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Comment by tsimionescu | Hacker News Reader

That's not really fair. For example, Galileo is often given as an example of someone who was persecuted by the Church for his ideas - without often mentioning that his ideas were championed by the Pope and the Jesuit order before some misunderstandings.

Also, a lot of the basis of science comes from members of the Church, occultists, or others living in deeply fundamentalist environments (Newton being a famous father of science who was deeply occult in his thinking; or Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, the father of algebra and whose name is the basis of the word algorithm, being a court astronomer and the head of an Abbasid Caliph's library).

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Where and when, throughout all human history, have there been significant populations not subject to a religion? It seems strange to suggest that demonstrably unscientific belief systems with incompatible differences tied mainly to geographic location somehow have a unifying impact on scientific progress.

It's kind of like saying a person contributed to science because of their hair color while simultaneously conceding that people of all hair colors contribute to science.

One would hope your religion has more impact on it's followers than a box of hair dye.

The heirarchal ordering of some faiths, the commitment to truth, the belief in the veracity of the written word, the ability to support monastic orders are all functions of a society that believes. The belief that the individual speaks the truth and should be listened to, are the mechanisms that allow science to flourish.

Some scientists act as if you can have that without the faith. They focus only on the parts of history which support the contemporary scientist view that if we could just free ourselves from the whacky religionists we could get on with the /real/ science, which is nearly always an idea that reflects a minor variation on what has already come before.

If only the scientist knew the history ideas (including faith), could we have new things and not retreads of some millenia-dead philosopher.

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.

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 -.-

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.

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.

  >  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.

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

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!

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