[xabotage]

Faith is not commitment to "truth," but rather commitment to a belief regardless of its veracity. Science has nothing to do with "believing" something - its a process for determining what actually is true based on evidence. Historically, science has only been allowed to flourish as long as it tiptoed around the religious powers-that-be.

If you really think science boils down to a "minor variation on what has come before," I'm curious to know what millenia-dead philosophers managed to launch a JWST equivalent.

[barrysteve]

Faith is commitment to truth in Christianity and science has a lot to do with believing. People choose which of their hunches and theories at the edge of their individual knowledge with a leap of faith.

I said the Scientist operates on a minor variation on old ideas, not all of science. Quite frequently even the top echelon scientists are pushing science forwards based on ideas that started well before them.

These conversations aren't really possible anymore, people aren't interested in the meaning of words or meaning at all. They just want to relate to whatever goofball idea their tribe agrees with.

>I'm curious to know what millenia-dead philosophers managed to launch a JWST equivalent.

Oh so you want me to summarize the history of ideas after all -.-

[eis]

Uhm what? You can believe something is true but it does not make it objectively true.

Science is not believing in the sense of religion. Science is about curiousity and exploring ideas that one thinks might be true. The next step is to try to experimentaly verify the idea or to for example mathematicaly prove it. It's not about believing something is true and then stopping there.

  >  Quite frequently even the top echelon scientists are pushing science forwards based on ideas that started well before them.

What's wrong with that? Not every idea can be completely fresh. I am not sure what your point is.

  > These conversations aren't really possible anymore, people aren't interested in the meaning of words or meaning at all. They just want to relate to whatever goofball idea their tribe agrees with.

Sounds a lot like religion?

  > Oh so you want me to summarize the history of ideas after all -.- 

I don't see the connection between your answer and his question.

[barrysteve]

You constantly talk in the terms of faithful ideas and yet reject they exist.

There is a reason you 'think this curious idea might be true' and the chain of ideas that got you to this point goes back a long way. And your thinking is usually influenced by unspoken ideas you take as prima facie true and acceptable, even though you never admit it.

These ideas come from faith and if you understand their starting point, you can understand their likely ending point and become a better scientist for it.

You don't see the connection because I haven't summarized centuries of ideas in three sentences of logical chains so you don't have to think about the history of ideas, and can just accept the answer prima facie like you do every other idea science runs on.

You don't know, what you don't know.

This really feels like pearls before swine. Have a nice day.

[eis]

  >  You constantly talk in the terms of faithful ideas and yet reject they exist.

I'm perplexed why you say that I reject faithful ideas exist. I don't.

  > You don't know, what you don't know.

Agreed.

  > This really feels like pearls before swine. Have a nice day. 

Wow what a rude and ignorant way to have a discussion. But ok, let's end it here.

[dang]

You posted almost 60 (!) comments in this thread, including tons of religious flamewar comments, and breaking the site guidelines as you did here.

This is seriously not cool and we ban accounts that post like this, so please don't post like this again.

I've banned the other user that you got into the longest flamewar with, but this was definitely a multiperson tango.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[eis]

I agree the religious flamewar was bad. Appologies for that.

Some of the other comments in this thread that contribute to the number you quoted were not contributing to a flamewar though so I don't think the number of comments is bad per se. It's just a topic I have interest in and commenting a lot can be also a sign of a lively discussion and not a flamewar - though a lot of it was! I've seen a preference on HN for 'post and drop' style which imho contributes to a more shallow discussion. Sometimes it might be hard to find the balance I guess. If one is passionate about a topic one can quickly get too engaged in it. Anyways, wont happen again. Cheers!