Are scientific rules for how to acquire truth and knowledge not just a new set of religious dogmas?

Question

Science has set up rules and principles for how to acquire knowledge. They have rules for experiments and apply laws of statistics. These principles have not always existed. Just like religious dogmas they have their origin in time.

How can we know that scientific rules are really apt to acquire valid knowledge. Aren't these principles very much like religious dogmas?

Did scientists lose faith in their own original mind that tells each sincere person what is true and good? As animals have their instinct that moves them to do the right things at the right time, don't people have a similar innate ability to know what is right?

Answer 1

No, science and religion are completely different.



Religious dogmas are based upon tradition and social pressure. People are pressured into believing and passing on religions dogma by society. The aim of religion is not knowledge but comfort and conformism. The tradition of most religions includes religion by the government as a means of controlling people and their thoughts.



Science is something that everyone can verify and do themselves. Do an experiment at home and you get the same result as I get at home. It is about discovering how things actually work. It is about gaining real knowledge.



Almost every product we use and consume is the product of science. We believe in it because it works.



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Ah ha....



Then yes, to a certain extent what you say is true. We'll never be able to verify that the scientific method is the best way to acquire knowledge. We can only continue to do what works best. We may be entering a time when other methods lead us to knowledge also, but that remains to be seen. As far as I can tell, the scientific method is open to challenge and if proof is provided that there is another method that works better, I think people would accept it eventually.

Answer 2

No, the people who began to investigate the world using a theory of knowledge that was different from the "faith" based scholasticism set in motion a revolution that has resulted in the modern world you now enjoy. If they had listened to religion, we would still be throwing chamber pots out the windows and dying in our own filth. Faith and reason are not compatible and scientific method is a way to ensure that not an ounce of faith is allowed to have a say in the results of an experiment. The two could not be more different.

We know the knowledge acquired is valid because you used it to type your question on a computer that would not work if the knowledge science has acquired was not valid. What do religious dogmas have to show in return, besides war and human suffering?

Yes, scientists not only lost faith, but threw it away as a very poor tool for discovering what is the case about the universe around us. If your last sentence is asking if human values are not a given through our human nature than this is the one thing you have right. We don't need a super tyrant to tell us what is right and wrong we give these laws to ourselves from human virtues that have been taught since Plato.

Answer 3

If you speak to anyone who has any idea what science IS they will tell you there ARE NO scientific "truths" that science deals in principles (which change) and theories (which change.) Knowledge is just an opinion based on information, and there is ALWAYS more information coming. There are several ways a person can couch their skills in a belief system:



a) a scientist can be a skeptic. many are.

b) a scientist can be a science worshiper, very few are who have any scientific skills.

c) a scientist can be an existentialist and say what we know is only "models' and reality is ineffable.

or

d) a scientist can believe in Gods, pixies, the tao, Buddha, Charles Manson, Satan, the lollipop gods, or any other mythology that helps them make sense of it all.



Science does not take any of that away from anybody. Nor is it a substitute fro religion except in ignorant or arrogant people who cannot fathom WHAT SCIENCE IS.

Answer 4

Many of these other answers are apt and accurate as far as they go, but an additional thing to point out is that it is useful to look at what you mean by 'knowledge'. Generally knowledge is considered to be justified true belief. You are correct that the principles of the scientific method are not the result of experimentation, but of reason. For that reason, it would be morea accurate to say that Science has set up rules and principles for how to acquire SCIENTIFIC knowledge. There are whole categories of questions that do not lend themselves to answers by scientific method, so science leaves those questions alone. But for the questions that are scientific, science provides justification for its conclusions (the observations that support inductive conclusions), but cannot guarantee that those conclusions are true (because they are inductive; also there is no theory-independent notion of observation). So since we get justification out of science but not necessarily truth, it's a stretch to call the results of science 'knowledge'. Religion may suffer from similar difficulties, but that doesn't mean that these activities are similar enough to compare.



Lastly, trying to reduce morality to either religion or science is a category mistake. Religion demonstrably doesn't make people moral, and science must leave ethical questions out of its domain. It's unlikely that we have some innate moral sense either. Morality is an activity of reason, and is not automatic or instinctual.

Answer 5

Dogmas and the tenets of most faiths are metaphorically "set in stone", that is, not changeable regardless of what may arise to clearly demonstrate that the same are not correct understandings.



In the methodology of science, if something is proven to be incorrect either as data or as a way of collecting sound, verifiable, reliable and quantifiable data then the methodology is changed.



This flexibility and what might be called self examination has successfully weeded out a great deal of errant ideas and misunderstandings which have, from time to time, literally changed our understanding of everything.



An example of this might be seen in the changes Sir Isaac Newton caused, and then seen in how Einstien changed a great deal of that and how quantum mechanics has changed that as we await that which might bring about more changes and new and more accurate and correct or better understandings.



In religion, such simply does not and can not occur as if one hold to a particular scripture and says it is unerring as it is the "word of god or the gods" accompanied by the belief that god can not be wrong as god supposedly knows everything and then the same is clearly shown to be in error or incorrect then the god one had chosen to believe in would know longer be god (according to the definition of god). Hence, the religion would fail.



If religious persons followed the same type of methodology that science does, Judaism and Christianity would have been long displaced by Islam, Buddhism would have displace Hinduism, all of which might have been displace by either the B'hais or the Mormons until such time as the supposed divinely revealed scriptures and the prophets of each were (as both have already been) shown to be in error and incorrect according to that which has been proven to be verifiably, reliably and qunatifiably true.



In your pondering as to the "truth" of science and the method employed by such, you are currently using electricity, a computer, a telephone line, etc; as well as probably having a fridge filled with processed food that was grown using fertilizers, hormones and chemicals; your house if full of plastic and other synthetic materials; you either drive or ride in a car, a motorcyle, a plane; you receive satelite tranmissions to your television, you have running water in your house or apartment, a working toilet and on and on.



Science works and works well. There is little doubt for most educated individuals as to the fact that scientific knowledge is knowledge.



The same can not be said for religious "knowledge", dogmas or tenets that often cause much more harm than good.



namaste.

Answer 6

The rules that are considered effective for scientific evaluations are the results of constructions developed over the span of mankind. When we live in the darkness of misunderstanding and there are no rules, we step out and try something. If it doesn't work we go back to the drawing board and think of different ways to understand. When some construction in our minds is experimented upon and works we use it to go further on and little by little we develop understandings that are useful for future developments. Rules are basic general understandings about something and of course, for folks who do not understand the origins of rules have all the right in the world to question them and to experiment with them themselves to see if they apply in their lives. The subjective side of this is the feeling that they are dogmas and can and are at times seen as a replacement religion in modern times due to the multicomplex nature of how and why they are so widespreadly used, especially in our society. Of the most accused of this "religiosity" are psychologist and sociologists.

Answer 7

They differ very much from dogmas because these methods are used to reach approximate truths, a theory is always running the risk of being falsified by future observations and experiments (also belief arises from custom).



Outcomes are also heavily scrutinized by peer-reviews of the scientific community. I agree with you that its not a flawless method but its the best one so far which can be used to analyse and interpret reality.



There will most likely always be a human bias, reality is mind-dependent and we cant escape that. Do we discover laws or do we invent them? Have our theories really latched on to some kind of universal blueprint? We don't know yet.

Answer 8

The scientific method is defensible as far better than religion for finding the truth because it is always based in observed behaviour of such and such in such a situation while these results must be presented logically. This leads to a thoery where all the evidence is explained and sourced in a logical way. The attachment of observations to evidence is crucial because this means that the theory which is able to account for the most behaviours and evidence is best rather than the one we most like.

Religion is based on a lack of evidence and Logic. Feelings and loyaties to scripture is where the theories of religion come from: this distorts behaviour into their way of thinking and suppressed dissenting evidence. This is not really theory it is ideology.

However science is sometimes capable of repressing evidence as well but the attachments to evidence make it less giulty of this than religion. It is an attempt to proof knowledge of human stake and emotion. This is not entirely possible. for example

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1151

Science by far is the best method of creating knowledge because it bases itself in evidence. But people arent always good at accepting and applying evidence properly so science can descend into ideology. This is apperent in the above article but also during the early 20th century 'sciences' of race, sexology and eugenics.

Answer 9

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "The word dogma (Gr. dogma from dokein) signifies, in the writings of the ancient classical authors, sometimes, an opinion or that which seems true to a person; sometimes, the philosophical doctrines or tenets, and especially the distinctive philosophical doctrines, of a particular school of philosophers (cf. Cic. Ac., ii, 9), and sometimes, a public decree or ordinance, as dogma poieisthai."



You ask about "validity"? Validity is a condition of premises which do not make a fallacy out of the conclusion.

"A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. Otherwise, a deductive argument is said to be invalid.



A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound."

http://www.iep.utm.edu/v/val-snd.htm



"....the goal and task of bringing the universe within the range of man’s knowledge—[is] by identifying relationships to perceptual data." Thus, all "facts" are contextual. " By “context” we mean the sum of cognitive elements conditioning the acquisition, validity or application of any item of human knowledge. Knowledge is an organization or integration of interconnected elements, each relevant to the others . . . Knowledge is not a mosaic of independent pieces each of which stands apart from the rest . . . .



"In regard to any concept, idea, proposal, theory, or item of knowledge, never forget or ignore the context on which it depends and which conditions its validity and use." http://aynrandlexicon.com/



Contextually, "rules and principles for how to acquire knowledge" cannot, then, be "dogma."

Answer 10

Quite to the contrary, science is the opposite of religious dogmas as these dogmas require faith.



Faith itself is a bit of a paradox, though, because faith solely depends on its own non-provability. For instance, if you could prove that God exists in the same degree of certainty that we know gravity exists, there would be no need to have faith in Him because we'd KNOW he exists.



The rules and principles you speak of can be summed up in two words: prove it.

Answer 11

CONSIDER:

Dogma and science

Dogma supposedly checks investigation, antagonizes independence of thought, and makes scientific theology impossible. This difficulty may be supposed to be put by Protestants or by unbelievers. We will consider it from both points of view.

(1) Beyond scientific investigation and freedom of thought Catholics recognize the guiding influence of dogmatic beliefs. But Protestants also profess to adhere to certain great dogmatic truths which are supposed to impede scientific investigation and to conflict with the findings of modern science. Old difficulties against the existence of God or its demonstrability, against the dogma of Creation, miracles, the human soul, and supernatural religion have been dressed in a new garb and urged by a modern school of scientists principally from the discoveries in geology, paleontology, biology, astronomy, comparative anatomy, and physiology. But Protestants, no less than Catholics, profess to believe in God, in the Creation, in the soul, in the Incarnation, in the possibility of miracles; they too, maintain that there can be no discord between the true conclusions of science and the dogmas of the Christian religion rightly understood. Protestants, therefore, cannot consistently complain that Catholic dogmas impede scientific investigation. But it is urged that in the Catholic system beliefs are not determined by private judgment, behind the dogmas of the Church there is the living bulwark of her episcopate. True, behind dogmatic beliefs Catholics recognize ecclesiastical authority; but this puts no further restraint on intellectual freedom -- it only raises the question as to the constitution of the Church. Catholics do not believe that God revealed a body of truths to mankind and appointed no living authority to unfold, to teach, to safeguard that body of Divine truths, to decide controversies; but the authority of the episcopate under the supreme pontiff to control intellectual activity is correlative with, and arises from their authority to teach supernatural truth. The existence of judges and magistrates does not extend the range of our civil laws -- they are rather a living authority to interpret and apply the laws. Similarly, episcopal authority has for its range the truth of revelation, and it prohibits only what is inconsistent with the full scope of that truth.



(2) In discussing the question with unbelievers we note that science is "the observation and classification, or co-ordination, of the individual facts or phenomena of nature". Now a Catholic is absolutely free in the prosecution of scientific research according to the terms of this definition. There is no prohibition or restriction on Catholics in regard to the observation and co-ordination of the phenomena of Nature. But some scientists do not confine themselves to science as defined by themselves. They propound theories often unwarranted by experimental observation. One will maintain as a "scientific" truth that there is no God, or that His existence is unknowable -- another that the world has not been created; another will deny in the name of "science" the existence of the soul; another, the possibility of supernatural revelation. Surely these denials are not warranted by scientific methods. Catholic dogma and ecclesiastical authority limit intellectual activity only so far as may be necessary for safeguarding the truths of revelation. If non-believing scientists in their study of Catholicism would apply the scientific method, which consists in observing, comparing, making hypotheses, and perhaps formulating scientific conclusions, they would readily see that dogmatic belief in no way interferes with the legitimate freedom of the Catholic in scientific research, the discharge of civic duty, or any other form of activity that makes for true enlightenment and progress. The service rendered by Catholics in every department of learning and of social endeavour, is a fact which no amount of theorizing against dogma can set aside.