Is Science a Religion?

Though our prophets are far more accurate, our healers are far more effective, and explanations for phenomena far more satisfying and far less contradictory, there is no faith/unfounded beliefs nor worship nor prayer in science. Thus, science is not a faith system, so not a religion. I think what you have there is metaphysical naturalism, not science (which is based on methodological naturalism).Edited by Doddy Curumehtar, : added part on naturalism

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

I read this interesting essay a week or two ago, and I think a few people here would be interested too: Naturalism is an Essential Part of Science and Critical Inquiry. I just wanted to quote one passage:

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It is doubtful whether any empirical evidence can possibly exist that would prove, demonstrate, or even suggest the existence of the supernatural. Such evidence posited by philosophical supernaturalists would certainly be labeled incomplete, incoherent, illogical, meaningless, misunderstood, or misinterpreted by philosophical naturalists, and thus rejected as reliable evidence. In fact, all such evidence has been so rejected, and I agree with these rejections. This leaves rational arguments for the proof of supernaturalism. All such arguments have been criticized as unsound or invalid, due to their underlying illogic or the questionable truth or proven falsity of their premises. In fact, despite centuries of attempts by theistic rationalists to prove the existence of god, miracles, and the supernatural, all such attempts have failed. There is thus no evidence for the supernatural and no reason to believe in it despite the lack of evidence; however, the supernatural could still possibly exist without our knowledge. It is apparently impossible to prove its non-existence. Such a lack of evidence and reason forces one to be agnostic about the existence of the supernatural and thus about the ultimate truth of naturalism. However, because of such lack of evidence and logical arguments, it is more reasonable to disbelieve the supernatural than to disbelieve naturalism.

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Edited by Doddy Curumehtar, : Fixed link

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

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"So the Darwinian story says that ultimately all that is real is nature. Nature is all there is, and nature is composed of matter; the particles making up matter and energy that physicists study.

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So, this is the philosophy called naturalism, or materialism. And since that’s all there is, it follows, that matter must have done all the creating that had to be done; that is to say, matter, unassisted by God, or any other intelligent force. According to materialism, a mind can’t exist until it evolves mindlessly from matter.

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And so it follows that we are the products of an unguided, purposeless material force; which specifically is called Darwinian evolution when you get to the history of life.
And so we get our information about it (and really, information about everything) from science."

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There is a sharp distinction between methodological naturalism (the principle that science cannot investigate the supernatural, so must assume they don't exist for the purposes of the scientific method) and ontological naturalism (the principle that the supernatural cannot and does not exist).Science does not, as Johnson claims, "say that ultimately all that is real is nature". This is not a testable hypothesis, and as such is unscientific.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

Regardless of whether mutations can or can't add information, selection does add information. After all, information is an exclusion of certain possible states. A letter 'x' can also be said as 'not other letters but x', so when I press the X key, I am excluding the other possible states in order to transfer the information of X into the computer.So, when something is selected for by natural selection, information from the environment is added to the genome. It really doesn't matter if mutations can or can't add information.Anyway, this is getting off topic....back to science being a religion or not. Don't respond to me...unless you want to anger a mod!

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

And yet, these symbols that we are writing in, and the laws of our grammar, would be incomprehensible to a Chinese farmer. If I convert it to binary, and show it to the average person on the street, they will not understand it either.Regardless of how absolute the information is, there is no absolute way to get your information from one person to another, but only relative ways.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

Binary is the simplest way of transmitting information. So, a genetic code of A, C, G and T is twice as complex as the most simple method.So the math: 2 x simple ≠ most or very complex

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

There is an entire forum section for this sort of discussion. We even have like three threads current on the evolution of empathy and morals. Post this in one of those.But, the answer to your question is: because they can. There is room in society for a small minority of selfish people who live off the good will of others. Social parasites if you will. But, too many of these people and they will destroy one another, and society will cease to function well.Edited by Doddy Curumehtar, : Provided answer to the question.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

There are indeed facts to support this.For example, in the 17th century, electricity and magnetism were seen to be separate forces at work, but by the 19th, due in part to Maxwell, they were unified as electromagnetism.This left four forces: electromagnetism, gravity, weak nuclear force and strong nuclear force.In the 60s, electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force were proven to be the same force: called the electroweak force.That left three forces: electroweak interaction, gravity and the strong nuclear force.Since the 70s, using the theories of Quantum Chromodynamics, there have been many hypotheses as to how the strong nuclear force and electroweak force may be unified, but they have so many 'fudge factors' (as my professor calls them. 'Constants' is the real name), that they might not be the full answer.But it certainly shows that with extrapolations from what have already happened in physics, the idea of a Grand Unified Theory has some merit.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

To be honest, I'd say they got it from Christian and Islamic religions. Most scientists of the middle ages were looking for order and patterns left by God for them to discover. They looked for patterns in the Bible/Qu'ran and looked for similar order in the universe, because they both had the same designer in their eyes.However, the scientific method proved to be a useful strategy, so subsequent scientists believe it based on its success, not by faith. Somehow, I'm sure they would have lucked into that method sooner or later without religion, but we'll never really know that.Edited by Doddy, : No reason given.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

Who says morals are the domain of religion anyway?

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer