(September 13, 2017 at 8:42 am)Mathilda Wrote:(September 13, 2017 at 8:06 am)SteveII Wrote: It's a false dichotomy. It is not one or the other. Nothing incoherent about both being true.
If you are wanting to investigate, describe and explain something about reality that you don't already know and then make use of what you discover, then only an evidence based approach works. A faith based approach does not work. So no, they can't both be true. This is because there are an infinite ideas that you can have faith in with no ability to discern which is the correct one unless you use evidence.
You can argue that you can have some evidence and some faith but the faith does not achieve anything other than to make you feel like you are more correct. Unless you have the evidence you can't know that.
Science cannot "investigate, describe and explain" everything about reality. There are realities beyond what we can scientifically explain: numbers and math, logic, ethics, aesthetics, human consciousness, scientific laws (ironically governing the science that is trying to explain everything) and metaphysical truths.
So, in the areas where science can help, sure, science is king. The problem is not understanding its limits--that is cannot comment on vast stretches of human knowledge.
