hello Thomas Westbrook here have you ever wondered does it take faith to
believe in the science when someone makes any kind of claim your potential
responses to said claim fall on a spectrum ranging from blind faith
accepting everything that they say without a shred of evidence to rigorous
scientific inquiry performing experiments and testing and retesting
the claims faith is the antithesis of science saying that it takes faith to
believe in science is like saying that it takes booze to be sober let's examine
briefly how science works most people are familiar with the scientific method
you observe some phenomena make a hypothesis test your claims revise or
scrap them if they don't match the data and test it again but that's just
scratching the surface there is a reason that science is the best tool we have to
discover how the universe works and when you start comparing it to religion the
difference is striking religion starts with an emotionally charged assumption
and works backwards from there trying to prove the assumption while falling prey
to confirmation bias in other words if it does test its assumptions its focus
is weighted towards the hit while ignoring the message they didn't even
try to hide their agenda take for example Answers in Genesis the
multi-million dollar tax-free religious organization focused on promoting young
earth creationist the same people who built a modern Noah's Ark to try to
prove that the flood was for realsies in plain view on their website is a
statement of faith that all their employees have to agree to which
blatantly states and I quote by definition no apparent perceived or
claimed evidence in a field including history and chronology can be valid at
the contradicts the scriptural record Jesus! That's a little bit on us they're
not kidding either the head of AIG debated Bill Nigh here's how it went
down what if anything would ever change your mind mister not uh we would just
need one piece of evidence we would need the fossil that swam from one layer to
another we would need evidence that the universe is not expanding we would need
evidence that the stars appear to be far away but they're not
are going to convince me that that the Word of God is not true
so you don't care about the truth science encourages doubt but religion
discourages doubt even going so far as to call it simple because they don't
want you to question if something in religion doesn't match reality you're
told that God works in mysterious ways because I answers an active living
process it's self-correcting so while it's true that scientists make mistakes
sometimes it's the scientific method that finds and correct those mistakes
pushing you closer to the truth creationists are quick to point out
known scams from a century ago like the Piltdown Man which was a forged
intermediary fossil comprised of bones of several different species meant to
fool scientists but what they don't tell you is that it was science that exposed
as a fraud that scientists some of whom were skeptical from the get-go examined
it closer because it was inconsistent with all of the real fossils we found in
other words because scientists uncovered and thoroughly studied so many
transitional fossils the Piltdown man stood out they noticed it was
inconsistent with the evolutionary path that all of these fossils pointed to
that's not a flaw in science that's the kind of self-correcting mechanism that should
be considered as one of Science's crowning achievements and all the more
reason to trust it whereas there are at least thirty nails that various Catholic
churches claimed were used in the crucifixion of Christ if that's not a
forgery epidemic then they really nailed the crap out of him but religion will
never uncover fact foundation it can't update itself because its doctrines are
set in stone claiming to be unchangeable final revelation is the most surefire
way to guarantee eventual obsolescence religious claims in fantastical
miraculous stories are never replicable well it's a scientific study can't be
replicated it's thrown out the most notable example of this was the
Fleischmann pons experiment in 1989 it claimed to have discovered cold fusion
however they nor anyone else was able to replicate the initial results in a
satisfactory way so as cool as it would be to have an abundant source of cheap
energy like this after much scrutiny the scientific community had to disregard
the initial reports and move on there's a rigorous set of criteria and science
guidelines to make sure your outcome skewed or corrupted observational
studies normally have to have a random sample and the sample of test subject
has to be big enough to rule out statistical anomalies and they have to
account for a margin of error clinical trials are usually double or triple
blind studies with control groups that means that one set of test subjects is
given a placebo and the other receives the treatment but both the patient the
doctor and sometimes even a statistician are blind to who is receiving what until
afterwards because their knowledge of it during the experiment could potentially
affect the end results when publishing a study it must be submitted to a
respectable journal for peer review in which other experts expect their life in
that scientific field carefully comb through your results for a mistake and
because it's highly competitive they want to find mistakes which encourages
everyone to be extremely accurate and careful in how they conduct their
research proving a long-standing theory wrong and offering a replacement that
fits all the evidence is how you win Nobel Prizes people are literally
encouraged with massive cash prizes to tear down and replace the foundations of
science if they can because science is constantly coming up with new tools and
better instruments to make more accurate observations when a long-standing theory
and science is replaced which is rare it's replaced with something better and
even more accurate and precise making science more reliable the longer it's
around religion is never tested like this in fact we're encouraged not to
test it but it declares itself to be accurate rather than relying on outside
scrutiny and observation no matter where you are in the world or how you've been
brought up science works consistently for everyone the force of gravity
operates the same for me as it does for you or a kid in Nairobi religion varies
widely depending on what part of the world you're raised in and what
superstitions your parents indoctrinated you with every God belief is different
they all disagree on what's right and wrong where we came from how to go to
heaven or if there's a heaven at all that shrouded in mystery while science
is transparent once we have fully formed and meticulously tested scientific
theories in place science is able to make predictions about the world
predictions that actually pan out religion's just got failed prophecies makes
no predictions about the state of reality that we do
already no science by definition is evidence-based and religion is faith
based science teaches curiosity while religion trains you and credulity the
contrast is undeniably stark science is forensics of the universe the best
method we have to demystify to unlock and assemble the puzzle pieces of the
cosmos faith is a lazy cop-out a safety blanket for those too scared or just
unwilling to take the time to carefully study the cosmos using a framework that
works the fact that we can know things about the universe is a beautiful thing
but even better yet is that we don't have to pitifully stoop to wishful
thinking and blind gullible faith. Science is kick-ass if you agree and you'll love
it as much as I do why don't you head on over to Patreon
where you can pledge a couple bucks per video to support this show and keep
these episodes rolling out like these amazing patrons y'all freakin' Rock don't
drink the kool-aid if we take something like any fiction and any holy book and
any other fiction and destroyed it okay in a thousand years time that wouldn't
come back just as it was but if we took every science book yes right and every
fact and destroyed them all in a thousand years they'd all be back
because all the same tests would be the same result.