Philosophy Asked by Alexander S King on November 23, 2020
I recently found myself unable to respond to the statement “But the big bang theory is just another creation myth!” during a science vs. religion argument. I found it very difficult to explain the difference between the big bang theory and creation myths without going through a crash course in Newtonian and then Relativistic mechanics.
This had me thinking of the following scenario: Consider a person who for various reasons never got a formal education beyond basic reading and writing. He/She doesn’t know any science or math, and was never exposed to any scientific reasoning and experiments. She/He is however an open minded, level headed, and rational person (I’ve met more than one such person myself).
How would such a person differentiate science from religion? As far as he/she is concerned science has the exact same structure as religion:
From his/her perspective, all of these characteristics are no different than the way organized religion presents itself as being the source of truths about the world.
In particular if such a person were to heed the advice of the Kalama Sutra:
- Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing (anussava),
- nor upon tradition (paramparā),
- nor upon rumor (itikirā),
- nor upon what is in a scripture (piṭaka-sampadāna)
- nor upon surmise (takka-hetu),
- nor upon an axiom (naya-hetu),
- nor upon specious reasoning (ākāra-parivitakka),
- nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over (diṭṭhi-nijjhān-akkh-antiyā),
- nor upon another’s seeming ability (bhabba-rūpatāya),
- nor upon the consideration, The monk is our teacher (samaṇo no garū) Kalamas, when you yourselves know: “These things are good; these
things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise;
undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,”
enter on and abide in them.’
Following the Buddha’s advice (ironically himself a religious figure), such a rational but uneducated person would have just as much reason to doubt the various results of scientists as to doubt the dogmas of organized religion.
Turn the is vs. ought problem on it head. Science, when it is being most scientific, only provides instrumental oughts; religion, when it is being most religious, provides only moral oughts.
Science can tell you that if you want to avoid X degrees of global warming you should (instrumentally) reduce carbon emissions by Y amount; but not whether the harm caused by limiting the use of carbon based fuels to improve the lot of people in the developing world offsets the long term harm to our descendent. Several of the examples in the OP illustrate that this is not a hard line, hence the "at its most scientific" disclaimer, but does provide a clear direction. If the response to "why shouldn't I smoke" is factual, rates of smoking related diseases for example, then you're claiming an instrumental ought that aligns with science. If instead the response is about the moral responsibility to maintain one's health, then the response is coming from somewhere other than science.
This blurring goes the other way too -- doing something merely to avoid hell (or gain heaven) can be an instrumental motivation for certain activities. However, in many religious communities, being motivated by just instrumental concerns is less than ideal, if not downright improper.
If you accept that there is an is vs. ought problem, and that oughts (and ises) exist, you can use that branching to separate out the two domains, maybe not crisply, but separate them none the less.
Correct answer by Dave on November 23, 2020
In my view the comparison is difficult because there is so much bad science and bad religion, and what people are comparing is often just this.
If we see religion as method and practice then as a means of discovering truth it is scientific. It relies on experiment and experience, not faith and conjecture. If we see science as being able to decide metaphysical question then it is scientism and might as well be a faith-based religion.
So a rational person would study both until they have sorted the wheat from the chaff and by then the distinction between them will be merely one of research focus and domains of knowledge.
Those who would draw a clear line between science and religion are usually seeing the more naive aspects of both, as maybe represented by Dawkins and Tyson on one side and the average Church of England parish priest or American mid-Western Christian on the other. A rational person would want to delve deeper into the two areas of knowledge than this.
Answered by user20253 on November 23, 2020
One must say, the presupposition behind the question can only ask: how best to convince people to join this emprise, that one was born into? The best answer is: Scientifically. Discover the most efficacious manner of changing the thinking of human being so that they join the splendid mission.
Addendum:
Why “presupposition”?
One could show that things actually work. That's the most convincing thing for reason in the ordinary sense, the most persuasive to folk thinking. But folk thinking is not science. It is merely reason or rationality. One can also dispel superstitions, or frauds. Though, already that is dubious, since scientific notions of causal efficacy blind one to other forms of efficacy, such a placebo effect. Or goals that are not about causal efficacy at all, and invisible to science. Modern science is not rational in any serious sense, despite its vulgar advertisement, it is simply efficacious. Rationality implies the so-called Ought. Science can not even show, on its own resources, that one Ought be into science. That would be a rational decision only if nature itself had a goal, it could be discerned scientifically, and then brought about through scientific means. But since science itself, on the modern notion, doesn't deal with Oughts, it can never do that.
Science is a religion insofar as it is a faith in a certain pursuit. Faith is intellectualized religion. Largely this is a christian thing, intellectualized religion. If one meets a buddhist the sense of what the world is is quite different, and has nothing to do with facts. Facts in the sense of is/ought is a western notion that is ultimately unsupportable and surely not testable. It’s simply an argument that was accepted as authoritative at a certain moment. Science, at bottom, is the power of the “it works”, human beings come into proximity of this power and begin to tell one another that they must blame themselves as obscurantists if they do not follow this pursuit, which they must anyway, because they have already been guided to it from birth. At one time it was a kind of decision, like Einstein's decision to pursue physics under the presupposition that god does not play dice. The direction of the search is thereby prefigured, in a more pressing way the power of the emprise of science acts on large swathes of humans in this way.
Answered by user26700 on November 23, 2020
To understand the difference between religion, ideology, philosophy and science, it is important to first distinguish between two fundamentally different approaches towards the interpretation and analysis of information : faith & reason.
Wikipedia uses the following definition :
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing; or the observance of an obligation from loyalty; or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement; or a belief not based on proof; or it may refer to a particular system of religious belief, such as in which faith is confidence based on some degree of warrant.
Faith is typically a subconscious process, that works through emotion. It is typically driven by processes at the instinctive or intuitive level that one is not consciously aware of.
Depending on who you talk to, being faithful is either considered a good thing or a bad thing :
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
― C.S. Lewis
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.
— Anais Nin
Wikipedia uses the following definition :
Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information. [...] The concept of reason is sometimes referred to as rationality.
Reason is a conscious process, that may or may not take emotions into account (albeit at a conscious level).
Some would argue that reason is higher than faith and that a great capacity for reason eliminates the need for faith :
The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.
— Benjamin Franklin
We may define ‘faith’ as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.
— Bertrand Russell
All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.
— Immanuel Kant
Others would argue that faith and reason are complementary. They would argue that faith can (and should) be used wherever reason does not provide us with answers :
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
— Voltaire
Reason is our Soules left hand, Faith is her right, …
— John Donne
Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.
— Blaise Pascal
Religion, ideology, philosophy and science are different but related approaches to understanding the universe around us. Herebelow, I try to explain the difference, as well as the difference between what qualifies as science and what qualifies as pseudoscience.
Religions are humanity's first approach to understanding the universe. They typically start with a charismatic guru-type figure, like Zoroaster, Moses, Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Joseph Smith and Bahá'u'lláh. Typically, these individuals were known for their great wisdom and were responsible for a major social overhaul that improved the lives of thousands (if not millions) of people in just one generation.
By becoming known as "saviors" during an era of great despair, subsequent generations started relying on words of their "savior", which was usually first past orally and later past in written form. Because it helped them survive and/or achieve social status, the words of the "savior" defined how people lived their lives.
Some religions allow for constant interpretation and re-interpretation of the words of the "savior". A typicaly example would be Judaism, where generations upon generations of rabbis have added their own interpretations of Judaic law to refine it or modify is for more "modern" times. As such, the original 10 commandments of Moses evolved into the 613 mitzvot, first mentioned in a sermon by 3rd century Rabbi Simlai, recorded in Talmud Makkot 23b. And even then, Judaic lore kept evolving with each generation of rabbis, with the most traditional form of European Judaism drawing heavily on the 16th century Lurianic Kabbalah.
Other religions allow little interpretation. One of the more extreme examples are Biblical literalists, who consider every word of the Bible as the literal word of the Christian God. Biblical literalism is mostly popular among Evangelical Christians, which is rather unpopular in Europe but very strong in the US. According to a 2011 Gallup survey reports, about 33% of the American population belongs in this category.
By heavily relying on the "revelations" of one or more charismatic figure, religions are meta-frameworks strongly rooted in faith. However, they can and often do involve reason to refine and update those revelations for later generations.
The "savior" upon which a religion is grounded can be deified by followers of that religion, but this isn't the care per se. Not all religions involve a "savior" figure that "supernatural" powers are attributed to.
Like religions, ideologies typically start with a charismatic guru-type figure : think of Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong or Kim Il-sung. Like religions, ideologies draw heavily on the words of those charismatic leaders. And like religions, ideologies are strongly rooted in faith.
So what's the difference between religions and ideologies? Some might argue that the only real difference between both, is that ideologies are secular. Ideologies do not presume the existence of magic or divine authority. Ideologies do not usually presume any correlation with supernatural.
However, this distinction is rather arbitrary and there are many shades of grey. For example, Hitler believed to be divinely inspired and the way Kim Il-sung is venerated and mythologised in North-Korea today can hardly be distinguished from the way Jesus or Muḥammad are venerated in their respective religion. So ideology could be just be the initial phase that every religion passes before it becomes a religion.
Philosophy is different from religion in the sense that it is not so much rooted in faith as it is in reason. While philosophy neither excludes nor requires faith, philosophy is an approach to understanding that focuses on reason.
While philosophy still approaches many charismatic figures from the past as authorative figures, those figures aren't given the same dogmatic treatment given to the charismatic founders of religious movements. Men like Aristotle, Kant or Stirner are treated more as sources of inspiration rather than authorities that are not to be questioned. This, in turn, makes philosophy more open to dissenting views and data that contradicts dearly held views.
Consistent logic is the very foundation of all philosophy.
Science takes the approach of philosophy a step further by rejecting all faith as a valid approach to the establishment of truth. Where philosophy only requires consistent logic, science adds to these requirements the need for empirical evidence and interpretation in accordance with the scientific method.
A claim is not scientific if it is not (1) supported by a consistent and logical interpretation in accordance with the scientific method, (2) either explicitly suggested or at least supported by empirical evidence as well as (3) consistent with the body of evidence established in accorandance with the first two principes.
If a scientist makes a claim that happens to be consistent with the first two principes but not with the third, he must first point out errors in the the body of evidence established in accorandance with the first two principes and correct those errors in a manner so his new claim is no longer incompatible with the third principle. By these means, science is self-correcting, which allows for the scientific body of evidence to be gradually improved.
It is important to distinguish science from pseudoscience, which involves any claim, belief, or practice presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to the scientific method. A field, practice, or body of knowledge can reasonably be called pseudoscientific when it is presented as consistent with the norms of scientific research, but it demonstrably fails to meet these norms.
To put it differently : pseudoscience is the disguise of ideology, religion or plain nonsense as science. Pseudoscience can be fringe, but it doesn't need to per se. Pseudoscience can be totally mainstream and it's possible for a claim to be both pseudoscientific and for it to be supported by the majority of the population.
For a claim to be pseudoscientific, it neither needs to be unpopular nor false. All it takes for a claim to be pseudoscientific, is for it not to adhere to the three principles (see above) that scientific claims need to adhere to. As a consequence, pseudoscience isn't always obvious to distinguish from real science, even by scientists.
Peer review is a popular mechanism scientists used to distinguish actual science from pseudoscience, but it is a flawed mechanism, because a lot of modern science involves a highly detailed and highly technical expertise only a few people in the world possess. As a consequence, many scientists actually lack the knowledgeto qualify as the peers of the (pseudo)scientists whoes work they're expected to judge. Also, the purposeful falsification of data often isn't obvious to detect without repeating the exact same experiments. For both reasons, some pseudoscience manages to succesfully pass for actual science even among scientists.
With pseudoscience passing for science, it should not surprise anyone that the lines between religion and science aren't obvious to everyone. However, it should be noted that any any actual science ( = purged from pseudoscientific claims) is totally distinct from religion due to its total lack of reliance on faith whatsoever.
Let's go back to your question :
- How would it be possible for such a person to distinguish scientific facts from religious dogma?
- How can we convince such a person of the validity of ideas like those of modern cosmology or evolutionary biology, without first having to teach them enough biology and physics to understand those concepts?
I'm not sure you can, because - whether driven by religion or ideology - most people are not even capable of developing a worldview not guided by whatever faith they've developed during their upbringing :
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are not even capable of forming such opinions.
— Albert Einstein
Note, however, that the Dalai Lama doesn't seem to qualify as "most people" :
If science discovers new facts that are not unifiable with Buddhism, Buddhism will need to be changed appropriately
— Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
Answered by John Slegers on November 23, 2020
I'm not going to attempt to answer your question specifically ("How do you differentiate..."), but instead offer a couple of perspectives from the literature. It would probably be useful for you to read Feyerabend's Against Method (1975), since he is often comparing "Science" with other social activities, such as religion. One of his main points is that you cannot clearly separate "Science" from all other social activities, based on methodological criteria. He also notes, similarly to you, that "Science" sometimes share many features with religion, for instance in organization, barriers of entry, specialized language etc.
Feyerabend is also relevant to your question in another sense, since you are implictly implying that "Science" is a unified whole (since you are pitting "Science" against "Religion"), with a common method. Similarly, you are implying that "Religion" can be understood as a unified whole. The idea that "Science" doesn't have a unified method is maybe the most important message in "Against Method", and Feyerabend is instead suggesting that what we call "Science" is in reality a collection of different activities with different methods and traditions. Therefore, it is impossible to talk about the "Scientific method", and different scientific traditions should be evaluated and compared individually to other social activites and to other ways of obtaining knowledge.
Relevant quotes:
My answer to the first question ["What is science?", my addition] is that the wide divergence of individuals, schools, historical periods, entire sciences makes it extremely difficult to identify comprehensive principles either of method, or of fact. The word 'science' may be a single word - but there is no single entity that corresponds to that word. (Against method, p 238)
also,
At this point some defenders of uniformity [Uniformity of Science, my addition] rise to a higher level. Science may be complex, they say, but it is still 'rational'. Now the word 'rational' can either be used as a collecting bag for a variety of procedures - this would be its nominalist interpretation - or it describes a general feature found in every single scientific action. I accept the first definition, but reject the second. In the second case rationality is either defined in a narrow way that excludes, say, the arts; then it also excludes large sections of the sciences. Or it is defined in a way that lets all of science survive; then it also applies to love-making, comedy and dogfights. There is no way of delimiting 'science' by something stronger and more coherent than a list. (Against method, p 246)
Note however that Feyerabend is not arguing against rationality, or against the fact that the sciences have increased our collective knowledge. Instead, he often highlights the many successes of the sciences. His main point (as I read him) is that scientific explanations or scientific fields should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis against other ways of obtaining knowledge. In a way, this is similar to the progressiveness that Lakatos is talking about, in his evaluation and comparison of different research programs (1970). The difference with Feyerabend is that he (seems to) suggest that the usefulness and "progressiveness" of scientific theories and results should be compared not only to other research programs (sensu Lakatos), but they should also be compared to other social activities of obtaining knowledge.
Feyerabend. 1975. Against method. New Left Books (here using Third edition from Verso)
Lakatos. 1970. Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes. In: Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (eds: Lakatos & Musgrave). Cambridge University Press.
Answered by fileunderwater on November 23, 2020
An uneducated but rational person can't distinguish between the two for precisely the reasons you stated. At that level, it is "just another religion". (I would not use the word "religion" quite that broadly, but "societally organized system of practices and beliefs" is quite a mouthful.)
They might get a little bit closer by noticing, "Hm, I have an iPhone6, and it works. Everyone seems to agree that the Science-Priests made that possible. Maybe there's something to it." But that just shows them that the Science-Priests are closer to the truth of things when it comes to making iPhone6s than are, say, Jesuits. (The Jesuits will probably not claim that the goal of life is to have better smartphones, anyway.)
The difference comes when the uneducated but rational (and skeptical) person starts to educate themselves, when they do have a crash course in relativity and cosmology. Because, uniquely, science (properly done) has exactly that rational and skeptical mode of thought suffused through it. When you trace it back (and you can say this, but one ought not believe it until one actually sees it happening), the justifications for belief are rooted in observations (of the world), not in opinions (of leaders and/or supposed deities).
That is the key difference: when you dig, you have answers rooted in objectively reproducible effects. You can come to your own opinion; you don't need someone to give it to you. So my response is: yeah, from a distance it's hard to tell the difference. You've got to dig into some details to realize just how well-supported the main findings of science are (and dig more to know when sociology and politics have interfered to such an extent that you ought not be so confident of the reported findings any more (and maybe more yet to know when science-religion conflicts are really a case of knowledge vs superstition, and when it's custom-of-group-A vs custom-of-group-B)).
There isn't, as far as I can tell, any shortcut. But at least there's a road to walk, and you don't have to go very far before you can tell that it's really well-lit.
Answered by Rex Kerr on November 23, 2020
The OP asked, "In particular if such a person were to heed the advice of the Kalama Sutra".
So, the same Kalama Sutta also tells the following reasons, for which the Kalamas should believe a given doctrine:
And they should consider whether doctrine is:
The lead-in to the Sutta also describes the Dhamma (doctrine) as famous for being "admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end": which means that it's admirable when you start to learn it, admirable when you practice it, and still admirable when you have perfected it.
That principle (and the Kalama Sutta itself) is summarized here as follows:
2. Experiential Emphasis. Since wisdom or insight is the chief instrument of enlightenment, the Buddha always asked his disciples to follow him on the basis of their own understanding, not from obedience or unquestioning trust. He calls his Dhamma ehipassiko, which means "Come and see for yourself." He invites inquirers to investigate his teaching, to examine it in the light of their own reason and intelligence, and to gain confirmation of its truth for themselves. The Dhamma is said to be paccattam veditabbo viññuhi, "to be personally understood by the wise," and this requires intelligence and sustained inquiry.
Once the Buddha arrived at the town of a people called the Kalamas, who had been visited by many other ascetics. Each visiting teacher would praise his own doctrine to the sky and tear down the views of his rivals, and this left the Kalamas utterly confused. So when the Buddha arrived they came to him, explained their dilemma, and asked if he could offer some guidance.
The Buddha did not praise his own teaching and attack his rivals. Rather, he told them:
It is right for you to doubt; doubt has arisen in you about dubious matters. Come, Kalamas, do not rely on oral tradition, or on the lineage of teachers, or on holy scriptures, or on abstract logic. Do not place blind trust in impressive personalities or in venerated gurus, but examine the issue for yourselves. When you know for yourselves that something is unwholesome and harmful, then you should reject it. And when you know for yourselves that something is wholesome and beneficial, then you should accept it and put it into practice.
Some people prefer science over religion because they reckon science is more beneficial: it not only "works", but has practical beneficial consequences like modern medicine.
It's also practical in the sense that "it can be practised".
Perhaps you might be on thin ice, though, if you're getting in to a "religion versus science" argument? There was this 'joke' I heard once, while I was living in Toronto:
We have some good news, and some bad news: the good news is that Toronto compares favourably with New York; and that bad news is that Toronto is being compared with New York.
Are you making some kind of religion out of science?
Why are you taking, as the subject of your argument, what you yourself describe as "metaphysical" topics in science (cosmology and quantum mechanics)? If these don't "lead to welfare & happiness" (I studied them at university, and I'm not sure they do), why not choose other topics (scientific fields) which matter more, which have more practical/tangible/beneficial/knowable consequences?
Alternatively do you know the physics or history-of-physics (not "metaphysics") well enough, that you could explain to a clever 12-year-old (who is curious but uneducated) what experimental/experiential observations led people to develop theories like "Big Bang" etc.?
Answered by ChrisW on November 23, 2020
An attempt to answer your question:
Knowledge gained through the scientific process allows to predict the future development of some aspect of reality - that's what makes it "scientific" and testable. This is also what makes science eventually useful in the day-to-day life and distinguishes it from other endeavors for knowledge.
E. g. the way a lever or a pulley works to lift objects is predicted by scientific laws, so is the speed with which an object hits the ground, the way a magnet and a coil produce electricity in a determined manner, etcetc. All of which can be put to use.
So an uneducated person could distinguish science from religion (or philosophy for that matter) by asking the "high priest" to demonstrate their "usefulness" by predicting some future development of their own experience in a reliable and useful fashion (which is what all of us are doing on a daily basis by making use of e. g. machines build on the top of scientific theories).
Once the uneducated person has established that science generates knowledge which can be used in this way, he or she can proceed to the not obviously useful aspects of science - e. g. motion of planets, cosmology and big bang - in the hope that the knowledge gained by studying those things will lead to breakthroughs in more practicable areas (e. g. quantum mechanics and its now practical applications in computer hardware, or the motion of planets and Newtons laws of mechanics).
See above. As far as I can tell the only way is to first go back to point 1 - make them accept and trust that the scientific method generates useful knowledge about the world outside of our head.
It is of course also important for the scientist to keep in mind that the scientific models we make to describe reality (e. g. big bang theory or evolutionary biology or Newtons mechanics) are nothing more than models and can and almost certainly will turn out to be nothing more but good approximations for the observed data at hand, and that they are ultimately fundamentally flawed descriptions of actual reality (Newtons mechanics is a good example for that).
In that sense big bang theory or evolutionary biology are not "gospel" but expected to be wrong and to be improved on. Maybe that is the another important difference to at least some religion (as mentioned by other answers before).
Answered by RaymondKHessel on November 23, 2020
You are right this is difficult, even for an educated person, as science is too vast for a single human being, and experiments may be difficult to replicate. We are told we have experimental proof that Higgs boson exists, but who can build its own LHC to check for himself ?
So we have to trust scientists and science books and it could be seen as no different than trusting a religious leader and religious book.
But there are differences:
You don't trust blindly a few individual scientist. You trust the scientific community, knowing that they follows strict principles to ensure that their results are sound, that they values those among them that can show there is a flaw in a previous result.
Answered by MatthieuW on November 23, 2020
Perhaps, it's a false dichotomy: Goethe, for example wrote in his diary of his travels in Italy:
Tonight I attended a meeting of the Academy of the Olympians...the motion proposed by the President was: which has been greater benefit to the Arts - Invention or Imitation? Not a bad idea, for if one treats the alternatives as exclusive, one can go on debating for centuries.
I mean, why treat the two - science and religion as exclusive? Stephen Gould did just that with his notion of non-overlapping magisteria; except, he means that they speak to different areas of human experience - and both valuable and truth-making; it's this sense that Badiou picked up with his notion of the separate truth-procedures of Art, Politics, Science and Love - and then they entangle each other through the discursive spirit of philosophy; Naess, the Norwegian philosopher - and who is analytically disposed - is engaged in something similar.
Answered by Mozibur Ullah on November 23, 2020
First, I would say that many supporters of science are too proselytizing, too reluctant to admit the ambiguities and necessary limits of science. This merely harms their own case by opening them up the same skeptical attacks so easily employed against religion.
Second, I would observe that science and religion are by no means mutually exclusive. It is only where they offer mutually exclusive interpretations of the same phenomena that they become antagonistic. Such contradictory interpretations often mix metaphors, terminologies, causal agency, and levels of abstraction in ways that are quite superficial.
Third, one can explain the "enabling constraints" of science. Many people, even many scientists, do talk as if science revealed "absolute truths." It reveals conditional truths under the well-understood rules of induction and probability. Strictly speaking, science is a principled agnosticism. One can happily concede that science cannot "disprove" intelligent design. It is simply not compatible with the best evidence or other scientific findings. And it violates parsimony. But is it "true?" That is not a scientific question.
Having conceded this much, one can then describe science as a "practice" for arriving at a working consensus based on transparent, public rules of evidence. Here we introduce the usual list: falsifiability, confirmation of predictions, repeatability of experiments, mathematical description under some Hamiltonian, peer review.... and, too often neglected, the continuous confirmation of technologies. If one accepts a pragmatic view that these are methods of arriving not at indubitable "truth" but at justified, reliable beliefs and agreements, the contrast with religion is historically much more clear.
It is also well to admit that science has grey areas, lacunae, and boundary issues. But building some God-of-the-Gaps out of these is a pretty paltry sort of religion anyway. Specifically, the problems introduced by recent science, cosmology in particular, really do push physics towards metaphysics, and it is just as well to admit that. This is assumed to be a temporary situation. Here science can only say that "the math works." The untested theories are those that appear most consistent with the theories enjoying experimental confirmation.
If string theory or quantum gravity abandon the possibility of prediction and experimental confirmation, they hang in a metaphysical void, no longer science. If the devout can discover a series of prayers that reliably resurrects the dead and is repeatable, their deity is well on the way to scientific hypothesis. I tend to think the strength of science involves its "enabling constraints," the limits that scientists are often reluctant to admit. This offends those who see only an unwarranted explanatory hegemony instead of an ennobling explanatory constraint.
Answered by Nelson Alexander on November 23, 2020
Perhaps an alternative would be to differentiate between a belief which is only valuable if it is true and a belief which still retains value even in the presence of inaccuracies. One requires the belief to be assumed (potentially axiomatically), while the other permits some freedom to not make that assumption.
For example, many find science to retain great value because, even if a claim of "X is true" turns out to be false, the statistical research exploring X retains value. Likewise, even though Newton's laws are "incorrect" according to modern relativity, they are "true enough" to be valuable in many human-scale activities.
Likewise, many find religion to retain great value in its ability to help humans understand right and wrong (to the best understanding of the religious individual, of course). Religion has been known to bring peace to the conflicted individual, even though some may question whether particular events described in the religion actually occurred as stated.
If you differentiate theories in this way, you may be able to find a reasonable differentiation between science and religion in that the retained value of science tends to be in the form of empirical statistical evidence, while religion tends to retain value in other forms. Whether such evidence is more retained value than that retained from religion is a more personal question, but I do find that the evidence does have an inherently different flavor.
Answered by Cort Ammon on November 23, 2020
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