Replies

Scientists have "faith" that they will uncover "truth" about a thing (whatever they set out to discover) .... using the scientific method. That seems a given to me, otherwise why would anyone undertake examining something if they have no believe that they can understand and/or explain? That is not rational.

Additionally, scientists know by now that sometimes they uncover a "truth" that they did not undertake to discover or prove. However, they have faith that a "truth" will be revealed to them about something, somewhere along the line, othewise, scientific investigation would be futile.

Faith is rational because before one acts, one must have faith that a succesful outcome will be the result, if not now, then eventually. This is true in general life (one has faith when crossing the road that one will get to the other side), but it is also true in the realm of scientific investigation. Those who are inclined to uncover truth though scientific methods, have faith in those methods, that they will, at some point, lead to knowledge previously unknown about "reality".

btw, Einstein did point out that not everything can be known (but he did not imply that anyone was trying to know everything). However, he did go so far as to say perhaps not everything we endeavor to know should be known. He felt that mystery in and of itself was worthwhile to humans. He did not say we should not undertake to explain things, in spite of the probable futility of knowing "some" things). All and some are not mutually exclusive since we would not know we know "all" if we happened to get there. This is part of the mystery and uncertainty inherent in the discipline of "science" he was speaking of. It is corollary to spiritual faith where, supposing God exists, we would not know "all" or enough to prove such. Ergo faith.