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Comment by senki | Hacker News Reader

The worse belief is that science has anything to do with belief. Or, I believe so...

I think Edge picked a very bad word. Isn't "scientific belief" is a silly oxymoron?

At least, many of those "beliefs" weren't actually beliefs, but scientific theories that worked very well but were later improved. It's the case of Newtonian gravitational force.

Isn't "scientific belief" is a silly oxymoron?

Not at all. At least, not if you are interested in epistemology. In fact, one common definition of knowledge is "justified true belief." Cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justified_true_belief

That's not a common definition held in epistemology: The Gettier problem decimated that view a while ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem

But only the "justified" part. Truth and belief are still necessary conditions.

You're missing the points, which are:

A) "Justified true belief" as the criterion for knowledge is not common in epistemology, contra the initial comment;

b) "Scientific belief" is an odd term given that you either have "knowledge" or you have "false beliefs" based on best available science.

What point am I missing? Clearly, the definition of "scientific belief" used in this context is something like "belief held by people in the scientific community". The central point here seems to be that, while "belief" may have a connotation of something that is lacking evidence, it's in fact a far more general term that applies even to genuine knowledge.

>the definition of "scientific belief" used in this context is something like "belief held by people in the scientific community"

I hope not. The definition of "scientific belief" is belief in something supported by a scientific method. Put another way formally and rigorously established based on agreed axioms.

Being a scientist doesn't make your belief that you're Imhotep reincarnated a scientific belief.

The definition of "scientific belief" is belief in something supported by a scientific method.

How many examples on the OP did you read? How many of those examples were supported by a scientific method? (Probably some, but not all.) I think my definition better suits the context, quibbling aside.

>you either have "knowledge" or you have "false beliefs" based on best available science.

Personally I think it would be truly naive to imagine that we now have what you call "knowledge" as opposed to having in science the best (based on consensus) available description of the universe. If you wish to call the standard model "false belief" then I can go with that but it seems a bit overly fussy.

We should understand that we take our axioms and build on them and measure against them but that we need to adjust those axioms as evidence comes to light.

Axioms, many scientist fail to realise, are beliefs without scientific justification. Not only is physics built on them but the mathematics we use to build our physics and the logic that we use to support our mathematics are built on them too. What is more Godel shows us that we can't prove that logic to be complete and consistent from within.

Yes Pyrrho is my hero but I think Carneades went a bit far.

Thanks for that. I always thought that definition was somehow just very, very wrong, but it kept getting cited by people who didn't really care what the definition was.

Doesn't applying no false premise (a la Nozick) remove the so-called Gettier problem entirely though, at least from an epistemological viewpoint? It seems to based on my hour or so of reading just now.

Practically however the NFP formulation of JTB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justified_true_belief) leaves us without a usable word for "knowledge".

I still think it's a very bad word to pick. "Belief" is widely accepted to mean holding a proposition regardless of evidence, which isn't something you could call "scientific".

> "Belief" is widely accepted to mean holding a proposition regardless of evidence

No, "belief" and "evidence" are orthogonal.

>No, "belief" and "evidence" are orthogonal.

In which case no evidence exists for us.

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