Scientific skepticism

[Qoeleth]

One hears a lot about quantum physics, atoms, etc. What I wish to ask is what is the evidence we have of believing in any of those things.
Sure, the 'priests' of the self-validating 'Church of Science' say they are true, but why should I believe them? The evidence on which they rely is either totally imperceptible, or purely theoretical. No person who is not a 'believer' already in the Church of Science has direct access to the evidence.

It would be like if the Catholic Church started saying "We have proof that God exists, but this is proof is accessible only to us. Moreover, it is written in a language you will not be able to understand unless you have already become a believer. Since we are the experts, you must just accept what we believe at face value."

The alchemists, and 'magicians' of the past would have claimed 'evidence' for their findings- but they all turned out to be fictions, though no doubt they 'worked' on paper. Why should we give quantum physics any more credibility then alchemy?

No doubt people will reply, "the scientists have done tests"- yes, but with invisible or incomprehsible results- at least to me. No doubt the alchemists also "did tests" by their 'experts'. Essentially, the people who do scientific tests are in the business of science. There is no stronger reason for a scientific sceptic to believe a scientist then there is for an atheist to believe a priest.

Why is it that people are so much more credible in believing the myths of science rather than the narratives of religion? Why are people hesitant to question "experts" on the science myth (i.e. scientist), but are so readily question experts on God (the theologians)?

When I can put my hand inside an atom or see the theory of relativity work with my own eyes, then I will believe....

[Sparkythedog]

Originally Posted by Qoeleth

One hears a lot about quantum physics, atoms, etc. What I wish to ask is what is the evidence we have of believing in any of those things.
Sure, the 'priests' of the self-validating 'Church of Science' say they are true, but why should I believe them? The evidence on which they rely is either totally imperceptible, or purely theoretical. No person who is not a 'believer' already in the Church of Science has direct access to the evidence.

It would be like if the Catholic Church started saying "We have proof that God exists, but this is proof is accessible only to us. Moreover, it is written in a language you will not be able to understand unless you have already become a believer. Since we are the experts, you must just accept what we believe at face value."

The alchemists, and 'magicians' of the past would have claimed 'evidence' for their findings- but they all turned out to be fictions, though no doubt they 'worked' on paper. Why should we give quantum physics any more credibility then alchemy?

No doubt people will reply, "the scientists have done tests"- yes, but with invisible or incomprehsible results- at least to me. No doubt the alchemists also "did tests" by their 'experts'. Essentially, the people who do scientific tests are in the business of science. There is no stronger reason for a scientific sceptic to believe a scientist then there is for an atheist to believe a priest.

Why is it that people are so much more credible in believing the myths of science rather than the narratives of religion? Why are people hesitant to question "experts" on the science myth (i.e. scientist), but are so readily question experts on God (the theologians)?

When I can put my hand inside an atom or see the theory of relativity work with my own eyes, then I will believe....

I think this is a valid position to start from. We should alway be questioning how we know what we think we know.

Now, close out Catholic Answers Forums. Make an appointment to talk to some people who study these fields, and ask them your questions. I'm sure it will be a great conversation.

I don't think you'll be able to stick your hand inside an atom though...for obvious reasons.

[laircy]

You do have an interesting point. Though, one can take a high school chemistry class for oneself, conduct experiments having the expected results, all while not having to be a scientific expert to do it.

[wcknight]

Science has its own way of proving or disproving its own theories. Some turn out to be true and others turn out to be mere speculation. While it may have figured out how God made things or how things came about in the physical universe, it can never prove or disprove Gods existence.

The thing to remember about science, is that it deals exclusively with the physical world. Where it has problems with God, is the fact that with God, one has to deal with the supernatural or the spirtual world.

While science tries to explain everything in terms of the physical world because that is what it knows and that is ONLY what it recognizes, they will never find God because then thay would have to enter the spiritual realm.

Should science ever breech the divide between the physical realm and the spiritual realm, only then will it be surprise to find God, His angels and His saints. Until that happens, there is no need to question or speculate on whether their premises on anything is true.

What religious folks have to worry about is crossing over into speculations about the physical realm based on some religious ideas. Stuff like claiming that the earth is the center of the solar system, or claiming that the earth is only 6000 years olds. That is when religion runs into problems. Religion has no claims on the physical realm and science has no claims on the spiritual. IF God wanted us to worry about the physical realm He would have given us science books instead of the Bible.

[SweetVerda]

I think that a large part of it is that we do all these experiments in school. Maybe it's not as sophisticated as quantum physics, but if a teacher tells us that everything falls with the same acceleration regardless of mass, and then shows us that this is the case with something that's repeatable, we are more inclined to believe it than what a teacher tells us that we cannot see or is not repeatable.

Eventually it gets to the point where a teacher will teach things while skipping the experiments, and the students will accept that this is because of time constraints, and believe that there is proof out there if they wanted it. After graduation, people get their science from articles in magazines and believe it because it has the word 'Science' in it, and they are used to science being proven experimentally to them.

Personally, I have very little fear regarding this. The vast majority of people have very little grasp of what actual science is, and the 'science articles' you find on corner store magazines are exaggerated at best. The scientific process is ridged, and purely theoretical things like string theory are largely ignored by most actual scientists until it gets experimentally validated. If the LHC finds the Higgs-Boson particle, then there might be some more attention to these theories. Until then, it might help if you stated what about quantum physics and atoms unnerves you.

[Nicko]

Originally Posted by Qoeleth

It would be like if the Catholic Church started saying "We have proof that God exists, but this is proof is accessible only to us. Moreover, it is written in a language you will not be able to understand unless you have already become a believer. Since we are the experts, you must just accept what we believe at face value."

The problem with your analogy here is that this is pretty much what religion does do.

It bears, however, absolutely no resemblance to what scientists do, or how they do it. New theories are not accepted because they are impressive or hard for a layman to understand or push some particular ideology. They are accepted when they:
1) Provide reliable descriptions and predictions about reality.
2) Resist all attempts to disprove them.
Then the theory is accepted. But not as an "article of faith". Any theory produced by science is only ever accepted provisionally. Come up with a theory with greater descriptive or predictive power that no one can refute and that gets accepted in place of the old one.

As Noam Chomsky once observed: "It's not that scientists are more honest people. It's just that nature is a harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry and it will be refuted tomorrow."

If you are genuinely interested in quantum physics - and it is far from obvious that you are - information can be found here.

[Orangebookbag]

The existence of atoms can be logically inferred from Brownian motion (a small grain in a cup of water will jiggle. why? it's being impacted by water molecules from all sides!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion#History It's been observed since the first century BC.

What about the double-slit experiment, demonstrating light's ability to act as a wave and a particle. Looks like it's pretty easy to repeat this one yourself
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=178383

Don't get too hung up on the idea that scientific knowledge is reserved for some elite and is totally arbitrary - it's just not true.
Some theories, multiverse or string theory, etc. seem VERY speculative and I think with that you have a point. I just don't think the way to win over materialists, atheists, and skeptics is by alleging that their "scientific knowledge" is arbitrary or unknowable.

[ASimon]

Originally Posted by Qoeleth

One hears a lot about quantum physics, atoms, etc. What I wish to ask is what is the evidence we have of believing in any of those things.
Sure, the 'priests' of the self-validating 'Church of Science' say they are true, but why should I believe them? The evidence on which they rely is either totally imperceptible, or purely theoretical. No person who is not a 'believer' already in the Church of Science has direct access to the evidence.

It would be like if the Catholic Church started saying "We have proof that God exists, but this is proof is accessible only to us. Moreover, it is written in a language you will not be able to understand unless you have already become a believer. Since we are the experts, you must just accept what we believe at face value."

The alchemists, and 'magicians' of the past would have claimed 'evidence' for their findings- but they all turned out to be fictions, though no doubt they 'worked' on paper. Why should we give quantum physics any more credibility then alchemy?

No doubt people will reply, "the scientists have done tests"- yes, but with invisible or incomprehsible results- at least to me. No doubt the alchemists also "did tests" by their 'experts'. Essentially, the people who do scientific tests are in the business of science. There is no stronger reason for a scientific sceptic to believe a scientist then there is for an atheist to believe a priest.

Why is it that people are so much more credible in believing the myths of science rather than the narratives of religion? Why are people hesitant to question "experts" on the science myth (i.e. scientist), but are so readily question experts on God (the theologians)?

When I can put my hand inside an atom or see the theory of relativity work with my own eyes, then I will believe....

The reason this isn't a fair comparison is that, even if we thought we had to concede that all this scientific mumbo-jumbo was just 'theoretical,' we're still placed under no practical burden whatsoever to have any opinion on its validity. There is no "Church of Science," in other words, nor is science its own religion. I happen to believe in the existence of atoms, but it would hardly matter if I didn't.

Christianity, by comparison, while presuming to tell us the nature of reality, also tell us that if we refuse to accept its explanations for how the Universe is organized, that eternal torment awaits us. These are the highest stakes imaginable, and the reason why your comparison to science is null and void.

Science will tell you that it doesn't matter whether you believe that e=mc^2 - the Universe operates the way it does whether you know it or not, and whether you like it or not. And it never demands anything from you for all your not knowing or caring.

Christianity tells you that it's the most important thing in the world to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God who was crucified to redeem all of mankind. And that there will be eternal, everlasting retribution if you decline to grant this proposition.

[kama3]

Originally Posted by Orangebookbag

Some theories, multiverse or string theory, etc. seem VERY speculative and I think with that you have a point.

String theory has not been experimentally verified. Some scientists like it, because the math involved has some elegance and explains some hairy situations, while no other theory does. Absent experimental verification however string theory is a mere hypothesis. Alas, it does not look like string theory will be experimentally verified in the foreseeable future, because the energy levels required are impractically large.

Multiverse is another hypothesis, but that one is even less scientific. While string theory could be verified in principle -- a sufficiently large particle accelerator is merely impractical, not impossible -- multiverse theory cannot be verified at all in the framework of present science, because that framework says that we cannot see outside the universe. So unless someone discovers a way information could leak between universes (or how to travel between universes), this is just an unsupported and unsupportable speculation.

Of the currently debated concepts, only dark matter has some empirical evidence (the Bullet Cluster) and it's not as strong as we would like, because nobody has yet created dark matter in the lab.

[kama3]

Originally Posted by Qoeleth

It would be like if the Catholic Church started saying "We have proof that God exists, but this is proof is accessible only to us. Moreover, it is written in a language you will not be able to understand unless you have already become a believer. Since we are the experts, you must just accept what we believe at face value."

That's a very fitting description of the Catholic Church, actually.

Originally Posted by Qoeleth

No doubt people will reply, "the scientists have done tests"- yes, but with invisible or incomprehsible results- at least to me. [...] When I can put my hand inside an atom or see the theory of relativity work with my own eyes, then I will believe....

I will refer you to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The big kaboom which vaporized some and burned others resulted from the conversion of mass to energy, as predicted by the relativity theory.

That mass-to-energy conversion was powered by a principle of quantum mechanics, known as the tunelling effect.

The physicists said that the bomb will do a big kaboom, and a big kaboom there indeed was. Witnessed by several hundred thousands of non-experts, some of which did not survive the demonstration.

If you know an alternative way of producing such a big kaboom, I am sure that the Department of Defense will be interested.

[Orangebookbag]

Originally Posted by kama3

I will refer you to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
....
The physicists said that the bomb will do a big kaboom, and a big kaboom there indeed was. Witnessed by several hundred thousands of non-experts, some of which did not survive the demonstration.

Let's pray that we never see such a catastrophe ever again.

kama3, have you ever heard about Father Hubert Schiffer?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Schiffer
Pretty amazing, really.

It's interesting that you cite an event witnessed by thousands as something to be believe without dispute. What would you say about an event witnessed by 70,000 people?

[inocente]

Originally Posted by Qoeleth

No doubt people will reply, "the scientists have done tests"- yes, but with invisible or incomprehsible results- at least to me. No doubt the alchemists also "did tests" by their 'experts'. Essentially, the people who do scientific tests are in the business of science. There is no stronger reason for a scientific sceptic to believe a scientist then there is for an atheist to believe a priest.

Why is it that people are so much more credible in believing the myths of science rather than the narratives of religion? Why are people hesitant to question "experts" on the science myth (i.e. scientist), but are so readily question experts on God (the theologians)?

When I can put my hand inside an atom or see the theory of relativity work with my own eyes, then I will believe....

There are billions of computers and mobile phones in the world, and the chips inside them couldn't have been be designed, let alone made, let alone work without quantum theory. So every time you use one, you're proving the science of quantum physics works.

And every time a doctor prescribes you an antibiotic, and it works, you are proving another part of science works.

And so on, for a whole load of things in your life you apparently take for granted.

Or do you think all those things work by magic or something?

[FaithBuild18]

Originally Posted by ASimon

The reason this isn't a fair comparison is that, even if we thought we had to concede that all this scientific mumbo-jumbo was just 'theoretical,' we're still placed under no practical burden whatsoever to have any opinion on its validity. There is no "Church of Science," in other words, nor is science its own religion. I happen to believe in the existence of atoms, but it would hardly matter if I didn't.

Not true. It is a big, big, very big deal in the 21st century if you choose not to believe in scientific consensus, even when it comes to controversial topics like global warming. If you do not believe in something as basic as atomic theory, it is a big deal and matters a lot to those who will ridicule you and mock you at every given opportunity. To an atheist doesn't that matter more than threats of torment after death? To you, isn't earthly torment and ridicule an awful lot worse than the threat of going to hell, which is just a fabrication anyways?

There is a steep amount of pressure in the lay community to accept anything scientific consensus says... which is preposterous, considering (despite Ben Stein's joke of a movie) this pressure barely exists within the scientific community itself. The last thing science wants is for people to proclaim it as truth. At least at my University, I find that those who put up the most stalwart defense of science are those who have nothing to do with science - the people that study literature or some other humanity for example.

To the OP: Yes, absolutely, if you have any desire to have a career in science, you will be instructed from the earliest moment possible to always be skeptical of science. You will quickly learn if you do any sort of research, how unconvincing data is, how easy it is manipulated, and just how little is actually needed to propose any sort of idea and secure publication in professional literature.

[greylorn]

Originally Posted by Qoeleth

One hears a lot about quantum physics, atoms, etc. What I wish to ask is what is the evidence we have of believing in any of those things.
Sure, the 'priests' of the self-validating 'Church of Science' say they are true, but why should I believe them? The evidence on which they rely is either totally imperceptible, or purely theoretical. No person who is not a 'believer' already in the Church of Science has direct access to the evidence.

It would be like if the Catholic Church started saying "We have proof that God exists, but this is proof is accessible only to us. Moreover, it is written in a language you will not be able to understand unless you have already become a believer. Since we are the experts, you must just accept what we believe at face value."

The alchemists, and 'magicians' of the past would have claimed 'evidence' for their findings- but they all turned out to be fictions, though no doubt they 'worked' on paper. Why should we give quantum physics any more credibility then alchemy?

No doubt people will reply, "the scientists have done tests"- yes, but with invisible or incomprehsible results- at least to me. No doubt the alchemists also "did tests" by their 'experts'. Essentially, the people who do scientific tests are in the business of science. There is no stronger reason for a scientific sceptic to believe a scientist then there is for an atheist to believe a priest.

Why is it that people are so much more credible in believing the myths of science rather than the narratives of religion? Why are people hesitant to question "experts" on the science myth (i.e. scientist), but are so readily question experts on God (the theologians)?

When I can put my hand inside an atom or see the theory of relativity work with my own eyes, then I will believe....

One good reason for accepting quantum physics principles is that the evidence for quantum effects is reproducible. It is so nicely reproducible that you have proof of it under your fingertips and before your eyes, in the form of your computer screen and keyboard. Computers require transistors and other types of semiconductors which operate via quantum effects.

Research is forcing scientists to seek the quantum effects that occur within plant leaves. It seems that photosynthesis cannot be explained otherwise. I would say to your objection that if God is willing to use QM in the construction of vegetation, you would be well advised to listen up and believe it.

There is one characteristic which science possesses which religions do not. Scientists (the good ones, anyway) can change their minds in the face of evidence which contradicts their beliefs. Religionists cannot do this. All they can do is wallow in their ignorance and try to pretend that the evidence to the contrary does not matter, and can be explained away from the position of ignorance.

Now, religionists are not to be insulted by being referred to as ignorant. It is not a pejorative term. It simply means, "lacking knowledge," and oft pertains to categories or levels of knowledge. Most physicists, for example are ignorant about the Bible, and cannot quote from it. I'm ignorant about the Mormon religion, by choice, because what I've learned about its fundamentals do not encourage me to pursue it further. Likewise Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.

All humans are ignorant about much more than they are knowledgable. Yet, people often get offended when their ignorance is pointed out. This is because they confuse ignorance with common stupidity. While the two attributes are related, they are not co-dependent. It is possible to be highly intelligent and very ignorant at the same time. The difference is that while the cure for ignorance is education, there appears to be no cure for stupidity.

I would encourage you to become less ignorant about physics than you currently are. This is not easy, because physics is not a trivial subject that can be understood via memorization. But unless you are stupid, which I assume is not the case, you could exchange your current ignorance for deep understanding of what the universe is about.

I recommend doing so because you are clearly wanting to know about God. What better Bible can you find than the physical universe? Unlike scriptures, which we know have been written by human beings, the universe is certain to have been written by God.

As per the seldom-read Parable of the Talents (Matt.25) it is good to expand one's knowledge about all aspects of creation. Where better to start than physics, the only true and certain word of God?

[ASimon]

Originally Posted by FaithBuild18

Not true. It is a big, big, very big deal in the 21st century if you choose not to believe in scientific consensus, even when it comes to controversial topics like global warming. If you do not believe in something as basic as atomic theory, it is a big deal and matters a lot to those who will ridicule you and mock you at every given opportunity. To an atheist doesn't that matter more than threats of torment after death? To you, isn't earthly torment and ridicule an awful lot worse than the threat of going to hell, which is just a fabrication anyways?

Sorry, but the scientific community simply does not care if Joe Blow believes in the atomic theory. They might care if Joe Blow were a school teacher, or some public policy-maker, or in other ways influential, but then that would be the operative factor, not the mere "beliefs" to which Joe Blow holds.

And incidentally, there's sizable group of Americans and groups that would rush to Joe Blow's defense, no questions asked. These people may not even necessarily share his views on the atomic theory, but they perceive science as an arrogant enterprise, and they would probably rationalize this as a free-speech issue - that it doesn't matter what the facts actually are; Joe Blow has a right to his opinions and the Constitution affords him the right to share those opinions. Remember, there's an advocacy group in the United States defending the rights of adult men to have sexual relationships with young boys. It's pretty clear that no matter how "out there" your views are - give it a little time and enough media attention, and somebody will eventually back you up on it.

Christianity plays a different game. According to the theology, the operative factor is (and indeed, must be) the 'belief' itself. It doesn't matter if you're a janitor or the President - unless you hold to those specific beliefs, you are doomed for all eternity. And that's why this comparison of science to religion fails.