I've never seen any scientific text default to (a) but I've certainly heard many teachers and read many writings that said religion and superstition are employed man's scientific understanding fell short. The also said that as our scientific understanding has expanded, superstition and religion have been replaced. In other words, religion is for the scientifically illiterate. You still hear it on crevo threads every day.
Do you not think that this is true, at least in part? We used to pray for rain. Now we surf to weather.com. We used to think sickness was the act of the devil. Now we know it is bacteria.
You: I've never seen any scientific text default to (a)
The thing is, we have no way of distinguishing between supernatural activity, and natural activity that we don't yet understand. Yet the two conclusions lead to vastly different results. Put it this way, no-one ever made a scientific advance by concluding that something they didn't understand was the result of a supernatural agency. To do so is to throw your hands up in defeat. Hence the default assumption has to be (b). That doesn't deny the possibility of (a); it simply says that we can never distinguish between (a) and (b) and (b) is the only possibility that can be investigated scientifically.
but I've certainly heard many teachers and read many writings that said religion and superstition are employed man's scientific understanding fell short.
Indeed, I've said the same thing myself many times on these threads. To say that scientific knowledge can trump and replace superstition is hardly a revelation. At one time, only a couple of hundred years ago, pretty much every phenomenon was explained as direct supernatural intervention. The weather, disease, conception, tectonic action, germination. Now we know better. These things have natural explanations (which does not deny the possibility that a deity created the rules make the natural clockwork go). As an example lightning was explicitly believed to be the wrath of God by many religions. Evil to to attempt to deflect the power of God's manifest wrath with a lightning rod. Yet the cathouse with a lightning rod would be spared while the neighbouring church without one would be struck. God seemed to weak indeed, if His manifest will could be deflected by $1 of metal. Perhaps God was not personally directing every lightning strike after all. Religion is weakened by such conflicts whenever it fights the conclusions drawn by science. Physical evidence is a powerful persuader.
The also said that as our scientific understanding has expanded, superstition and religion have been replaced. In other words, religion is for the scientifically illiterate. You still hear it on crevo threads every day.
I have never heard that said on these threads. Numerous top scientists and engineers are and have been religious. However science can only be meaningfully conducted by leaving Holy Writ at the laboratory door.