Yes, this is when one hears that science is a matter of faith, and that hence science is a "new religion". This is presumably intended to a) point out the hypocrisy of athiest critics of religion and b) promote a relativist "well it's all the same so who cares" philosophy. And of course the person saying this sort of thing gets to think that they have wisely seen a profound truth that has eluded the rest of us imbeciles.
Of course there is a certain amount of "appeal to authority" in understanding science -- I don't have time to go and recreate for myself the latest research in spin glasses or whatever. But other people do. And science changes in unpredictable ways, and ideas that were previously held are abandoned. Everything is contingent, much is unexplained, everything has be justified at some empirical level, and is (ideally) open to scrutiny. No faith necessary.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-09-27 06:41 am (UTC)Of course there is a certain amount of "appeal to authority" in understanding science -- I don't have time to go and recreate for myself the latest research in spin glasses or whatever. But other people do. And science changes in unpredictable ways, and ideas that were previously held are abandoned. Everything is contingent, much is unexplained, everything has be justified at some empirical level, and is (ideally) open to scrutiny. No faith necessary.