Two flow charts.

[Via Geek Press]

This one is just as good.

Actually, they should be combined into one, with a line from "Bad Idea" on the left to "Ignore contradicting evidence" on the right, a path taken by the Climate Change true believers.

Sure, those are completely accurate and everything. It's not like any religion, say Christianity, has ever repudiated a bad idea, say the idea that the Earth is flat.

It's not like any religion, say Christianity, has ever repudiated a bad idea, say the idea that the Earth is flat.

When was it ever Biblical doctrine that it was? In any event, faith can evolve, but it's still faith, and not science. I agree, though, that it's an oversimplification in both cases. I just found it an amusing contrast.

Now that's ignorant.

Ideas get reevaluated in theological circles every bit as much as they do in scientific circles. And in fact, the process is fairly similar to, and compatible with, the scientific method.

There is usually no laboratory involved, but that's because the ideas involved are abstract and not testable in a lab. Instead, they are tested by debate, which often rages back and forth for a considerable amount of time as new arguments are brought forth for and against. Ideas are also tested by application to practical life: are they effective, and do they yield the desired result when practiced?

In the long run, most ideas fall by the wayside, a few stick around, and some bad ones crop up over and over again in every generation.

What is interesting to me is the viewpoint displayed. For most people, science is what you use to understand things that are testable, religion is for things that are not. There are things that are important that to the average person are not testable - morals and ethics are obvious, but I would also add QM and relativity to this list for most people (most people that believe in it do not even understand it, let alone understand it enough to prove it).

Why this is interesting to me is that it underlines something that I have found to be consistent - scientists make lousy politicians (see global warming). While this may seem unrelated, the key job of a politician (or, to be fair, management in general) is to make decisions in the absence of adequate information. If you have enough information, you don't need a leader to tell you what needs to be done. And a scientists' value to society is basically directly related to their inability to make a decision (or jump to conclusions) without information.

Religion is not just "I believe in God". Religion is a belief in something you personally cannot prove (presumably Moses knew, one way or the other). For most of the people that believe in most of science, it is a religious belief, not a scientific one.

Food for thought, for all you heck-bound heathens ;-}

I'm sure glad that, thanks to my initial assumptions, there's no evidence that could possibly make me say my theory can't be modified to explain the evidence. I don't have to worry about that annoying "revolution" branch that way.

It's also handy that I can perform experiments with very basic results, and wave my hands and say "see how these very basic results completely prove my highly unlikely and complex theory?" Also handy that I can tell "just-so" stories about how things must have happened in the past, and somehow claim this fits the experiment, theorize, experiment, improve theory model of science.

Hmmmm... seems like my fake tags got obliterated and treated as real tags. The previous post was supposed to start with

"begin--shooting for about the same level of snarkiness as the flow charts"

and end with

"end snarkiness"

(Not wanting to make anyone mad--just wanting to point out that the jibes can go both ways)

It's a stupid chart, for two reasons.

The chart illustrates a phenomenon that Thomas Sowell described in The Vision of the Anointed: immunity to evidence, which is universal and not limited to religious folks. The current global warming fanaticism is the most obvious example.

Most examples involve the soft sciences, particularly behavioral sciences. Government programs that intend result X but actually produce result Y because the backers believe things about human nature that aren't true. Curricula intended to boost self-esteem actually boost narcissism. Lefty economists routinely fail to predict what normal people know by common sense, how people respond when they are offered "freee" stuff or when the government restricts their access to resources. Hillary Clinton hasn't stopped to wonder why Canadians are flooding US hospitals to escape socialized medicine.

The chart is mainly a distraction from discussing real issues. When the "science vs. religion" meme arises, it's usually in the context of evolution. That's a pretty complicated topic, but I will offer one bit of advice: do not proceed until you cover Square One - explain to the layman why evolution is a genuine scientific theory. To average folks, the whole idea of self-upgrading organisms defies common sense - and they perceive that evolution theory skips the "perform experiment" phase of that chart. I doubt that most laymen who accept evolution can give the scientific rationale; they tend to have nothing more to go on than the knowledge that experts support evolutionary theory.

The only other current science vs. religion topic I can think of deals with stem cells. That involves two scientific debates: when life begins, and whether embryonic stem cells are actually all that useful. As of yet, I have found no articles from supporters of embryonic stem cell research that attempt to address the first issue. Both sides have their anecdotal evidence with regard to the second issue.