> Data and theory (ie models of reality) are what is necessary. You can
> toss faith out the window and still do very good science. Essentially
> faith is orthoginal to real science.
Unless you are way smarter than me, you don't understand all of current
theory. You have faith that the guys doing it are, at least in a
general way, getting it right.
Even where I can understand the theory (like Newton's mechanics) I don't
have time (or interest) to make celestial observations necessary to
validate them. I also don't have a cyclotron to look for quarks. I
believe that quarks exist, but this is faith.
The only difference, at least in my opinion, is that in science, we have
faith in the abilities of our fellow man. While there's a great history
of people doing brilliant things, I have a lot more personal experience
with stupidity. My faith in God is based on personal experience leading
to believe he (lacking a better pronoun) exists, despite the fact that
an informal study of religious history would lead me to believe he didn't.
--Ben
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