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

People believe in all kinds of things, for all kinds of reasons including countless neuroses and idiosyncracies. People's beliefs can run counter to all conceivable logic. For example, people can steal, lie and cheat, and still maintain a belief that they are honest, decent and trustworthy. Some manage to achieve this by manoeuvring facts in their minds, e.g. they tell themselves they didn't actually steal/swindle/defraud that money from that person; she didn't deserve the money and they did, therefore their actions were perfectly justified. See what I mean?

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In science (vs religion?) beliefs must be tentative. Scientists model reality from careful observations subject to peer review and duplication of experiments in independent labs, building knowledge on an existing base of data and facts, etc. One can model an atom as being similar to a sun orbited by planets (for the nucleus and electrons). That may work for chemical reactions including valence due to incomplete shells or excess electrons. However, more advanced models are needed for quantum mechanics where electrons have spins. Scientists must always be open to better models that help explain what is observed. We may believe that Newton's laws work absolutely for the motion of an automobile but not for a particle near the speed of light. In fact we may believe that relativity works for the auto, but has little practical use. Perhaps scientific belief is not a snapshot but rather a motion picture that can end for an individual but never for a scientific community.

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Shot in the dark here: