Hi JFK,
JFK_Lib - So faith in my coworkers to do their job right has nothing to do with reality? Or my faith in my wife to handle her responsabilities, or in the people alongside me driving to work to.....ah, you get the idea by now, surely.
Alacarte - There is more than one definition of faith, the one you speak of is not the one I refer to. Faith in your co-workers is not the same as faith is the supernatural.
JFK_Lib - Oh, and when was the last time I got on an airplane and some scientist came forward and told me that he had personally checked out the plane? Ummm, never happened.
Alacarte - Not scientists per se, but the planes are always safety checked according to scientitifc methods. Whether or not these methods were applied by a scientists is irrelevant. The point is that there is no room for the supernatural when applying safety procedures. It's not like they can forego safety procedures and just tell everyone on board that if an engine fails, everyone pray real hard and it'll be ok. That doesn't work.
JFK_Lib - You confuse policy that may have had some input by some scientist somewhere with the actual enforcement of those policies and guidelines which is left to anonymous strangers in some municipal bureacracy, kind of like your scientists too, come to think of it.
Yes, we all operate by faith in each other each day of our lives.
Alacarte - Again, faith in each other is not the same thing. When I said, 'your faith,' I meant the one pertinent to this discussion, which is faith in the supernatural. You have faith in your wife, but it is certainly not blind faith. You have faith in her for empirical reason, ie. she has proven you can trust her. Faith in the supernatural is completely unverfiable. Having faith that a ghost will clean up your room for you is blind faith, having faith in someone you know is actually trust.
JFK_Lib - No, science really doesnt have the last word on anything at all, as 'science' is not an entity that has a voice. Yes, there are some people who claim to speak on behalf of 'science' as though it were some form of deity, but really it is just a collection of concepts that express a view of reality derived by consensus among some tenured people cushioned from expectations by the political chicanery common to Universities and colleges competing with each other for more funds at the federal research trough, but thats about it. It is being constantly updated, revised and modified but it is no more the final word on a subject than anything else.
Alacarte - Your first sentence is correct, then you contradict yourself. You are correct that science is not an entity and science makes no moral or ethical judgements, that is for us to do. But science is NOT simply a concensus of intellectuals. As I said before, science is NOT a democracy, and that goes for scientists too. No matter how much scientists wish they could make cold fusion work, until they actually make it work, it is a dream! If science really were controlled by a bunch of cronies as you say, scientists would just say cold fusion works, and that would be the end. Unfortunately that is not how science works. Anything that is scientific has been peer reviewed and independently tested. Science is inherently self-correcting, and no one body controls it. Science is the last word on reality, if you believe in the supernatural, that's fine, but that is not real, it is only in your head. The natural world is reality, the reality we all share. No matter what we believe in our heads, we are ALL subject to natural laws, and that is defined by our science. The supernatural is the realm of feelings and emotion.
JFK_Lib - I cant recall the last time that 'science' had anything useful to say about beauty, why I feel love for my wife and daughter, or why the stock market rises and falls or why the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburg Steelers look like Super Bowl favorites this year.
Alacarte - Beauty and love are very much scientific, they are subject to brain chemistry. Love is a physiological state that lasts just long enough to keep couples together until the female is capable of taking care of a child on her own. What do you think emotions are?
There are simply too many variables to predict the future for your other examples, but it is theoretically possible. Just because science can't do it does not make it impossible, and it most certainly does not make it the realm of the supernatural.
JFK_Lib - IF science was really the last word on everything, then scientists would have the prettiest wives (from their absolute wisdom on what love is and how to control it), the most money (from their absolute knowlege of how stock markets work), and be hired for coaching positions in all the top sports who could possibly afford them.
Alacarte - Wow, you are way off here. Science cannot explain everything, I said it was the last word on reality, not that it explains, and can consequently control all reality.
JFK_Lib - Some scientists actually do make and design things for use in the real world, but we call them 'engineers'.
Alacarte - Incidentally, I am one of those engineers. Science does not equate to scientists. We practice science everyday. When you go to sit on a chair, do you say 'god will keep that chair from breaking on me?' No, you say 'that chair looks safe, I think it will hold me (hypothesis), you sit on it (test), it does hold me (conclusion: hypothesis is true). The scientific method, simplified since the impact of a false hypothesis is low (fall on the floor), but it is science nonetheless.
We used to say pray to protect us from evil spirits (getting sick), now we have meat inspectors who assure sanitary slaughter/butcher techniques. Given the mortality rate now using science (medicine, sanitation) compared with when we just prayed people would get better, I think there is little question things have been good lately.
I like your other post much better so I'll reply to it now.
alacarte - The supernatural is the realm of feelings and emotion.
alacarte - Beauty and love are very much scientific, they are subject to brain chemistry. Love is a physiological state that lasts just long enough to keep couples together until the female is capable of taking care of a child on her own. What do you think emotions are?
Umm, I suspect that your use of 'supernatural' and 'science' are not consistent. At some points you seem to imply that they are exclusive of each other, but in the statements above you seem to make them almost synonymous. Perhaps this is part of the reason for our not agreeing.
I am simply saying that science is not the only source of knowlege that we have, nor is it the most reliable as what is rpesented as 'science' to the public is often mangled in the reporting, spun by people with a cause or stated without much concern for the limits of sciences realm.
When I do most things in day to day life, it has little to do with science as a process. That chair I sit in could have as easily been designed by someone using astrological charts, whim or Biblical reference, as long as they used their personal experiences as to what works and does not I am fine. Chairs were used long before modern science was devised.
And hence my complaint with those who dismiss concepts out of hand for bein contrary to or unscientific. Good ole trial and error and experience in life teaches us most of what we know in a practical matter. IF that to you is 'magic' then so be it.
But from what I have seen in other peoples lives and experienced in my own, I have no reasonable doubt about the reality of God, magic or not, and I regard it as quite rational whether scientific or not.