In comp.robotics.misc Jerry Avins <jya at ieee.org> wrote:
[snip]
: One last comment, then I shut up: Belief that science is the way to
: explain the world is in it self a matter of faith, one that we share. In
: the end, we believe what we choose believe. Unless, or course, our
: beliefs are shaped by coercion, and that is unlikely except in a
: theocracy of dictatorship. Yes, I live in the US, which is fortunately
: (for a while yet, anyhow) neither.
: Jerry
: --
: Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
Sorry, errrt! Wrong answer, come back and play again sometime. Science
is NOT faith. This comment is foolish in the extreme. Science depends upon
observable and repeatable data. Faith is what happens when you have no
proof and wish to indulge in wishful thinking. The ignorant "believe", the
informed base decisions on what is known and observable.
Calling science "faith" flies in the face of logic, it's not magic and does
not require hand-waving nor missing stone tablets that someone, sometime,
said they believe they saw. Show me a miracle that is rigorously repeatable
(not just something we don't understand yet, like a baby) and I'll show you
the science that can explain it.
This "faith" nonsense (in the purest sense of the word "nonsense") has
caused more grief and suffering than even our worst scientific debacles to
date. We're better off without it (that is an opinion).
DLC
--
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* Dennis Clark dlc at frii.com www.techtoystoday.com *
* "Building Robot Drive Trains" published by McGraw-Hill 2002 *
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