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Why do scientists use hypothetical ideas ?

chinu

chinu

chinu
Well, if hypothetical ideas are NOT valid, then why do scientists use them ?

And if that's the way science works, then why can't believers believe in God ?
 
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mikkel_the_dane

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
chinu said:
Well, if hypothetical ideas are NOT valid, then why do scientists use them ?
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I wish you had included examples.
But anyway here is my answer. In a sense they don't. Not in the everyday sense of, what if we imagined... Hypothetical ideas in science have rules of how to make them and are linked to the method of doing a hypothetico-deductive process as developed by Karl Popper.
Now for theoretical physics it can got at little wild at the edge or indeed rather speculative for some models, but in general for everyday science in the everyday world we apparently all share hypothetical in science is not the same as in everyday use.
 
epronovost

epronovost

Well-Known Member
chinu said:
If that's the way science works, then why can't believers believe in God ?
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Scientist and scientifically minded people can and sometime do believe in a deity. It's just not often the mythologised abrahamic kind of deity though and more often than not a more conceptual, deistic or pantheistic sort of deity.

Have you really never met or heard of a scientist or scientifically minded who believe in such deities. I find that hard to believe.
 
Willamena

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
mikkel_the_dane said:
No, science neither believes or don't believe in God. Science as method simply thinks in a way that doesn't include in the end metaphysics.
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Science was born in an investigation of the senses. By that very nature (pun intended) it discludes belief in the super/supranatural.
 
chinu

chinu

chinu
epronovost said:
Scientist and scientifically minded people can and sometime do believe in a deity. It's just not often the mythologised abrahamic kind of deity though and more often than not a more conceptual, deistic or pantheistic sort of deity.

Have you really never met or heard of a scientist or scientifically minded who believe in such deities. I find that hard to believe.
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Thank you.
 
Willamena

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
chinu said:
Is science living thing, or a non living thing ?
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A fine question.

I have idealist tendencies, so I am more than willing to describe ideas in living terms.

In objective terms, though, it is a model, nothing more.
 
chinu

chinu

chinu
Willamena said:
A fine question.

I have idealist tendencies, so I am more than willing to describe ideas in living terms.

In objective terms, though, it is a model, nothing more.
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You mean science without scientist is like bulb with NO electricity ?
 
mikkel_the_dane

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Willamena said:
I disagree. Metaphysics is integral to science, else it could not model anything.

Note: I'm reading "metaphysical" in the philosophical sense, not the boogie-woogie sense.
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Well, if you are in a certain version of a Boltzmann Brain universe or with Descartes's idea of the evil demon, you would get the same results using science as if the universe is metaphysical "natural". Science is methodologically neutral to metaphysics.
 
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