somehow mistaken. And nor does ... [as above.]"