"I Believe (fill-in-the-blank) Because 'Science' Says So". How Can People Fail to See How Utterly Moronic this Is?

[Gal67]

Light sabre

'Science' never claims anything, because it isn't something that can make a claim; it's a method of enquiry, an investigative tool, a means to an end, the end being a greater understanding of reality. Scientists, on the other hand, often do make claims, and those claims often turn out to be wrong.
I've noticed that people tend to say this when they can't present a compelling, or even useful, counterargument to whatever they happen to disagree with. I'm not interested in whatever you think 'science' tells you; I'm far more interested in why you believe you can avoid having to defend your position with such a lame and outdated appeal to authority.

[goaded]

"I believe (fill-in-the-blank) although science says I'm wrong" is a much more ridiculous position to take, don't you think?

Firstly, science is a method of enquiry *into what is true*, it builds on a foundation of facts to find better and better explanations for those facts and how they come about. You can't propose a hypothesis that doesn't explain at least as well all the facts that led to earlier theories and expect to be taken seriously.

No major theory has been completely overturned for decades, if not over a century, back when galaxies and plate tectonics hadn't even been discovered, and manned flight was in its infancy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science

Secondly, believing something "because the science says so" is shorthand for understanding that science tends to converge on more and more correct explanations. Like a jigsaw puzzle with thousands of pieces, as you find more and more pieces that fit, it's never going to change from a landscape to a picture of a tomato.

Basically, it's the knowledge that you can ask "how do you know that?" about any part of any explanation that you're presented with and someone will have an answer. Sometimes, the answer is "we don't know (yet)", and that's where the interesting science is.

If I asked you how a car works, you might say that you hold down that pedal, turn the key, the engine starts and you can steer like this and this pedal makes it go faster and that pedal makes it go slower. A more detailed description would involve solenoids, clutches and starter motors. Yet more detailed might involve electromagnetic fields or plasma, and so on, down to subatomic interactions.

Not knowing how sparks form doesn't mean cars don't work, or that we don't know how cars work. Having some debate about the first few seconds of the universe doesn't mean it hasn't been expanding for the last 13 billion years. Not knowing about DNA didn't mean that evolution wasn't a valid theory; knowing about it just adds more evidence, as does Quantum Mechanics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_biology

[Gal67]

Yes, I know that it's a method. That's kind of my point here.

[sean1234]

Actually science has proved that the earth is around 6000 years old... it's just not your science. As for the universe it's arrogant to say how old it is. No one can know, no one can even guess. Proves how fake science can be.

Funny thing with cars though, people obviously don't know how they work at all. Diesels get better fuel economy, pollute less, have more power, last longer, fuel is cheaper to make, yet diesel fuel sells for more, diesel vehicles are rare to see on the road. Lol

[goaded]

@sean1234 Actually, no it hasn't because that would involve ignoring all the evidence to the contrary that comes from almost all branches of science.

Also, diesel cars were popular over here, the fuel is cheaper, until it became obvious that cars just put out different toxins into the air than petrol engines, not necessarily less.

[Gal67]

@sean1234 Sean, why do you keep making these obviously silly claims? ALL the evidence we have tells us the Earth is much, much older than a mere 6,000 years. There are civilisations that go back further than that! Ex. Catal Huyuk, Jericho, Mohenjo Daro.

[sean1234]

Fraudulent science that has been proven so by real scientists and quite frankly at gal67 they are wrong in those years, one site said mohenjo dare 2500 bc, catal huyuk 6500-5500bc... perhaps 4000bc?

[goaded]

@sean1234 You're funny. I bet you could name all your "real scientists". Every science says older, except, possibly, social sciences.

@Gal67 Don't you believe that the Earth is older that 6,000 years because science says so?

I mean, you haven't replicated all the experiments and observations of Dr. James Hutton (1726 - 1797), who made the first estimates of millions of years, let alone the subsequent ones that established it was a thousand times older?

www.scotland.org.uk/.../james-hutton-founder-of-geology

As for science always being wrong, Geology is a good example of it always getting less wrong. The religiously established 6,000 years, gave way to 4.5 million years in the 18th century, to 4.5 billion years in the 20th century. There's literally nothing that could be found today that would prove 4.5 million years was true, let alone 6,000. (And, @sean1234, a lot of those scientists were religious men.)

[Gal67]

I never said that science was always wrong. Why are you such a liar?

[goaded]

Do you bother reading my posts at all? There are points in there you could consider instead of just calling me a liar.

I was thinking more of the god botherer who was saying all science but theirs is wrong, but your question is about just saying "science says" is not a valid argument, but then you did it yourself. You did also say this, which isn't far off implying "science is always wrong":

"Scientists, on the other hand, often do make claims, and those claims often turn out to be wrong."

Maybe if you gave an example?

[goaded]

Thanks for MHO.

[sean1234]

@goaded, yes their religion is the church of satan. Freemasons or jesuits I bet.

[goaded]

@sean1234 Maybe, instead of guessing, you could just, you know, look it up?

[sean1234]

The irony in that, to try to look up which "secret " society they are involved in. When I think of that... this comes to mind...

Matthew 7:15-20 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

play.google.com/.../details

[goaded]

@sean1234 Wow. "know them by their fruits", says someone using a device that allows them to communicate around the globe in instants, can display to them huge amounts of knowledge, and can only work if the sciences that prove the Earth is billions of years old are actually valid. Clearly, your phone or computer is the work of the devil and you should stop using it. Or, read something about geology and how Hutton came to his conclusions.

[sean1234]

I already looked at both sides... you didn't.

[goaded]

@sean1234 You know how the Earth is not flat? It's only off being flat by 0.000126 (as in, for every kilometre distance, the Earth falls away 12.6cm (or 4 inches).

Saying the Earth is 6,016 years old is so amazingly wrong, it makes the flat Earth theory look almost perfect by comparison. It's like saying the surface of a beachball is absolutely flat.

[Deserter]

Exactly, people try to conflate not only scientists with science but also consensus among scientists with science nowadays. It's a sad state of affairs and it's being used as justification for control.

[goaded]

People also try to conflate one or two nutcase scientists with a reasoned disagreement.

There was a scientist who claimed there wasn't enough data to justify protective measures against the pandemic, who went on to use that same insufficient data to claim that the infection fatality rate of covid was 0.15% (which would be less than half a million Americans, even if every single American caught it before they could be vaccinated).

At that point, the sensible thing to do is ask "what if we're wrong?", while acting and collecting more data.

In the case of Ioannidis, it would have meant hundreds of thousands more deaths, if the others were wrong, it would have meant inconvenience and an economic downturn. (It was pretty obvious at the time that Ioannidis was wrong; it would have meant half a million New Yorkers had been infected already, and they passed 0.15% deaths of the total population by the end of May.)

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eci.13554

[aWes0MeNeSs]

Agreed. Science is constantly changing, and I think there is a lot out there that we think we know, but we really don't know. That isn't to say that science isn't reliable at all, of course, just that it isn't always 100%, either.

[cth2188]

Science doesn’t always win.. science is how evolution started. Fauci is a monster that’s sending humanity to hell !

[cth2188]

This one will hurt people because the intentions or data isn’t conclusive!

[sean1234]

Can't forgot about the evolution forgeries/fakes. They find Lucy a hybrid ape/human, but in reality it's a few pieces of bone. Some people create chimeras and put together human and ape bones to create a new species. Look proof! 😂

[Gal67]

@sean1234 Yes, that can and sometimes does happen, but the thing about the scientific method is that these people are eventually exposed if they happen to think that perpetrating a hoax is a good idea. The same thing happened with the "cold fusion" fiasco. If the evidence isn't there (or is dodgy), or your experiments aren't replicable, then you've got nothing, and no one takes you seriously. Unlike religious beliefs, that are untestable, unfalsifiable, and therefore not scientific questions to begin with.

[sean1234]

🤷‍♂️ well that all depends. To me it seems that secular science is non-factual and believes in things that can not be proven, like evolution, but real science uses facts that can be proven, facts like God's existence and that the KJV BIBLE is true.

It almost seems as if secular science is religious, because you have to have faith in something that you can't seemingly prove to someone that it's true. To an extent that it's ignorance and ironically opposite to the definition of what science is.

[Gal67]

Oh come on! When you say crap like, "real science uses facts that can be proven, facts like God's existence", you're just letting the whole world know that you know nothing at all about science. Stop embarrassing yourself here.

[sean1234]

Lol, I can show you hours of proof. Hours upon hours.

[Gal67]

Hours upon hours of YouTube videos? No thanks.
You don't seem to understand the meaning of the word "proof", just like most people. There is no such thing as "scientific proof", because proofs only occur in the field of mathematics, and scientists (ex. physicists) seek out what is most likely to be true, based upon observable evidence, evidence that is open to interpretation.
The Bible is just irrelevant. It's a book. So what? I don't care about it, I don't even believe in "God".

[sean1234]

Yeah... like I said... proof.

[sean1234]

You won't see the proof on CNN or Fox news, lol or on any mainstream TV show, lol. Only on sites similar to YouTube. Satan hates the truth and wants truth tellers to be shut up. Why on earth would you think I can't give you proof just because it's on the internet? All the other nonsense crap like teachings of evolution is there and all other stuff taught in schools. What about homeschooled people? They don't learn from videos on the internet? YouTube is no different than any other thing, CNN, fox news, msnbc, etc...

[sean1234]

It's on youtube!😠

Excuses excuses

[Gal67]

Instead of asking ME to substantiate your weird claims, why don't you just present the evidence (not proof) here? You're the one making the claim, so it's your job to convince others, not the other way around. I don't owe you anything, not even my time.

[sean1234]

Well you did in fact say no thanks to youtube, that means like many others here on GAG, you are not open to even hearing it. There's "hydroplate theory" that to make a long story short talks about why the flood happened https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4hhE6tzJR_c

And Walter Veith in Genesis Conflict, talks about that, that the dinosaurs didn't all necessarily go extinct, talks against evolution with proof of course it's fake and so on starting with this episode.. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qMU1soRrtJk

[sean1234]

Nicolene Filmalter also talks about creation in more detail I think than Walter veith. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DS0s3_-XepA

[NamerOfStars]

It's very simple. You see, science is, as you have noted, a process by which possibilities are eliminated. On the other hand, Science is a very popular secular god, whose whims and proverbs cannot be questioned or challenged.

[Gal67]

Yes, unfortunately it has become both over the years, and I've noticed that the former meaning of science is being steadily eroded away in favour of "feelings", dogma, bald assertions, and "consensus" by people who can't face reality as it actually is.

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

It's a bit reckless to follow such a naive way of thinking, but what I think they mean when they follow science "say so" is because the science method is extremely vigorous to come to the right answers to whatever is being discovered.

It's backed up by repeatedly tested data to be proven fact on what's being claimed to be true or accurate.

[Lliam]

And it falls apart when the voices of scientists who do not agree with the desired (profitable) narrative are silenced.

[slatyb]

“Science says so” is shorthand for “because after decades of investigation, the evidence supports that theory, and it is overwhelmingly accepted by people who have done the research.” No one has time to explain to you online the entire evidence chain supporting every accepted bit of scientific theory.

[Gal67]

They don't have the time? Well then, if they're serious about convincing me of whatever, then they're just going to have to make the time!

[Neosporin]

Slatyb is just a white seattle racist forget him

[slatyb]

No, they don't because you aren't worth the time.

[Gal67]

Yes, they do. If you're going to make a claim, and when you're confronted by someone who doesn't accept the claim made your response is merely to state that "the science backs it up", that's not helpful at all, to anyone. It's a meaningless statement, the empty words of a dogmatist parroting a pointless cliche.

[Neosporin]

Appeal to authority is a valid argument sometimes. You don’t have to pretend to know everything. I believe Abraham Lincoln the 16th president because that’s what my teachers told me and I just leave it at that. Everything else people talk about is just personal opinion and not interesting to me intellectually

[Gal67]

No, it's never valid. You can't respond to someone by simply stating something like, "Oh look, Albert Einstein believed this, and he was a very clever man". It just doesn't work that way. You should never trust someone simply because they're your "teacher", or boss, or a scientist, or anything else. Claims made need to be substantiated, they need to be presented in a way that makes them more plausible than the alternatives on offer.

[Neosporin]

That’s just your opinion. Authority can work for a large majority of people. It even works for you too. Are you going to argue with your doctor, laywer, banker, grocery store clerk, whenever they say something. I doubt you argue with your grocery store clerk when they say that the price of banana is X. You accept authority just like anyone else in the proper context.

[Gal67]

No, not the cashier in a shop. That's a trivial example. I'm talking about when someone is attempting to alter my worldview, for example.

[goaded]

There are libraries full of explanations for how science arrived at a given answer. Read a book.

[Gal67]

@goaded I've read hundreds of books. Don't be condescending.

[goaded]

I didn't mean it like that, I just meant that you could read something that explains why what they say is true, rather than insisting that they spell it out for you.

[jahaims]

Science claims all kind of things lol. Like water boils at 212 Fahrenheit at sea level.

[Gal67]

100 degrees Celsius makes much more sense, with zero the freezing point.