• ExperiencedWinter@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The Royal Society in London, a scientific institution since the 1600s motto is “On no one’s word”. One of the fundamental ideas of science is that everything should be reproducible. You literally don’t need to take anything on faith.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Presuming you have all the instruments you need, an unlimited budget and the time to repeat everyone’s studies, yes.

    • samus12345@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      As far as everyone not having the expertise to independently verify every claim, true. But you could independently verify it with enough time and will to do so, unlike with religion.

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Only what you aren’t capable of reasoning on your own. I can’t reason astrophysics, so I take what astrophysicists say on faith. I can reason some physics, though, and I have to either accept that there’s a giant conspiracy with upper level physics, or that the people who study it know what they’re talking about. Each takes a kind of faith, but the latter requires much less.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Yes, although science requires some empirical measurements too, so unless that’s a gaschromatograph in your pocket and you’re not just happy to see me, quite a bit of faith is implicit in our understanding of the world. Deserved, but faith nonetheless.

        • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I mean, I can get a gas chromatograph, then test it however many times I need to, to prove to myself that it’s accurate, then use it to test whatever I’m suspicious of. I don’t feel the need personally, but if a person wants to, they can. It’s honestly not even as expensive as I would have expected- plenty of options under €1000.

          And for more advanced science, the same applies- it would require a lot more faith to believe that everyone with more than two college chemistry classes is lying about the nature of the world than that they’re not.

          But yes, you need faith in either direction. Just a lot less of it if science is real.