[alancalverd]

Science is a process, not a power.

Politics is what goes wrong when you use the term "leader" instead of "representative".

God is anything the speaker wants it to be, until you ask him to prove it.

[Just thinking]

leader" instead of "representative".

I think in all three cases leadership is a requirement to represent their institution. Power is in the hands of the leaders to establish a confident following. If we believe and obey then we are succumbing to the power of the authority.

[alancalverd]

I spent many years as a trade union rep. Never a leader, always a spokesman. I was mandated by my members to do certain things and only to work in their best interests, not mine, the union's, or the Socialist Cause, and I could be recalled and replaced at any time if I took an initiative that was not seen as representative of or beneficial to my members. "Consultation" was prior and genuine, not policy-driven evidence-making.

"Authority" is a dirty word in science. "Authoritative" may describe a good textbook, but like showbiz, it's only as good as its last gig and the ultimate authority is the next experimental result. (One should also beware of "consensus" - it's no substitute for the truth!)

Representatives should be authoritative. That is, they should be well briefed on the facts of the matter and the wishes of those they represent. They should also be eloquent and persuasive, but their job is to persuade everyone else to act in their constituents' interest, not to presume the authority to persuade their constituents that the Party, church, or whatever, is right. 

And it's important to distinguish between representing your constituents (literally, re-presenting an argument to a different audience) and being representative of your constituents (i.e. an average bloke). Sadly, there is increasing emphasis on the latter, so politics is increasingly a matter of anointed leaders and complicit followers rather than constituency representatives controlling the executive.

[alancalverd]

Until later in school 1+1 became 10. It equaling 2 assumed a base that the teacher and the rest of us took for granted until later when other bases were considered.

Er, no. One plus one equals two in any base (integer progression along a number line) , but the base determines how you represent two numerically. Up to a point, that is. There are variants of binary representation such as Cyclic Gray Code where
111111 + 1 = 111110

[Bored chemist]

I have the hex multiplication tables memorized from using it so much. 7x5=23 and all that...

Do you muddle Halloween with Christmas?

31_oct = 25 _dec

This whole thread is silly.
Science is defended with evidence.
So it is not defended as though it were a religion.

[Astrid Horton]

Nah,

[hamdani yusuf]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2013/sep/19/science-religion-not-be-questioned

 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/excellent-beauty/201710/is-science-religion

Well, as we all know, science doesn't work like that. Scientific research gets trapped in more box canyons than the Lone Ranger; does more U-turns than the average government; falls to certain death more often than Wile E Coyote; has more women in it than you might at first imagine (though probably not nearly enough); and generally gets the wrong answer.

Let's see what the referred articles say.

Many people think that science is just another religion, no better than their own. Their reasoning is apparently something along these lines: “Beliefs about the unseen world are based entirely on received truth—truth that is known to be right because it is felt to be right. All and only religions offer an opinion about the unseen world. Science offers such an opinion. So science is a religion.” (For those interested in the technical, this argument is valid, so if its premises are true, so is its conclusion. The second premise is false, however.)

Let's clarify what's meant by unseen. Is it something we can't see with naked eyes? Or something we can't sense without tools? Are viruses unseen in this context? What about exoplanets?
I think we need to distinguish between scientific principles and scientific theories. Scientific theories come and go with time, depending on latest observations, experimental results, and advancement of instrumentation technology. But they're all based on the same scientific principles.

[alancalverd]

A very depressed undergraduate once wrote about his studies in English Literature: "Volumes of bad English written about a few pages of good English".

Thus with most writing about science.

Science is no more or less than the recursive process of observe, hypothesise, predict, observe. It doesn't require any defence beyond the fact that it often produces robust hypotheses and useful predictions, and we are brought up to distrust anything that doesn't - apart, of course, from religion.

[Just thinking]

I think when people say science is a religion they are simply trying to make out science is false. When people say a belief in God is a religion there may be more strength in this claim. At this point in time we have only the human race to decipher and study the universe around us yes many mistakes have been made and over time we become more and more clear of the fundamental state that we live in. If science makes a mistake we can correct it in real time as updates become available but a belief in God and the bible remain stuck in time. So science and a belief in God will always require faith the only difference is one is set in stone and the other is quite malleable. The only real difference in this state of affairs is that we need to unite each point of view as the art of the creation may be one and the same. 

[alancalverd]

How can a process be "false"? It's only slightly more abstract than a lump of rock.

So science and a belief in God will always require faith

Utter rubbish. The essence of the scientific process is a refusal to accept any hypothesis that does not generate consistently accurate predictions - the diametric opposite of faith.

[Halc]

Let's see what the referred articles say.

...truth that is known to be right because it is felt to be right. ...

This is about as opposite of science as you can get. So one needs to bend the science peg significantly to cram it through this square hole.

Let's clarify what's meant by unseen. Is it something we can't see with naked eyes?

Anything for which there is no empirical evidence.

But [theories] are all based on the same scientific principles.

No they're not. Quantum theory for instance has cast doubt on a number of scientific principles and is therefore not based on them.

[Just thinking]

    So science and a belief in God will always require faith

Utter rubbish.

OK, you get in the rocket and go to Mars without faith in science. Either that means your hoping or suicidal. 

[Origin]

OK, you get in the rocket and go to Mars without faith in science. Either that means your hoping or suicidal.

That is a just a semantic argument. 
The point is faith in God or religion is the belief in something without evidence.  Science is believing based only on evidence.

For instance; saying I have faith that when I drop a rock it will fall to the ground is quite different than saying I have faith that God is watching over me.

[Just thinking]

For instance; saying I have faith that when I drop a rock it will fall to the ground is quite different than saying I have faith that God is watching over me.

Not so, as faith is based on knowing and trust.

[Bored chemist]

Not so, as faith is based on knowing and trust.

Religious fait is based on not actually knowing anything.

[hamdani yusuf]

Anything for which there is no empirical evidence.

Which of these things have empirical evidence?
DNA, atom, electron, photon, gluon,  graviton, anyon, tachyon, dark matter, dark energy, magnetic monopole?
what about multiverse and string theories?

[Just thinking]

    Not so, as faith is based on knowing and trust.

Religious fait is based on not actually knowing anything.

If you don't know you have no faith you can not trust.

[Just thinking]

Religious fait

Fait means the truth.

[alancalverd]

Which of these things have empirical evidence?
DNA, atom, electron, photon, gluon,  graviton, anyon, tachyon, dark matter, dark energy, magnetic monopole?
what about multiverse and string theories?

Models involving the first 5 have useful explanatory and predictive capabilities. The rest are not inconsistent with observation (apart, probably, from the magnetic monopole) and might at least be explanatory or predictive but their predictions are inexplicit and untested. There is some discussion as to whether string theory is predictive or testable, but the fact that it is intended to be at least predictive puts it in the realm of scientific endeavour. 

[alancalverd]

OK, you get in the rocket and go to Mars without faith in science.

No. Experience has shown that Newtonian mechanics  predicts how rockets move, and all the chemistry we have ever done suggests that the next one will work pretty much the same as the last one. If either or both hypotheses is falsified by our experiment, we will have learned something new and interesting.

Faith says that we know all about Mars so there's no point in going. A scientific enquiry starts with the presumption that there are things we don't know, so we do an experiment by going there and having a good look round.