Officially OT -> Re:My fiscal responcibility...

[John Macdonald]

On Mon, May 24, 2004 at 12:12:34AM +0300, Peter L. Peres wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 22 May 2004, James Knott wrote:
> 
> > Well, science is generally demonstratable and provable.  Faith is simply
> 
> Right. Science is provable ? With what ? With G"odel's guaranteed to be
> imperfect/incomplete mathematics ? Accurately measured with Heisenberg's
> uncertainty principle ?  Let's say it is more tangible than faith, in some
> limited technical matters, and as long as you don't look to closely.
> Trying hard != succeeding.

There are known limits on science and the degree to which
it can be complete and/or perfectly accurate.  That does
not make the quest to explain, or to test the quality of
an explanation pointless.

As an analogy:

    With sophistry and hair-splitting, you can show
    that almost any statement is not fully correct.
    That neither shows that all statements are false,
    nor does it mean that there is no point in trying to
    tell the truth.

You can accept anything you wish on faith, but others
can equally accept contradictory concepts on faith, and
there is no further resolution unless one of you abondons
his faith.  If you accept something because it semms
to provide useful explanations, that leaves you free to
accept an alternate idea when it is shown to provide better
explanations.  It gives people with differing viewpoints
a way of searching for a resolution other than simply
proclaiming their varying faiths at an ever louder volume.

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