Man, this thread is hilarious and sad. I just gave up earlier in the page wen some guy basically just substituted "being keen on evidence" for "beliefs" , as if he weren't simply using a different word to mean the same damn thing. This phobia of the word "belief" is annoyingly common among who I assume are atheists. — MindForged

It looks like you think scientific evidence depends on belief.

If that were the case the earth could viably be flat, seeing that there are people that believe that the earth is supposedly flat.

Whether or not you'd care to admit, this matter is not about "phobias", but instead evidence clearly shows that belief generally permits that people ignore evidence, and being keen on evidence or generally considering evidence is not the same thing as, and is rather opposite to generally ignoring evidence.

Anyway, see ya. You're not cool enough for the likes of me. — Sapientia

That's why my username is what it is; I predicted that what I underline, may be contrary to popular expression; i.e. contrary to what is generally "cool".

Belief isn't a matter of choice, in my view. — Sapientia

Data shows that the only pre-requirement for scientific progress, is that people follow evidence.

This means that regardless of belief, evidence must be constantly considered.

And, finally, if you ignore non-evidenced beliefs, you can ignore evidenced beliefs also, because scientific evidence persists regardless of beliefs, i.e. evidence based beliefs are redundant. This way one can abandon beliefs altogether.

Cheers.

Wow. You're quick to make assumptions about me. But I'm not going to waste my time correcting them, so I'll leave you to it. Have fun. — Sapientia

You're going to have to repair your own mistakes.

That has been my position from the start, so that last little dig says more about you than me. — Sapientia

People have been arguing that they don't contact the portion of belief that doesn't deal with evidence.

However, people fail to see that belief doesn't generally exist as that small portion they chose to follow, the broad concept includes generally ignoring evidence.

So although you may generally chose to believe based on evidence, belief is a concept that promotes consideration beyond merely evidenced based sequences, that is, it also includes largely non-evidenced sequences.

This means: That you may believe in science, does not remove that belief typically promotes that evidence is ignored; i.e. that you personally believe in science, does not change that most people believe in non-evidence.

Do you see that this is the whole problem, right here? I don't strictly adhere to that definition. I find a broader meaning more conducive. It's as simple as that. — Sapientia

The broadest meaning of belief, permits both consideration of evidence, but also, general ignorance of evidence. (And belief is not a contronym, so the general ignorance of evidence definition coincides with the alternate definitions; which may occur on evidence, however barely)

It looks like you finally caught on.

What I've been underlining, is: That belief may occur on evidence, does not remove that belief generally permits that evidence is ignored.

Not only are definitions in line with the above, but also, experimental data shows that belief mostly permits ignorance of evidence.

Sapientia is exhibiting signs of what belief generally promotes; Sapientia is adhering to old mistakes while ignoring contrasting/valid data.

One day Sapientia may come to find that scientific evidence doesn't depend on whether he or she chooses to believe in said evidence.

Together with the old forum, I've clocked up about eight years and over ten thousand posts. I've been in your position before, but I now think that I was naive. — Sapientia

I had been debating for slightly longer than that, although that didn't matter when new evidence arose. (i.e. sometimes evidence or new data doesn't care about how long or how we do things before)

You ought to know that I had been a theist, and then I had been an atheist subsequently for several years while not really paying attention to the concept of belief before finally scrutinizing the concept of belief.

And note that I don't underline that all belief concerns non-evidence, but instead that the concept of belief generally permits evidence ignorance. ("Generally permits evidence ignorance", does not mean "merely permit evidence ignorance".) Regardless, we can avoid belief, by generally considering evidence, and belief by definition opposes scientific thinking, which generally promotes that evidence is considered.

On the contrary, if anyone is coming across as picky, I'd say that it's you. You want me to rigidly adhere to this one particular meaning of "belief" and even go so far as to refrain from any further use of the word? — Sapientia

It's not rocket science. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Belief allows us to mostly ignore evidence, (so it promotes that we only barely consider evidence sometimes, while promoting that we mostly ignore evidence)

On the contrary, scientific thinking promotes that we mostly consider evidence.

Personally I have rejected the use of 'belief' from my everyday speaking. If I think a thing is true then I either hold that as knowledge, or I just find myself to be more careful in the way I express such things as aspirations.
So, my personal abolition of belief has had nothing but positive effects on my thinking and communicating ideas. I take much less for granted and am more likely to examine what I think is the case.
Believing is lazy.
Sapere Aude baby.
Believe nothing. — charleton

Perhaps there is the probability that atheists will find abolishing beliefs easier to grasp, while theists will find it harder to do so.

Some on these forums have argued for religious data as "evidence", so it may be extremely difficult for those people to grasp. The result is that what is straightforward for atheists to grasp, may seem like crack-pottery to the theist, especially when they are invested in belief systems that are tough to abandon.

So you agree that belief is used as taken as true regardless of evidence.

Since belief IS USED that way, that is exactly why it needs to be abolished, since we have a better more precise lexicon for taken as true BECAUSE of the evidence — charleton

Exactly.

The OP may look like a crackpot at first glance, or several glances, but when one actually slows down and looks at evidence, one may see that the OP is not saying anything outlandish, but straightforward instead.

How am I ignoring evidence? Beliefs *don't* mostly permit ignorance, that's a vapid assertion — MindForged

Refer to the sources, and see that belief generally permits ignorance of evidence.

Do you believe that or is it simply false? — MindForged

Evidence (regardless of anybody's opinion or feelings) shows that science generally facilitates that evidence is considered.

Belief is not passion and if you cannot even understand the role of evidence in motivating believing or disbelieving some proposition, you are beyond my help. No one has said to prioritize blind belief and the fact that you think evidence is somehow immune to bias is stunning.

I'm done, I didn't think this thread could be as bad as I had assumed. — MindForged

Nowhere did I state that belief was passion. (What I said was regardless of any amount of passion or belief, unless evidence is prioritized, no progress is made)

Yeah, and you constantly ignore evidence that belief generally facilitates that people ignore evidence.

Whether or not you admit it, Scientific thinking does not work that way.

I don't know how many times I can literally just substitute your phrase "keen on evidence" to show its being used exactly the same as belief is until you get it. — MindForged

You tried to propose the following quote, to supposedly attempt to equate non-belief/keeness on evidence, with belief:

I will now be "keen on evidence". Oh what's that, you have some evidence which contradicts what evidence I am currently "keen on"? Well that can't be correct, I will ignore your evidence and only pay attention to the evidence which supports the evidence I am "keen on".. — MindForged

And that was shown to contrast what I had initially mentioned, for we ought to seek data whether or not that data contrasts old mistakes.

You are unreal. It's not that believe on "non-evidence" it's that only a fool immediately changes everything they believe at the first inkling of doubt. It was reasonable to be skeptical about new developments in physics overturning centuries of beliefs about the world that Newtonian physics gave us. It was precisely new evidence and new models which motivated *believing* that the newer theories were correct (or at least covered more cases correctly) that the old models. — MindForged

Yeah your statement above doesn't remove that unless evidence is prioritized, no amount of belief or passion delivers results.

You do realize that I was using your proposal and you just agreed (umwittingly) that it was indistinguishable from belief, don't you? Your proposal is paper thin fear of religion or some other silly thing. — MindForged

I already demonstrated (from my initial exchange with you) that what I underlined contrasted your proposal; rather than seek data that agree with old mistakes, we ought to strive to seek evidence, regardless of belief.

And this was not hidden in my prior words; I clearly underlined that we ought to abandon beliefs, and seek data regardless of the need for belief.

I don't know how many times I can literally just substitute your phrase "keen on evidence" to show its being used exactly the same as belief is until you get it. Beliefs are part of science. Ask a scientist if they believe quantum mechanics is the best theory we have of the quantum world and they will say yes. Do you know why? Because a belief is just what you hold to be true or false. The fact that it can be susceptible to bias (like literally everything else humans do) is the stupidest reason to discharge a concept that is used in every field of science, mathematics, etc. — MindForged

So you continue to ignore evidence.

The evidence simply states that belief does not largely facilitate that evidence is considered.

How in Bill Gates' name does something that mostly permits evidence ignorance (i.e. belief) become compatible with something that generally facilitates that evidence is generally considered (i.e. Science)?

What a whopping non sequitur. That science has improved over time doesn't show that it is above exactly the bias you complained about beliefs being susceptible to. See the move from Newtonian dynamics to 20th century developments, especially qusntum mechanics. — MindForged

That scientists believe on non-evidence, does not suddenly remove that science generally facilitates that evidence is considered.

In fact, you've demonstrated that when scientists fail to prioritize evidence, they fail to make progress in a regime where evidence generally facilitates progress.

How does that change a thing? — MindForged

Remember belief generally permits that people adhere to old mistakes, and ignore contrasting evidence; i.e. belief generally facilitates that people look for data that agrees with old mistakes.

Looking at your earlier quote below, that is precisely what belief generally promotes:

I will now be "keen on evidence". Oh what's that, you have some evidence which contradicts what evidence I am currently "keen on"? Well that can't be correct, I will ignore your evidence and only pay attention to the evidence which supports the evidence I am "keen on".. — MindForged

Abandoning beliefs doesn't seem so "stupid" now does it? :)

It is no less immune to the manipulation of personal bias and to try and pass it off as such is so naive as to be scary. — MindForged

That statement of yours is demonstrably false, because scientific thinking has been less susceptible to evidence ignorance and evidence distortion, than what belief generally facilitates.(Scientific thinking has brought technological/scientific progress, and promoted that old mistakes were and are repaired rather than being maintained regardless of contrasting evidence)

If you go back to the OP, or my exchanges with you, you may quickly notice what I underlined all along; scientific thinking generally permits evidence consideration, while belief generally permits evidence ignorance.

I will now be "keen on evidence". Oh what's that, you have some evidence which contradicts what evidence I am currently "keen on"? Well that can't be correct, I will ignore your evidence and only pay attention to the evidence which supports the evidence I am "keen on"..

People will do exactly the same thing if they are "keen on evidence" (e.g. believe) as suggested by you. This is nothing but a smokescreen and ignores that the research you quoted was about people forming beliefs irrationally (overly driven by bia. — MindForged

If you constantly observe evidence, rather than only looking for data that agrees with your prior stance (as you propose above), you do what is contrary to the concept of belief.

Belief generally facilitates that people ignore evidence, while scientific thinking generally promotes the opposite.

Your point? Are you serious? Yes people disagree on what exactly a belief is. What does that have to do with anything? There is no philosophical consensus on what "evidence" is either, and even about how evidence "supports" the truth of some proposition. This is more absurd by the minute. — MindForged

The point is that beyond the philosophical definitions which you quoted above (on which there is no concensus) there exists experimental data on the other hand, showing that belief generally occurs such that evidence is ignored.

Just as belief generally prescribes, you quickly attempted to seek ways to adhere to your prior preconceived notions, regardless of contrasting experimental data/evidence.

You are reaching. Again, this is neither state in the research and is even contradicted by it.
:

"Belief can be defined as the mental acceptance or conviction in the truth or actuality of some idea (Schwitzgebel, 2010). According to many analytic philosophers, a belief is a “propositional attitude”: as a proposition, it has a specific meaning that can be expressed in the form of a sentence; as an attitude, it involves a mental stance on the validity of the proposition (Schwitzgebel, 2010). Beliefs thus involve at least two properties: (i) representational content and (ii) assumed veracity
(...)
Beliefs, or perhaps more realistically belief systems, provide the ‘mental scaffolding’ for appraising the environment, explaining new observations, and constructing a shared meaning of the world (Halligan, 2007)."

I mean if you literally get rid of one of the most basic concepts in human experience I guess being ridiculous isn't a problem for you. — MindForged

Don't forget this line:

"There is, for example, no philosophical consensus on what belief is."

Those are the "philosophical" descriptions referred to in the paper, which you quoted.

Experimental data on the other hand, shows that belief generally occurs such that evidence is ignored.

And try reading that research in the OP. It is primarily about delusions (false beliefs, as defined in the research) and belief formation. You are misguided and misrepresenting research because of some silly fear of religion. — MindForged

How quickly did you "read" one of those papers?

Here is a snippet you should consider:

"Belief evaluation, even in the absence of frank pathology, has several limitations. People tend to adopt non-optimal hypothesis-testing strategies (Evans, 1989; Gilovich, 1991; Johnson-Laird, 2006; Nickerson, 2008). People, for example, tend to seek confirmatory information that supports their belief and be overly influenced by this information, but neglect information that is critical of their belief (Nickerson, 1998, 2008). People may also use inefficient strategies that waste effort on non-diagnostic data (Fischoff and Beyth-Marom, 1983; Evans, 1989; Johnson-Laird, 2006) or focus on heuristics (Kahneman et al., 1982; Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier, 2011; Kahneman, 2011; see also Gilovich et al., 2002). Indeed, the heuristic of anchoring and adjustment, which reflects the general tendency to rely on initial judgements and discount newly obtained information, means that knowledge received after the initial judgment may be distorted to fit the original hypothesis. In support of this, there is research suggesting that beliefs may persevere even when the initial evidence for the beliefs is discredited (Ross et al., 1975, 1977; Anderson et al., 1980)"

As I said, you are literally just taking time concept of "belief" (holding some proposition to be true or false) and renaming it "being keen on evidence" — MindForged

On the contrary, I underline that belief (which generally promotes ignorance of evidence) opposes scientific thinking (which generally promotes consideration of evidence) .

The above line obtains, given evidence, and not my personal feelings or pre-conceived notions.

Belief no more "permits one to ignore evidence" anymore than your weasel phrase "being keen on evidence" (which is just another way of saying "belief").

That is completely irrelevant. Scientists *believe* (meaning they hold it to be true) that some such equation is veridical. No one is proposing some causal relation between "X believes Y" and "Therefore Y is true" in virtue of being believed. This should be extremely simple. — MindForged

Look at cognitive science sources in the OP, like "A cognitive account of belief." or "Memory formation and belief”, or look at dictionaries or Wikipedia.

Regardless of what you personally feel or believe, belief is something that generally permits ignorance of evidence.

Science doesn't work when people generally ignore evidence, as belief generally facilitates.

Man are you serious? Being "keen on evidence" literally just means believing what the current evidence seems to indicate. This is hilarious. Evidence is a nebulous term, which people can just as easily be fallible or even stubborn about. Not everyone agrees on what some set evidence suggests, nor even on what counts as appropriate evidence for some proposition or view. — MindForged

Remember, that evidence doesn't depend on beliefs; scientific equations don't suddenly work because scientists chose to believe in them.

It doesn't work until you follow evidence, and no amount of belief or passion poured into work, affords that said thing works.

This is simply absurd. Beliefs *are* part of science, no matter what asinine claim your favorite science communicator tells you. Scientists, within their work, believe and assert things as true. Yet, those claims are rarely taken to be claims of infallibility. Even things that we know to be true are beliefs, that's literally part of the classical definition of knowledge. Things I know to be true are also thing since believe to be true. This holds in mathematics, formal logic, science, you name it. — MindForged

Yeah, just as belief generally prescribes, you proceed to ignore evidence that:

Science does not generally permit that evidence is ignored.

whereas

Belief generally permits that evidence is ignored.

You ought to recognize by now, that a concept which generally permits evidence ingnorance (i.e. belief) is not compatible with one built on evidence (i.e. scientific thinking)

@MindForged

Note that this thread looked stupid to me too (for several days in fact), until I actually payed attention to evidence, and not my feelings or pre-conceived notions.

We ought to strive to repair our mistakes based on evidence, and not old feelings.

"Beliefs ought to be abolished" do you hold that to be a true statement? If you, that means to you believe that statement. — MindForged

Based on evidence, and not my feelings, belief tends to permit that people ignore evidence.

The problem is probably that people feel we must be omniscient to avoid belief, but no, in reality, science has allowed us to make mistakes, and make progress or repair mistakes as evidence is followed.

Beliefs tend to reinforce old mistakes, (because it permits general ignorance of evidence), whereas scientific thinking generally promotes evidence consideration. (so it promotes that mistakes are repaired contrary to belief)

We can trivially avoid belief by generally being keen on evidence.(which is contrary to the concept of belief which generally permits the opposite, evidence ignorance)

This is just a stupid thread. A belief is simply a propositional attitude. I.e., what you hold the be true or false. The idea that belief is somehow a religious concepts or that it ought to be abolished in mind-numbingly ridiculous. — MindForged

It's stupid when:

you ignore that belief tends to facilitate that people generally ignore evidence.

you ignore that scientific progress doesn't care about belief; i.e. unless people follow evidence, no amount of passion or belief matters.

PS: Your words are pristine examples of beliefs found on non-evidence; from data we see belief permitting mostly that people ignore evidence.

Conclusion. Science doesn't replace belief. It is simply a framework for quality control. — x260ad8c12

As you can see in the definitions you cited, none of them exclude the possibility to mostly ignore evidence; all the definitions you cited included some flavor of belief that permits that evidence is especially ignored.

Science doesn't work this way, science doesn't say consider evidence barely, and otherwise ignore evidence, Science generally promotes that evidence is considered.

And remember, the word belief is not a contronym, so just because one may consider evidence using belief, doesn't remove that one may for the remainder of the time, mostly ignore evidence, as the definitions (especially the primary definitions) indicate.

https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/06/12/contronyms/

merriam-webster:
- conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence. belief in the validity of scientific statements

- a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing. her belief in God. a belief in democracy. I bought the table in the belief that it was an antique. contrary to popular belief (Notice it says "trust or confidence", but doesn't say "without evidence or proof")


oxforddictionaries:
- Trust, faith, or confidence in (someone or something). ‘a belief in democratic politics’

- An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. ‘his belief in extraterrestrial life’ (Notice it says "especially", not "exclusively".)


dictionary.cambridge:
- the feeling of being certain that something exists or is true: philosophical beliefs


collinsdictionary:
- If it is your belief that something is the case, it is your strong opinion that it is the case. Scientific models are human interpretations of empirical evidence. Peer review is a process by which other experts examine findings and are either convinced that it is true, or they are not convinced. There will be disagreement and the scientific community is often wrong. Thus, the current scientific model is the "strong opinion" of the majority of the scientific community based on the available evidence. Scientific "facts" are only facts until better facts come along.


wikipedia:
Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. (Notice it says "with or without", not "without")

— x260ad8c12

• Notice the Merriam Webster definition refers to belief especially without proof, i.e. Deity aligned beliefs.
  (Words from Merriam's first definition of belief: "her belief in God" etc)
  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belief
  
• Also, notice that the cambridge dictionary included deity aligned beliefs (i.e. beliefs that especially ignore evidence.. ")
  (Words from Cambridge first definition of belief: "a feeling....His belief in God gave him hope during difficult times." etc)
  https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/belief
  
• Oxford shows this clearly especially one without proof.
  (Words from oxford: "...especially one without proof")

Notice also that the word belief is not a contronym, so just because one may consider evidence using belief, doesn't remove that one may for the remainder of the time, mostly ignore evidence, as the definitions (especially the primary definitions indicate)

If belief was a contronym, the concept of belief could promote that (i) people generally consider evidence and (ii) people generally ignore evidence. Both definitions would be valid, but this is not the case, belief instead promotes that one may consider evidence barely, then the rest of the time, generally ignore evidence, as belief is not a contronym.

Because contronmys are words where opposite definitions occur under the same word, since belief is not a contronym, rare belief in evidence does not oppose the reality that the large remainder of beliefs need not occur on evidence; i.e. this way you have compatibility of definitions under one instance of belief that both occur on evidence, and non-evidence.

First of all, science doesn't "contrast" belief. Science is quality control. That's all. Belief =/= religion. Belief =/= faith. Belief =/= dogma. Belief == belief. If you believe a scientific model is correct, then you have a belief. And chances are, you'll be proven wrong in the future as more evidence is discovered. If you accept the fact that you don't actually know anything and you can always be proven wrong given more evidence, then your current mental model of the universe is a "belief". — x260ad8c12

You don't need omniscience to avoid belief, you simply adopt scientific thinking, which is contrary to belief by definition. (Scientific thinking has promoted that humans are permitted to make mistakes, and continuously correct those mistakes, whereas belief tends to facilitate that old mistakes are reinforced)

Science doesn't require belief to be valid. (If science required belief, anybody could be successful all the time, just by believing in their equations or work no matter how far removed their work was from evidence, without putting in actual effort to follow evidence)

Belief permits that people mostly avoid evidence, contrary to scientific thinking which generally promotes that people be keen on evidence. (This will remain so regardless of your feelings)

Please look on Wikipedia or definitions of belief, before expressing your belief about what you feel belief means.

Take a look yourself. Belief isn't always "regardless of the facts". It can also be "in light of limited facts". Such as when you need to make a decision given imperfect information, but your tiny brain can't calculate all possible variables and crunch the probabilities, so you act under the belief that something is probably true even though you're acknowledging it may not be. — x260ad8c12

There is something that has enabled us to make progress without having access to all possible evidence.

That thing is called the scientific method, where you don't need omniscience.

We must note here that unlike the scientific method which generally promotes that we pay attention to evidence, belief permits that people can ignore evidence most of the time.

Do you now see how science contrasts belief?

Do you now see that that belief (which permits evidence ignorance most of the time) opposes scientific thinking (which does not permit evidence ignorance most of the time)?

I was saying you were conflating "belief" with other ideas like denial and confirmation bias. — x260ad8c12

There is no "conflation" there. (Please take a look at the dictionary and or Wikipedia on belief)

Exactly. Believing empirical observations is a belief. — BlueBanana

The thing about "empirical observations" is that they remain empirical, regardless of anybody's belief.

And yet oddly, all the early scientists were believing Christians, and there are religious people all over the world today who don't think there's a contradiction between their religious belief and their science. — gurugeorge

Notice that Newton is not known for his contributions to alchemy/religion, and in fact, if Newon did not invent things such as Calculus, and other scientific stuff, he would likely have not been well known today. (This indicates that science doesn't care about what scientists chose to believe in)


http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

Newton would probably be an atheist today, given today's statistics as seen in the capture above. (For example, Edward Witten who is alive is an atheist today and Edward is seen as someone similar to Newton in intellect.)

Yes, I know some scientists that believe in pseudoscience stuff, and one thing is clear, whenever they make scientific progress, they adhere to science, where beliefs don't matter, as long as they follow evidence.

This means that when you mention of theist scientists that express their feelings about the supposed non-contradiction of science and religion, this mention is irrelevant, because science doesn't care about beliefs.

Well it's directly comparable to evidence for/against religions. The evidence as a whole is against them, including for example the science, but even if that is stronger than the evidence for religions, it doesn't mean there is no evidence for them. — BlueBanana

As charleton says, there is no doubt that religion exists, however, this doesn't suddenly mean that religious doctrine is any evidence.