On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 17:08:08 GMT, Robert Perkins
wrote:

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 10:31:05 +0100, Thomas Borchert
wrote:

Robert,

Experimentation is based on faith.


Huh?

Most of the diatribe against faith posted around here is directed
against what those in my church call "blind faith", or faith without
submitting the subject matter to a test. But it isn't at all what I've
meant by "faith" since about the age of 15.

Since you have admittedly invented your own definition, you should post
it here.

In scientific method, you advance your hypothesis and propose a test.
Publish it. Anyone who acts to submit your hypothesis to that test is
acting on faith in that hypothesis.

That has nothing to do with faith, in that the outcome of the experiment
is not assumed before it is carried out. If someone said "Hey, that
sounds like a neat experiment, but I don't need to perform it because I
know what the result will be" - that is faith.

If it's proven out, that faith becomes knowledge.

There was never any faith in the first place. Unless you mean the faith
that the experimenter had in his own ability to perform the experiment
correctly?

If not, toss the
hypothesis on the scrap heap and wait for or formulate refinements.

Well sure, but there is still no faith involved.

Rob





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