Science In The Bible

[naomi24]

A day or two back a contributor here said….

“It's [the Bible's] contents are scientifically sound on matters that human researchers discovered only at a later date.”

…. but he declined to elaborate.

I know the bible fairly well, but I can’t think what he might be referring to. Does anyone have any idea?

Or perhaps he would like to explain?

[Hypognosis]

A graph showing the accumulation of scientific advancements against time, alongside the world population figure would be interesting.

My overall impression is that, if science has done anything, it has helped the world's population to explode. It appears to love people more than a certain deity does. :-P

[Khandro]

Not true naomi, what are considered to be facts are often theories only and they often change; http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/howscienceworks_20

[naomi24]

Khandro, //Not true Naomi//

Did you actually read what I said?

//“whatever science claims, it is never unsubstantiated. There is always tangible evidence//

……and there is. Whether scientific findings turn out to be absolutely accurate is another matter. It doesn’t detract from the ‘fact’ that there is always material evidence to support the theory.

[solvitquick]

Dear Khandro,
No Khandro, Naomi and others are right to use the word fact where you prefer theory.
The process is: hypothesis; test hypothesis and publish results and means of testing which "verify" hypothesis; a few others verify that the hypothesis holds true. At this stage the hypothesis is a theory. When further exhaustive tests reach the stage that the original hypothesis becomes self-evidently true then it becomes a fACT or THEOREM. It's the latter word which might be confusing you.
Do you really believe that Pythagoras Theorem is only a theory?
Please stay in the world we know and do not swerve into space/time curvature, worm-hole or black-hole hypothesies or theories if you are really compelled to reply.
I think that anti-scientists or sceptics are playing around with words which are deviating the core debate.
SIQ.

[Khandro]

SIQ; //When further exhaustive tests reach the stage that the original hypothesis becomes self-evidently true then it becomes a fACT..// Your 'lecture' is tiresome and inaccurate; no scientific 'fact' is "self-evidently true". One cannot actually prove anything to be true, one consequence of karl Popper's work with 'falsifiability' is the understanding that you never really prove a theory to be 'true' and therefore an objective 'fact'. What scientists do is instead come up with implications of the theory, make hypotheses based on those implications, and then try to prove that specific hypothesis true or false through either experiment or careful observation. If the experiment or observation matches the prediction of the hypothesis, the scientist has gained support for the hypothesis (and therefore the underlying theory), but has not proven it. It's always possible that there's another explanation for the result.
Go figure!

[naomi24]

Khandro, this is a silly argument. However much you play with words, the ‘fact’ remains that science builds upon verifiable evidence – religion does not.

[jim360]

The thing is, though, that almost invariably several competing hypotheses are tested at the same time. So the one that emerges is the "best fit", which in turn means that the other ideas weren't. While a better theory may -- and hopefully will! -- come along later, it's rare that the theories currently adopted are discarded entirely. They have, after all, passed the required tests, and are therefore right. Or at least, right as far as they go.

Curiously your own link you provided earlier demonstrates this idea. Classical Mechanics passed the scrutiny of over three centuries and remains core to our understanding of the world. It's just that Relativity is better at higher speeds or with stronger gravity, while Quantum Mechanics is the theory we need for atomic scales. And yet, we still use the old theory. Because it works! It just doesn't work all the time. But it's not been thrown aside as useless.

Our scientific understanding changes, evolves, and improves. That change to fit the available data is its great strength.

[jomifl]

/ One cannot actually prove anything to be true, one consequence of karl Popper's work with 'falsifiability' is the understanding that you never really prove a theory to be 'true' and therefore an objective 'fact'/
Khandro, So you have never flown anywhere on an aeroplane because the assertion that aerplanes can fly is unverifiable? I think a degree of pragmatism is required otherwise you will disappear.....somewhere.

[beso]

Classical Mechanics is a special case of Relativity where speeds are low. Even Special Relativity is a special case of General Relativity where large accelerations are not considered.

Quantum mechanics did not disprove atomic theory. It simply explained the underlying mechanisms that produced the laws of chemistry.

Finding out how "junk" DNA affects the expression of genes didn't undermine genetic theory. The genes still encode proteins and the "junk" doesn't as first reported.

Such is the case with most of science. The old theory is not discarded but rather built upon and explained by a deeper theory.

Very little science has actually been disproved in a very long time.

[Khandro]

jim; I agree entirely, as; once upon a time the Earth was considered to be flat (a 'fact' at that time); - a reasonable assumption, the known world being much smaller, it worked well, and still does on short distances, whenever we lay out a map on a table top and plan a route, it works but it isn't true. I was recently puzzled to read how ships travelling to India (pre-Suez)from England around Africa, would stop off in Brazil, which to seemed a long detour, but a glance at globe instead of a map shows how feasible this.

[naomi24]

Khandro, //once upon a time the Earth was considered to be flat //

But even that was deduced from observation. It wasn't completely imaginary.

[beso]

Every ship en route to the Indian ocean from Europe went via the South American coast. It is a matter of following the prevailing winds.

The toughest part of the journey was crossing the equator where ships could be becalmed for weeks.

[jim360]

You need to be careful about the Flat-Earth thing. In some sense, such a view predates "Science" as it's understood today anyway* -- which was developed by people such as Francis Bacon and others with the first mentions of the Scientific Method. That is what Science is -- the method, and not the ideas. Before then we had philosophy, and some early mathematics, but it's not quite the same.

That presumably would make the answer to the original question: "There is no Science in the Bible". Although, to be fair, there was no Science anywhere else at the time, either.

* See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

[Khandro]

//But even that was deduced from observation. It wasn't completely imaginary.//
The observation was false and therefor the conclusion was imaginary, and that is why we have to take care about what we think we are observing.
naomi, I think you ought to leave it alone.

[beso]

It was a matter of poor observation. The surface of the Earth is clearly curved. This is easily seen at sea or on flat terrain as something travels into the distance.

Conclusions that the world was flat predate Science.

[Khandro]

jim; your link (which only half works for me) talks of the 'medieval world myth', I said "once upon a time". :-)

[naomi24]

Khandro, I ought to leave what alone? The observation wasn’t false – the conclusion was mistaken.

[Khandro]

beso; I think you are doing a bit of 'retrospective observation' here :-) If you observe a bird or moving away from you through space there comes a point when it becomes optically so small that it is no visible to the naked eye. In antiquity, boats were minuscule compared with today's ocean liners and I think it would have been fair to assume that it had become too small to see, rather than concluding that it's disappearance denoted a round earth.

[naomi24]

Khandro, please answer my question.

[jomifl]

Khandro,
/In antiquity, boats were minuscule compared with today's ocean liners and I think it would have been fair to assume that it had become too small to see, rather than concluding that it's disappearance denoted a round earth. /
Methinks you assume too much (again) an object such as a small boat disappears below the horizon long before it is too far to be seen with the naked eye. The type of sailing craft used at the time of the Norman invasion of Britain were large enough that their hulls would disappear below the horizon whilst there masts and sails were still visible. From memory a navigational(cardinal) buoy (about 10 feet high) or deck of a sailing ship about 100feet long is below the horizon at 4 miles when viewed from sea level. You might find the following link informative.