Does science and rationalism always lead to scepticism?

[Svartalf]

All true Svarty, but the more I personally learn, the weirder and stranger I realise the universe and the fabric of reality really is. I'm an atheist because I see no direct evidence for a god or gods, but that doesn't mean this thing we inhabit and are embedded in isn't weird as fuck!

Which is why I said 'personal'... still plenty of room for 'Dog' as embodiment/personification of Nature

[amused]

It seems 'possible' that there is an intelligence at work in the universe, and if so, that would be something that science could eventually uncover.

[Robert_S]

It seems 'possible' that there is an intelligence at work in the universe, and if so, that would be something that science could eventually uncover.

Of it were a sufficiently advanced intelligence, it could avoid detection indefinitely. Just like sufficiently sophisticated conspiracy of world domination could never be detected.

Will that be the plaid pill or the paisley one today sir?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Wtf you talkin' 'bout? You were disturbed when I got here.

[odysseus]

With regard to a 'god' there is a massive difference between possible and likely...

[PsychoSerenity]

It seems 'possible' that there is an intelligence at work in the universe, and if so, that would be something that science could eventually uncover.

Of it were a sufficiently advanced intelligence, it could avoid detection indefinitely. Just like sufficiently sophisticated conspiracy of world domination could never be detected.

If it could never be detected, then doesn't that make its influence irrelevant?

[DaveDodo007]

Does science and rationalism always lead to scepticism?

Answer no.

Evidence: P Z Myers, atheism+, skepchicks and all their fuckwit followers.

Case closed.

[Audley Strange]

The reverse may be true though, but never always.

[DaveDodo007]

The reverse may be true though, but never always.

Explain?

[Audley Strange]

Skepticism leads to science and rationalism.

[Blind groper]

I like to quote the results of a survey for this.

90% of Americans believe in a personal God.
40% of Americans with a Bachelor of Science degree believe in a personal God.
7% of Americans with a Ph.D. in science believe in a personal God.

I think the conclusion is clear.

[rasetsu]

Well, first, no. Herbert A. Simon gives an analogy for how human minds deal with limited time to make inferences. Such computations will always make use of shortcuts, and thus they qualify as heuristics, not deterministic algorithms for producing the right answer. As such, specific heuristics will perform well on certain common data sets (eg. thinking in terms of persistent objects performs quite well). However, this same heuristic may fail miserably at non-standard datasets (eg. quantum fluctuations in the vacuum). Simon uses the analogy that the heuristics of bounded rationality are like one blade of a pair of scissors, and the environment the other blade. In order for useful function, the two need to be better complimented to each other, not less. So yes, one's environment can definitely bias one away from (or not toward) skepticism. Immanuel Kant wrote in one of the prefaces to The Critique Of Practical Reason that he had to forego the idea of objective knowledge in order to make room for faith and God. There were numerous of the schoolmen who were brilliant thinkers, but whose brilliance was channeled down narrow avenues. And that the ratio of great theist to great non-theist thinkers has been decreasing, in part, perhaps due to thinkers having access to ideas which are better springboards for doubt than what Aquinas or Augustine had ready access to work with.

The other three threads, in brief:

1) we are a memetic species; the dynamics of memes will bias our thinking;
b) we are a conservative species; we teach our young the answers we've already determined are good to a greater extent than we encourage exploration;
c) we are a cultural and social species, and how we travel throughout the world of ideas is as much governed by the social as by what is true.

Moreover, I'm starting to be persuaded that intelligence is a synergistic phenomena, that there are only very modest differences in brains' raw power, but because that same slight advantage is deployed in parallel across the cognitive tasks, the results are multiplicative. I suspect that education yields a lesser, but still compounded effect.

So ultimately, I would say no. There is nothing (obviously) serving as the beacon of a lighthouse to a hungry intellect. We're more like cows, chewing our cud, over and over again. Only occasionally moving to a new patch of grass or a bit of shade.

However in counter to that, there is a recurrent theme in many deconversion stories of one's thirst for truth "pushing them out the other side of faith." All the same though, for every Dan Barker or Daniel Dennett, you'll have your D'Souza or Swinburne. However, as noted, the distribution isn't random, and changes to environment yield changes in effectiveness.

[rainbow]

I can understand the Christian's opinion though don't agree with it. Consider our species. What are we? We're sacks of meat. Cut us open and that's all we are, just meat. And yet we think, we speak, we reason, we dream, we create. What animates us? How could this be possible except for the grace of God?

Or by the grace of electro-biochemical processes.

It explains a how, but not a why.

That is why the arguments are at cross purposes. They are both right, but answering different questions.

[rainbow]

I like to quote the results of a survey for this.

90% of Americans believe in a personal God.
40% of Americans with a Bachelor of Science degree believe in a personal God.
7% of Americans with a Ph.D. in science believe in a personal God.

I think the conclusion is clear.

We should be sceptical of survey results?

[JimC]

Even scientists can lose a wheel off the wagon when it comes to non-scientific topics. I think there was a book or slogan or something along the lines of 'Why Smart People Do Stupid Things.'

Change that to "Topics they haven't mastered" and I'll agree...

I'd make a dick of myself talking about geology at anything more than a superficial level, and many other branches of science as well...

However, I can make a fair fist at discussing 20th century Australian poetry...


And here's a challenge; in explaining how the Universe works, there ain't no "non-scientific" topics...

Religion should stick to warm fuzzy emotional blackmail - we own the rest... :twisted: