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Many of our ideas about the world are based more on feelings than facts, sensibilities than science, and rage than reality. We gravitate toward ideas that make us feel comfortable in areas such as religion, politics, philosophy, social justice, love and sex, humanity, and morality. We avoid ideas that make us feel uncomfortable. This avoidance is a largely unconscious process that affects our judgment and gets in the way of our ability to reach rational and reasonable conclusions. By understanding how our mind works in this area, we can start embracing uncomfortable ideas and be better informed, be more understanding of others, and make better decisions in all areas of life.
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We shouldn't believe what scientists tell us any more than prophets based just on their word. It just happens that scientists tell us what the scientific method uncovers. We should believe in the scientific method because it is by far the best method we have for determining what is true. "Faith" is a tricky word and many Christians don't like the Biblical definitions (“faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). When we say we place our "faith" in humanity or scientists, this is typicality shorthand for "they have proven reliable in the past so as a heuristic, I trust them while also acknowledging that evidence is what is most important." Now, if you say you trust them "regardless,"... regardless of an abundance of evidence against their claims? Then yes, you would be committing the appeal to faith . |
answered on Thursday, Jan 13, 2022 07:28:58 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD | |
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I see this issue related to the recent discussion on abductive reasoning. In those situations, we considered a number of "observations" to come up with the most probable conclusion. If we were to accept something because just one authority said so, we'd be heading for the appeal to faith or perhaps even an appeal to false authority . However, if we were to consider multiple "observations" (the evidence provided by multiple authorities, as well as considering the reasons given by those authorities), we'd be well on our way to the most probably conclusion about an issue. |
answered on Friday, Jan 14, 2022 11:27:13 AM by Arlo | |
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