Are all of "mainstream" science's beliefs justified?

[Terry Sampson]

Can anyone think of a claim/proposition/sentence that is believed to be true in mainstream science without evidence/justification for that claim/proposition/sentence?

• "Mainstream science" defined:
  • "Mainstream science is scientific inquiry in an established field of study that does not depart significantly from orthodox theories. In the philosophy of science, mainstream science is an area of scientific endeavor that has left the process of becoming established. New areas of scientific endeavor still in the process of becoming established are generally labelled protoscience or fringe science. A definition of mainstream in terms of protoscience and fringe science can be understood from the following table:
  • 
    
    
  • By its standard practices of applying good scientific methods, mainstream is distinguished from pseudoscience as a demarcation problem and specific types of inquiry are debunked as junk science, cargo cult science, scientific misconduct, etc.
  • Source: Mainstream - Wikipedia
• Evidentialism and Justified Belief, in the context of Religion
  • 'Evidentialism’ refers to "the initially plausible position that a belief is justified only if 'it is proportioned to the evidence'. Evidentialism implies that it is not justified to have a full religious belief unless there is conclusive evidence for it.
    • It follows that if the known arguments for there being a God, including any arguments from religious experience, are at best probable ones, no one would be justified in having full belief that there is a God." [Source: Forrest, Peter. (2009). "The epistemology of religion."]
• My understanding is that "mainstream science" consists of information and/or knowledge which is supported, i.e. justified, by a proportionate amount of evidence greater than zero evidence.
• My question, again, is this: Can anyone think of a claim/proposition/sentence that is believed to be true in mainstream science without evidence/justification for that claim/proposition/sentence?
• NOTA BENE:
  1. Anyone who brings "the Flat Earth Theory" and/or "Creationism" into this thread goes onto my "Ignore" list and should be put on everyone else's too.
  2. Anyone who wants to nit-pick my words above and avoid answering my question and satisfying my curiosity can join the #1s on my "Ignore" list.

 

[icehorse]

Sure,

Science is based on values that I would say - from a philosophical perspective - are "beliefs". For example, scientists tend to value:

- logical thinking
- parsimonious explanations
- repeatability and predictability
- discovery and knowledge

But there is no way to "prove" that those values are better than some other values, we fans of science just tend to believe that those are good values.

 

[Terry Sampson]

Sure,

Science is based on values that I would say - from a philosophical perspective - are "beliefs". For example, scientists tend to value:

- logical thinking
- parsimonious explanations
- repeatability and predictability
- discovery and knowledge

But there is no way to "prove" that those values are better than some other values, we fans of science just tend to believe that those are good values.

Hmmm, ... that was an unexpected response.
Okay, let's see if I understand what you're saying.
According to you, mainstream science "claims" that

• logical thinking is better than illogical thinking;
• parsimonious explanations are better than long, drawn-out explanations;
• repeatability and predictability are better than unrepeatability and unpredictability;
• discovery and knowledge are better than blissful ignorance.
• And because those claims cannot be proven, they are, therefore, unjustified beliefs.

Is that pretty close to what you "claimed" in your post to me?

 

[icehorse]

Hmmm, ... that was an unexpected response.
Okay, let's see if I understand what you're saying.
According to you, mainstream science "claims" that

• logical thinking is better than illogical thinking;
• parsimonious explanations are better than long, drawn-out explanations;
• repeatability and predictability are better than unrepeatability and unpredictability;
• discovery and knowledge are better than blissful ignorance.
• And because those claims cannot be proven, they are, therefore, unjustified beliefs.

Is that pretty close to what you "claimed" in your post to me?

more or less, yup

the word "better" is a bit uncomfortable though. if you substitute "preferred" for "better" throughout I'd say that that represents scientific values fairly well.

 

[Terry Sampson]

Edited to suit @icehorse:

Mainstream science "claims" that

• logical thinking is preferred over illogical thinking;
• parsimonious explanations are preferred over long, drawn-out explanations;
• repeatability and predictability are preferred over unrepeatability and unpredictability;
• discovery and knowledge are preferred over blissful ignorance.
• And because those claims cannot be proven, they are, therefore, unjustified beliefs.

How's that?

 

[icehorse]

Edited to suit @icehorse:

Mainstream science "claims" that

• logical thinking is preferred over illogical thinking;
• parsimonious explanations are preferred over long, drawn-out explanations;
• repeatability and predictability are preferred over unrepeatability and unpredictability;
• discovery and knowledge are preferred over blissful ignorance.
• And because those claims cannot be proven, they are, therefore, unjustified beliefs.

How's that?

It's close. It depends on how rigorously I'm going to need to defend it

Maybe it's simpler to say: Fans of science value: logical thinking, parsimonious explanations, repeatability, predictability, discovery, and knowledge.

 

[Terry Sampson]

@icehorse One last try:

Mainstream science prefers

• logical thinking over illogical thinking;
• parsimonious explanations over long, drawn-out explanations;
• repeatability and predictability over unrepeatability and unpredictability;
• discovery and knowledge over blissful ignorance.
• But those preferences are unjustified.

 

[sun rise]

Occam's razor - parsimonious explanations - is critical and sometimes subtle. Newton's laws are simpler but experiment showed them incorrect in certain situations. So an extension would be: parsimonious without rejecting data. Relativity and quantum mechanics are complex but as simple as they can be made based on our current understanding.

repeatability is another key concept. It's been explored in what has been called "Time variation of fundamental constants"

The point is that these are more than just basic ideas but have been subject to debate and testing.

Therefore it's not a matter of justified or unjustified but the fundamental basis of science and the consequences are such things as the computers and cellphones that are used to enter text on RF.

 

[Terry Sampson]

Therefore it's not a matter of justified or unjustified but the fundamental basis of science

I agree 100%. I was just giving icehorse free run to see how far he'd go without a leash. Looks he'll pretty far, no?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

For decades, super-symmetry has been widely accepted in physics, although there were literally hundreds of variations proposed. While the LHC has revealed evidence of the Higgs particle, so far, it has not revealed any evidence of super-symmetry consistent with the many variations that had been proposed. Many physicists still believe in super-symmetry, but there is as yet no evidence to support the few versions that haven't already been eliminated...

Many physicists are willing to consider, if not accept, the theories that have developed invoking strings, branes and other mathematical exotica...there has not been [to my knowledge] any refutable predictions made using these theories...

 

[icehorse]

It's close. It depends on how rigorously I'm going to need to defend it

A bit better might be "Mainstream science has values the support the following:"

But yours is probably close enough.

I agree 100%. I was just giving icehorse free run to see how far he'd go without a leash. Looks he'll pretty far, no?

The OP wasn't asking about what science "depends on", it was asking about "beliefs". I would of course agree that the VALUES I've been discussing are critical to science, but that wasn't what the OP asked.

I will defend that idea that values are almost always philosophically unprovable beliefs.

 

[sun rise]

For decades, super-symmetry has been widely accepted in physics, although there were literally hundreds of variations proposed. While the LHC has revealed evidence of the Higgs particle, so far, it has not revealed any evidence of super-symmetry consistent with the many variations that had been proposed. Many physicists still believe in super-symmetry, but there is as yet no evidence to support the few versions that haven't already been eliminated...

Many physicists are willing to consider, if not accept, the theories that have developed invoking strings, branes and other mathematical exotica...there has not been [to my knowledge] any refutable predictions made using these theories...

A few years ago there were reports about the testability of string theory. I've not heard anything since. https://phys.org/news/2014-01-scientists-theory.html

 

[Terry Sampson]

values are almost always philosophically unprovable beliefs.

Like I said earlier, your response was unexpected. It didn't fit neatly, IMO, as a response to my question: Can anyone think of a claim/proposition/sentence that is believed to be true in mainstream science without evidence/justification for that claim/proposition/sentence? And rather turn this thread into a debate just about your response, I let it ride, hoping to see if someone else would venture a more straightforward and more easily digestible "yes, here's an unjustified belief in mainstream science" or "no, there is no such thing."

My understanding is that "My values identify what I think is important"; "My beliefs identify what I think is true."
I value friends but, as far as I know, friends are not true or false.
I value eating and sleeping on occasion, but eating and sleeping don't strike me as being true or false.
I certainly wouldn't know how to go about proving friends, eating, and sleeping are true or false; so are they unprovable beliefs? If they are unprovable, that would mean there's no evidence for them, ergo--according to that part of my OP that refers to evidentialism and justified beliefs--friends, eating, and sleeping are unjustified beliefs. Seems an odd way to talk about my friends, eating, and sleeping.

.

 

[Terry Sampson]

strings, branes and other mathematical exotica

If you "buy" the table in my OP then, would you say those "theoretical things" are: Pseudoscience, or Protoscience/Fringe science?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

If you "buy" the table in my OP then, would you say those "theoretical things" are: Pseudoscience, or Protoscience/Fringe science?

I'd place it into the protoscience category, perhaps 'fringe,' as it is attempting to make sense of and make predictions that might eventually be refutable. But they will not become science until that happens. In my opinion, your mileage may vary, void where prohibited by law...etc.

I'm thinking, however, to it might be easier to find examples of un- or only-slightly justified beliefs in the social sciences, even sometimes in biology, medicine, environmental sciences...the fields where the complexity of the phenomenon at least historically and in many cases presently preclude simple models and in some cases require the assertion of assumptions--beliefs if you will--that simply are not justified...

In researching/writing my dissertation, I was attempting to measure a psychological phenomenon called "motivation." Motivation is a mental construct of something that cannot be seen, nor measured in any way except by observing behavior and asking for people to answer questions and looking for patterns in the response.

Even though on its face it seems likely that there is something that can be called motivation, in order to explain the observations...but there is at present nothing you can point to and say "RIGHT HERE is where motivation is, in action!"

 

[Stevicus]

Can anyone think of a claim/proposition/sentence that is believed to be true in mainstream science without evidence/justification for that claim/proposition/sentence?

• "Mainstream science" defined:
  • "Mainstream science is scientific inquiry in an established field of study that does not depart significantly from orthodox theories. In the philosophy of science, mainstream science is an area of scientific endeavor that has left the process of becoming established. New areas of scientific endeavor still in the process of becoming established are generally labelled protoscience or fringe science. A definition of mainstream in terms of protoscience and fringe science can be understood from the following table:
  • View attachment 33362
    
  • By its standard practices of applying good scientific methods, mainstream is distinguished from pseudoscience as a demarcation problem and specific types of inquiry are debunked as junk science, cargo cult science, scientific misconduct, etc.
  • Source: Mainstream - Wikipedia
• Evidentialism and Justified Belief, in the context of Religion
  • 'Evidentialism’ refers to "the initially plausible position that a belief is justified only if 'it is proportioned to the evidence'. Evidentialism implies that it is not justified to have a full religious belief unless there is conclusive evidence for it.
    • It follows that if the known arguments for there being a God, including any arguments from religious experience, are at best probable ones, no one would be justified in having full belief that there is a God." [Source: Forrest, Peter. (2009). "The epistemology of religion."]
• My understanding is that "mainstream science" consists of information and/or knowledge which is supported, i.e. justified, by a proportionate amount of evidence greater than zero evidence.
• My question, again, is this: Can anyone think of a claim/proposition/sentence that is believed to be true in mainstream science without evidence/justification for that claim/proposition/sentence?
• NOTA BENE:
  1. Anyone who brings "the Flat Earth Theory" and/or "Creationism" into this thread goes onto my "Ignore" list and should be put on everyone else's too.
  2. Anyone who wants to nit-pick my words above and avoid answering my question and satisfying my curiosity can join the #1s on my "Ignore" list.

I see science more as a method or process of acquiring information and knowledge about the world and universe around us. I don't see it as a book full of scientifically accepted facts claiming to the "final truth." Science is always changing and constantly under review.

I'm not a scientist myself, so you can take this for whatever it's worth, but as far as I can tell, is that the only real demand made by science is that one shouldn't say something is true if it can't be reliably verified as true.

And it's an open society with a free exchange of ideas, and science is certainly a part of that. People are free to publish their theories and discoveries, and if they're worthwhile, they might even make a big name for themselves.

Or, the scientific community may laugh at them, at which point they go insane and become mad scientists.

 

[Terry Sampson]

I'd place it into the protoscience category

Yeah, me too. I'd say the theoretical exotica are in the "Interesting, nice tries, with no evidence" unjustified beliefs category.

it might be easier to find examples of un- or only-slightly justified beliefs in the social sciences, even sometimes in biology, medicine, environmental sciences...the fields where the complexity of the phenomenon at least historically and in many cases presently preclude simple models and in some cases require the assertion of assumptions--beliefs if you will--that simply are not justified...

I agree.

there is at present nothing you can point to and say "RIGHT HERE is where motivation is, in action!"

Very interesting. My own limited exposure to psychology studies was a lot of fun, but too late in life to give me any credibility and use to obtain employment. I managed to get a school psychologist credential out of it, but that's all. I found elementary school level autistic spectrum kids the most fascinating and fun to work with.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Terry Sampson]

I see science more as a method or process of acquiring information and knowledge about the world and universe

Me too. It just intrigues me that so much of the info and knowledge acquired is, given the standard in "the epistemology of religion" portion of my OP, "unjustified belief."

the only real demand made by science is that one shouldn't say something is true if it can't be reliably verified as true.

Right, ... but we RFers don't seem to let that slow us down too much, do we?

the scientific community may laugh at them

LOL! thanks for the reminder and the Star Trek clip.

 

[wellwisher]

Can anyone think of a claim/proposition/sentence that is believed to be true in mainstream science without evidence/justification for that claim/proposition/sentence?

What comes to mind is dark matter and dark energy. These two things have never been directly seen in the lab, to make sure they are actually real and not just imaginary. They are inferred from secondary affects, but not from primary evidence.

This works the same way as proving God. We cannot proven God in the lab any better than we can prove dark energy and dark matter in the lab. The faithful infer God through various secondary affects, such as the beauty of nature. But God is dismissed based on only using second hand inference, while dark matter and dark energy get a pass via a dual standard.

There is another way to explain the affect, attributed to dark matter and dark energy, without requiring the dual standard. According to Einstein, reference is relative to †he observer. However, a universal energy balance is absolute and not relative. It is one amount of energy for the entire universe regardless of your relative reference. The problem is if you assume the universal energy balance is relative to the earth reference, you will need unproven things in the lab, like dark energy, to help close the absolute universal energy balance.

As a simple example of this affect, say we have a man on a train and a man sitting on a bench. They move at relative velocity V, with each convinced the other is moving, based on visual evidence. This is an example of one sense verification; only using vision causes relative reference. This is how we have to treat data from space; one sense. The person on the train is not using their sense of feeling, to infer their motion and momentum, since this would be two sense verification. This is not available for space data. They can only use on one sense verification; visual, for the data. Based on one sense their motion appears relative.

Since we have designed the experiment, we know we have used Z amount of energy for the total system motion. Since we used a huge amount of energy; a hundred gallons of diesel fuel, this means the train has kinetic energy not the man on the bench.

Since the person on the train still thinks the person on the bench is moving, based only the sense of sight, they now know they have lots of energy left over, based on our system wide energy balance. They do not want to change their theory, since it seems correct to their eyes. Therefore, they will need to postulate mystery energy near the bench, to account for the difference in energy. This mystery energy is invisible absorbed the energy into an another dimension, so it may not show up in the lab with any existing modern technology. This mystery energy, in reality is imaginary, and is an artifact of one sense verification and relative reference.

The atheist religion has entered science and needs to exorcized.

 

[Mock Turtle]

The atheist religion has entered science and needs to [be] exorcized.

No such thing.