[Joe L. Ogan (OP)]

Has Science become a substitute for religion for many scientists?  It is rather amazing to find scientists defending their beliefs in science with a sort of religious fervor.  Many accepted theories have never been proven to be fact.  They have just not been proven to be false.  Thanks for comments.  Joe L. Ogan

[daveshorts]

No scientific theory has been proven 100%, but that is not the same as saying that a particular theory is on shaky ground. By definition a theory has supporting evidence (a hypothesis is an idea which hasn't been tested) some have more than others.

Do some scientists give more weight to some theories than other scientists? Yes sort of by definition, or science wouldn't be advancing and changing. Are they more attached to their own ideas that they should ideally be? Yes probably they are human.

Is this like religion? Only a tiny tiny bit. I think virtually all scientists would accept that they are supposed to be open minded, and they are aiming at the best interpretation of the evidence as it is presented.

However religion is about continuing a hypothesis about the world whatever the evidence, and by no mean all religious practitioners would think that open mindedness was even in theory a good idea, and many would countenance taking measures against those who hold opposing views whatever the evidence.

The thing I find strange is that normally the theories which are most attacked from outside science are the ones with the most backing, on this forum there are huge numbers of people attacking basic gravity, evolution, electromagnetism, which have a lot of evidence behind them. String theory, evolutionary psychology, some of cosmology, bits of neuroscience maybe, but gravity??

[Bored chemist]

Sometimes when I'm washing my hair I run out of shampoo and I use soap as a substitute.
Sometimes when I'm cooking I can't be bothered to peel potatoes so I use rice or pasta as a substitute.

What would I have been doing to have wanted religion, or a substitute for it?

I guess some people might say "trying to understand the world" but religion never did that anyway.

[JP]

I think you're misunderstanding the scientific method.

Many accepted theories have never been proven to be fact.  They have just not been proven to be false. 

Science doesn't prove things to be immutable facts--it proposes models and then by testing them against reality judges whether they're accurate or not.  Even if they're proven to not be the whole story later on, that doesn't mean the model is wrong, just that it wasn't the whole picture (Newtonian gravity is great for many applications, but general relativity was later found to be a more complete picture). 

[Geezer]

Perhaps the World would be a much safer place if a lot more people put their fervor into science instead of religion.

Only sayin'.