Science’s Explanations Are So Much Better That Religion’s
Just surfing the web when I came across this piece characterizing some of the more scientific explanations out there. Read over them and tell me they are no more crazy than Jesus being born from a virgin.
September 19th, 2008 at 10:14 am
I love cracked, that was awesome.
September 20th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
I see where you’re going with this, and I generally agree with your point about the inherent arbitrariness of it all, but I would like to point out that when science gets weird, it’s because the observations suggest that conclusion. When religion gets weird it’s because it makes a better (more memorable, more symbolic, more whatever) story that way.
September 20th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I would disagree. I don’t think religious explanations are chosen simply to be memorable. I think they are mostly chosen because to the observer crafting the story, sees it that way. Superiority on observational explanation does not favor science or religion. Their explanations for superficial observations are equally valid. However when the observations are no longer superficial and actually matter, more often then not science comes out as the winner.
But then again science cheats to accomplish this. It starts out by only including in the universe all the things have an empirical effect. If your filter for valid explanation is bound by having an empirical effect on someone else then the explanations you give that person are much more likely to be compelling. Those explanations by definition must have an effect.
When science ignores the empirical bounds you get stupid explanation normally found in religion. Hence the scientific explanations featured in the story this post linked to.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:43 am
The biggest difference is that scientific theories change when new evidence is presented, whereas religions are absolutely sure about what happened in a manger on the other side of the world 2000 years ago, and no evidence could ever change their account of those events. In a hundred years, we’ll probably have better, more sensilbe theories replacing half the things on that list, but religions will still believe the same exact crazy things.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Science is a work in progress, but at least it is based on observable events, not the demented ramblings of a religious zealot.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Apparently Darwin has never heard of the first or second Vatican Council. Religious theories change just like scientific ones do.
Science and religion do not differ on that dimension.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Religious beliefs can be changed by the organization for political or economic reasons, or even I’ll grant you, advances in theological thinking, but can you point to cases where empirical observations led directly to the overturn of established dogma? And NOT the church pardoning Galileo 400 years later.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Just out of curiosity, why is Galileo off the table?
Also, when was the last time science working off a faith based observation directly overturned empirical dogma?
September 29th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Well, we’ve successively replaced Newtonian Physics with Einsteinian physics, merged Einsteinian physics with Quantum physics, refined Quantum physics into String Theory, and largely replaced String Theory with Supersymmetry (as I understand the current state of things). That’s just in physics- as you know, we’ve replaced much of abnormal psychology’s older theories about bad parenting to explain every disorder with biological and genetic accounts, and more recently with accounts of how biological potentialities are shaped by the environment. Physics and psychology are the two fields I follow most closely, but I assume there’s more examples in other fields.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Those shifts in physical explanations were based on faith based observation or empirical based observation?
September 29th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Empirical. I guess I don’t see where you’re going with your Socratic method here. What’s your point?