Hello, Anyone interested in a debate?

[bennyboy]

I would say science as a field of study is reliant on positing a plug of gaps argument. Then by assuming the plug and further analysis it affirms or rejects the plug not in accordance with the objective truth but rather the effective truth (a big distinction as made earlier by noting that which looks, walks, and quacks like a duck is not necessarily a duck while being effectively a duck).  Now the limitation of science as expressed is that it does not determine the truth of the matter as much as it determines, which fanciful explanation is most effective in describing the anecdotal observations.

Just as in your quantum mechanics example the gap is filled with virtual particles that effectively facilitate our understanding of spooky action at a short distance between actual particles until such time as they are effectively dethroned by a better fanciful explanation.  Give the current gap filler of virtual particles we then proceed to assume this is true and extend virtual particles to construct the entire quantum foam upon which quantum processes occur.  In this way virtual particles are serving as the quantum god of gaps.

I've sometimes felt this, too. I think much of science is narrative-based; accounts of how animals "could have" or "must have" evolved this or that trait, for example, are often based on a speculative understanding of how members of a species might have interacted with their environment. They are then taken as a story of "how it happened," and the "might have" gets kind of brushed under the rug.

However, science at least has the advantage of being malleable, something religion can't be. That's because the foundation of religion is based on the deification or near-deification of its founders, whose words are therefore set in stone. As a catholic, for example, you must see that much of the Bible is tribespeople BS, and it will take quite a lot of intellectual tap-dancing to reconcile those ideas with that of an all-powerful God.

Scientists are fine with saying, "Newton had X wrong," or "Einstein failed to anticipate the true implications of Y." But I don't see how you really have that option. Are you willing to stand up and say that the Bible is imperfect, and that much of it is incorrect and/or fabricated?