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4/11/2013 11:38:28 PM
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It's time to learn what Science actually means, n00bz

Science is not a thing, belief, or ideology. Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. I'm really not pleased when people try to use the term to refer to subjects that are not really matters of science. Specifically, I refer to how theists often try to defend their beliefs from all of the arguments and flaws in their religion at the same time by ignorantly clumping them together into a single enemy, "Science". Check any online religious discussion and you'll pretty frequently run into people saying they "don't believe in science", that 'science is wrong", that "God beats science", and how "science can't prove evolution"/"science can't disprove god". Let me start by first saying that if you want to argue against something, or even say you don't buy into something, it's pretty silly to use a name for it that implies accuracy and proof. Saying you don't believe in science will make you look as silly as if you said you didn't believe in gravity. That's because gravity is scientifically proven, and only an idiot would act as if it wasn't fact. But anyway, "science" in this context usually refers to: -Atheism -Arguments against god based on logic -Arguments against god based on discursive reason -Arguments against a religion based on inconsistencies or disproven claims in said religion. -The Big Bang theory -"Evolution" (in this case itself a mistaken clumping together of the ideas of natural selection, the actual Theory of Evolution, paleontology, evolutionary biology, the debate on the origin of life on earth, and regular old disbelief in creationism. When creationists refer to this they're rarely ever actually discussing the Theory of Evolution in any capacity beyond "it's wrong", and what they're really talking about is how god totally made the earth and all the animals and people and stuff and we didn't come from space bacteria.) -Anything ever said by Richard Dawkins -Anything ever beeped by Stephen Hawking -Whichever law of physics they most recently heard used in a debate against theism. Some of these things are scientific and some of them aren't, but the term is far too often misused in this way. I'm not here to try and debate religion because I know you people will begin doing it passionately as soon as you finish reading this, but here's a little bit of personal input: If you're trying to say something is or isn't evidence that god does or doesn't exist, refer to the thing by it's actual name, especially if it's an argument based on logic that involves no actual science.

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