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health advisory Hospital Doctor Yu 2007-11-8 19:09:51

Peer group pressure - it is difficult to believe different to the consensus, especially with new truths.

Publish or perish (the size of the check) your reference material could have been produced by someone paid to prove something.

A well presented misunderstanding can be much more convincing than a poorly presented truth.

There are many levels to science - what is taught as true to 4 year olds can be completely different to that taught to 14 year olds, 18 year olds or 40 year old scientists.

it continues !

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Belief is surely based on experience.

For example, if I drop this wine glass on the floor it will break. There is a very faint chance it will not break, but mostly we know it will break. So I know it to be true . . . mostly.

In a scientific sense belief and theory are the same, as in 'I have a theory that this wine glass will break if I drop on the floor.'

The scientific process is one of posing an idea as a possible belief and then testing until experience shows it is the most likely outcome.

It is never a 'scientific fact' only a theory which gets harder and harder to disprove,

Other factors, such as faith, should not not influence scientific belief, because they are essentially unscientific and lead to all sorts of nasties. . like burning witches. . ?

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No - belief and knowledge are two separate concepts. I once believed that I knew for a fact that my ex-husband was an honest, competent, decent and reliable man. I relied on that perceived truth but now I know that my perception was flawed.