How can so many people put their trust in science alone?

As opposed to the writings of Bronze Age goat herders?

Science is the study of nature. At the least what we can all agree on are facts determined through scientific empiricism.

Scientists do not attempt to disprove God, that is not how science works. If you propose 'God' as an explanation for anything the burden is on you to provide empirical evidence to support your hypothesis.

You're right, scientists do make mistakes. That is why we have the scientific method, in which any scientific paper is reviewed by several other scientists in the field before being published in a journal. An experiment, derivation or observation must be reproducable and exhibit the same results.

Well you're partly right and partly wrong.

If you're talking about atheists not trusting a god, I suggest you replace the word 'god' with 'Zeus' and ask yourself the same question. Now, that's how atheists feel when you ask them about a god.

Scientists are indeed fallible humans. However, they work within a well-established system of scientific method, which is extremely good at winkling out errors and mistakes. Any evidence is open to be examined, and any theory open to be challenged. Any paper published gets peer reviewed. Hence there is a large safety harness that's very good at minimising errors and flaws.

To date, there is no evidence for any god. To put trust in something for which there is no evidence could be considered foolhardy. Scientific method has a good track record of establishing understanding of the universe. Going by the 'word of god' might lead us to believe there were no dinosaurs or that the sun revolves around the earth. Hence the preference for using actual evidence..

Scientists don't try to disprove any god, any more than trying to disprove unicorns. They investigate the universe based on such evidence. They only ever have to deal with 'gods' when their believers try to interfere with science, such as trying to 'prove' there were no dinosaurs or other attacks.

So, that gives us the choice between trusting the professionalism of competent, often talented, scientists using testable evidence or trusting the 'word' of invisible friends like Zeus or another god.

In summary: we can trust fallible but professional humans, or else non-existent gods.

Hence the trend to trust scientists.

I don't know anyone that trusts science /alone/. People trust all kinds of things. You're flogging a dead strawman.

i) Which particular scientists are trying to disprove god, and in which manner are they attempting to do it? You don't get to make assertions like that without evidence.

ii) Individual scientists certainly make mistakes. That's why you need science itself, which is structured to find out what's true even in the presence of such flaws. If one scientist attempts to publish a flawed study, the first thing is (if they're responsible), it will be seen in preprint form by colleagues (e.g. see www.arxiv.org, which is a way to let *anybody* see your research pre-publication - there are many similar places to put up work for critique). After that, when you submit a paper to a journal it goes through editorial and peer review. This is generally quite rigorous. However, sometimes things still get through that should not. But it's on public record then, available to anyone with access to a good university library... and as science, experiments can be replicated; and theories will make clear (at least to people working in that area) how to disprove them. Anything that's badly wrong tends to get picked up quickly, and papers are corrected or withdrawn.

The worst problems occur when people circumvent the normal processes (such as going for a big press conference before all those steps are done).

Further, because science casts a pretty harsh eye over the claims of those working in it, scientists tend to be very rigorous, because they're wasting their time when they aren't.

So while individual scientists are fallible, /within their own area/ they are on average already less fallible than laypersons. On top of that, there's a structure explicitly designed to highlight flaws, so science as a body of work is /far/ less flawed than the work of the individuals that comprise it. Individual nonscientists can't come close to that.

When you go to a doctor with an illness, are you offered medicines that were created by laypeople? If science is as likely to be wrong as any individual off the street, why are essentially all the successful new treatments invented by scientists?

The wonderful thing about science is its reproducibility. Any experiment that any scientist can do, every other scientist can do, and so can I and so can you. We don't have to take any scientist's word for anything, we can prove or disprove it for ourselves.

If any clergy person of any denomination would like to replicate the parting of the Red Sea, a simple resurrection or even the little loaves-and-fishes bit, that would go a long way toward convincing people that God is real. "God used to be able to do miracles but then He forgot how to so now He can't" really doesn't hold a lot of water.

Scientists are human, but science is a self-correcting process. It works. It produced our entire technological civilization.

Faith on the other hand has produced nothing substantial.

And no scientist is trying to disprove any deity. It just turns out many religious myths happen to disagree with reality. You are attacking the integrity of scientists simply because you do not like what they have found.

Scientific theories in science are not considered facts or ultimate truths. They are the best, current explanations we have for a natural phenomenon. When years of research and evidence supports a scientific theory, you can still test this theory and question it. You accept a scientific finding based on the evidence and research that supports it, it's not really based on faith. Although we do trust scientists and expect them to be honest, if they're not, another person could test their hypotheses and find out that they lied or that they did something wrong in their experiment. Before a research paper is published, it is reviewed by other scientists, it's not as if anyone can publish a paper on some random thing they made up.

The only reason you "know" god is because of a book written by HUMAN, fallible, mistake making men. Men who were also prejudiced, racist, classist, sexist, agreed and supported slavery, and were generally violent, warmongering a--holes.

Scientists aren't trying to disprove God, that is simply a byproduct of reason and research of the natural world. And I, for one, do not go by anything scientists say about god. I don't believe because *I* do not believe. Not because a scientist somewhere had some opinion on the topic.

Peace,

Jenn

The goal of science isn't to "disprove God". Science "refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research." If that knowledge is inconsistent with the dogma of a particular religion then that's not the scientists problem.

Because scientists prove and disprove. There is no evidence for god.

Trusting solid science and trusting scientist are two different things.

Every time you take a headache pill you are trusting the "good science" which produced it. Also most every appliance in your home, your car, your cell phone...... the internet.....

My point is that you probably trust science all the time more so than you do your religious beliefs.