Science and Faith
There are a few related comments that I keep coming across in various forms:
"Science requires faith (or is a kind or faith) just like religion. Everybody has faith in something."
"Science can't replace religion because it can't answer questions as well as religion."
"It's not a question of whether we have faith, it's what we have faith in ... Christopher has faith in the role of scientific inquiry, rational inquiry. He has faith in that process. Christopher is as much a man of faith as I am."
These statements are correct to a degree, though not in the way people seem to usually understand them, not for similar definitions of "faith", and not in any way that ought to be a problem for reasonable people.
Science is based on empiricism - the evidence that we gather from our instruments and senses. Scientists have faith that the evidence we perceive, though incomplete and prone to error, is to some extent a reflection of some part of reality. This is a bit of a tautology, since the only proof of empiricism is more empirically-based observational evidence. We could be brains in a vat or the central subject of an elaborate Truman Show hoax, but the naïve realist position is to assume that what we perceive is to some extent real. I suppose you could say that's "faith".
Science also depends on the principles of uniformity and induction - the belief that knowing something about some stuff informs us about other, similar stuff. We can infer from empirical observation that fire is hot, that ice is cold, that the red lights at the last intersection mean the same thing at this intersection, and that exceptions to these general rules will have exceptional explanations. It is possible that this is not true. What seems generally true here may not be true far away. The hydrogen we have on earth emits light in 4 discrete wavelengths, but when we see those wavelengths coming from other parts of the galaxy I suppose you could say it's faith to infer that the stuff emitting it is also hydrogen. I suppose you could say induction and uniformity are "faith".
Empiricism, inference, and uniformity are not arbitrary or irrational personal choices. They are the unavoidable consequences of having sensory organs and cognitive ability. Every living thing accepts empiricism and inference to the extent that they are capable. Dogs' empirical observations lead them to assume that treats exist, and use simple induction to infer that "sit" means the same thing today that it meant yesterday. Plants' gravitropic response assumes that dirt is probably in the same direction that it's been for the last million years. Even a zen monk actively seeking detachment from the material world still behaves consistently with the belief that the cave he's sitting in actually exists, or that the food he's eating today will do roughly the same thing as the food he ate yesterday.
Religious faith is not an alternative to scientific "faith". It is an extra layer of faith atop common sense empiricism and uniformity.
Religious people make the same assumptions of empiricism, inference, and uniformity that rationalists do. Everyone "believes" that Bibles, Korans, churches, monks, and priests exist because they can be observed to exist, but religious people go beyond this common sense assumption and believe that the religious beliefs themselves are actually true. They believe more than what can be empirically observed or rationally inferred from the empirical evidence. Religious belief is a leap beyond, not an alternative to empiricism, uniformity, and induction.
I don't need to go that far. The naive realist position that everyone seems to start from is sufficient to work out the answers to ostensibly religious questions like when and how the earth was formed, how life achieved its present form, how I fit into the whole thing, what I ought to be doing, and how I ought to behave with and relate to other people. I don't need to leap any further.
Update: I'm at TAM now, and I just got out of an excellent talk by Massimo Pigliucci about why laypeople should defer their opinions about complex issues to experts who have taken the sufficient time to study them. This is a complex issue, and while I think I'm on the right track, but he's way more of an expert on this subject than I am. I had a brief conversation with him after the talk, gave him my card, and asked him to subject this post to (su)peer(rior) review.
Update 2: Massimo replied to me via email:
just finished reading your post. I think you nailed it exactly right. The only two things I would add are:
a) Though, as you repeatedly say, naive realism could be considered a "faith," I would actually resist that characterization, and call it instead a revisable or pragmatic assumption.
b) I would have mentioned that realism itself is subject to critical analysis. The realism-antirealism debate is very vigorous in philosophy of science, and of course there are different types of realism. While nobody will ever be able to prove one school of thought over the other, the arguments are sometimes really compelling...
"Science requires faith (or is a kind or faith) just like religion. Everybody has faith in something."
"Science can't replace religion because it can't answer questions as well as religion."
"It's not a question of whether we have faith, it's what we have faith in ... Christopher has faith in the role of scientific inquiry, rational inquiry. He has faith in that process. Christopher is as much a man of faith as I am."
These statements are correct to a degree, though not in the way people seem to usually understand them, not for similar definitions of "faith", and not in any way that ought to be a problem for reasonable people.
Science is based on empiricism - the evidence that we gather from our instruments and senses. Scientists have faith that the evidence we perceive, though incomplete and prone to error, is to some extent a reflection of some part of reality. This is a bit of a tautology, since the only proof of empiricism is more empirically-based observational evidence. We could be brains in a vat or the central subject of an elaborate Truman Show hoax, but the naïve realist position is to assume that what we perceive is to some extent real. I suppose you could say that's "faith".
Science also depends on the principles of uniformity and induction - the belief that knowing something about some stuff informs us about other, similar stuff. We can infer from empirical observation that fire is hot, that ice is cold, that the red lights at the last intersection mean the same thing at this intersection, and that exceptions to these general rules will have exceptional explanations. It is possible that this is not true. What seems generally true here may not be true far away. The hydrogen we have on earth emits light in 4 discrete wavelengths, but when we see those wavelengths coming from other parts of the galaxy I suppose you could say it's faith to infer that the stuff emitting it is also hydrogen. I suppose you could say induction and uniformity are "faith".
Empiricism, inference, and uniformity are not arbitrary or irrational personal choices. They are the unavoidable consequences of having sensory organs and cognitive ability. Every living thing accepts empiricism and inference to the extent that they are capable. Dogs' empirical observations lead them to assume that treats exist, and use simple induction to infer that "sit" means the same thing today that it meant yesterday. Plants' gravitropic response assumes that dirt is probably in the same direction that it's been for the last million years. Even a zen monk actively seeking detachment from the material world still behaves consistently with the belief that the cave he's sitting in actually exists, or that the food he's eating today will do roughly the same thing as the food he ate yesterday.
Religious faith is not an alternative to scientific "faith". It is an extra layer of faith atop common sense empiricism and uniformity.
Religious people make the same assumptions of empiricism, inference, and uniformity that rationalists do. Everyone "believes" that Bibles, Korans, churches, monks, and priests exist because they can be observed to exist, but religious people go beyond this common sense assumption and believe that the religious beliefs themselves are actually true. They believe more than what can be empirically observed or rationally inferred from the empirical evidence. Religious belief is a leap beyond, not an alternative to empiricism, uniformity, and induction.
I don't need to go that far. The naive realist position that everyone seems to start from is sufficient to work out the answers to ostensibly religious questions like when and how the earth was formed, how life achieved its present form, how I fit into the whole thing, what I ought to be doing, and how I ought to behave with and relate to other people. I don't need to leap any further.
Update: I'm at TAM now, and I just got out of an excellent talk by Massimo Pigliucci about why laypeople should defer their opinions about complex issues to experts who have taken the sufficient time to study them. This is a complex issue, and while I think I'm on the right track, but he's way more of an expert on this subject than I am. I had a brief conversation with him after the talk, gave him my card, and asked him to subject this post to (su)peer(rior) review.
Update 2: Massimo replied to me via email:
just finished reading your post. I think you nailed it exactly right. The only two things I would add are:
a) Though, as you repeatedly say, naive realism could be considered a "faith," I would actually resist that characterization, and call it instead a revisable or pragmatic assumption.
b) I would have mentioned that realism itself is subject to critical analysis. The realism-antirealism debate is very vigorous in philosophy of science, and of course there are different types of realism. While nobody will ever be able to prove one school of thought over the other, the arguments are sometimes really compelling...