quote:
There is a difference between faith in something and an assumption. All hypotheses must make assumptions. Within a hypothesis, the assumptions are considered to be unquestionably true. I guess you could say that they are accepted on faith, but only in a technical sense.
The hypothesis itself is not accepted on faith, however. Many hypothesis are considered, and even if one is chosen to be the most logical or likely model, it is not considered proven or indisputable. Scientists do not have "complete confidence or trust" in it. Well tested theories like GR and genetic inheritance are essentially completely trusted, but there is technically a chance that they are wrong, and that has to be recognized. It has not been proven that nothing can go faster than c, and genetic information could be passed on through the arrangement of lipids in a cell membrane.
I agree on pretty much every account with what you said here. The only point I would make is that i would say the "faith" in science comes in once a hypothesis moves to being an accepted theory. While is is acknowledge in most circles that there is a technical chance it is wrong (although i have had a number refuse to do so in evolution conversations) the posture is one that essentially states "while there is technically a chance that this is wrong, all available evidence points to it being true, and so, unless it is proven otherwise to be false, I will move forward in my decisions, assumptions, and even the way I think, assuming that this principle is true".
like gravity for instance. unless someone comes along and shows that our fully understanding of gravity as wrong, we will enter into anything involving gravity, be it simple life actions or detail experimental models involving gravity, with the overriding assumption that our understanding of gravity is correct, and it will continue to behave the way we understand it into the foreseeable future. If that is not the very definition of faith I don't know what is.
again, I don't mean this to detract anything from science. i just want to dispel the notion that there is no faith in science, making it somehow inherently superior to religion (not saying this is your stance, but it is the stance of some). because i hold that very same posture towards my religious faith. while i hold that, technically, everything i believe about God could be wrong, all evidence I have experienced in my life points to it being true. So until a day when someone can prove that understanding to be false, I will move forward under the assumption that it is true.