Comments

  1. says

    xkcd is one of the best comics on the web, and definitely the best science-related one. Although this one got me a little depressed about our government’s current state of affairs…

  2. Ahcuah says

    This illustrates one of my pet peeves about news articles. They very often include in the story, “scientists believe . . .” The trouble with those words is that the belief of scientists really is distinguishable from religious belief, but the ambiguity of the phrase makes the religious think that the nature of the belief is like religious belief (and hence, e.g., “Darwinism” is just another religion).

    In reality, when a scientists says “I believe . . .”, it is really shorthand for “I provisionally accept based upon a slew of data and analysis . . .”, not “I have a religious faith that . . .”.

  3. George Cauldron says

    This illustrates one of my pet peeves about news articles. They very often include in the story, “scientists believe . . .”

    The problem is that there’s no other convenient verb in English that one can plug in there.

  4. Millimeter Wave says

    The problem is that there’s no other convenient verb in English that one can plug in there.

    Oh, I don’t know. The word “believe” does tend to be the most natural choice if the journalists aren’t used to thinking about what it means, but any of these would work:

    think
    conclude
    infer

    I’m sure there’s a few others

  5. quork says

    This illustrates one of my pet peeves about news articles. They very often include in the story, “scientists believe . . .”

    “Believe” mean to hold to be true, so that usage is correct. The problem only comes in when belief based on faith is incorrectly considered to be the equivalent of belief based on evidence.

  6. Julia says

    “The trouble with those words is that the belief of scientists really is distinguishable from religious belief, but the ambiguity of the phrase makes the religious think that the nature of the belief is like religious belief”

    I think you’re correct here. The word “believe” in common use doesn’t strongly imply that the belief is based on anything science would include as evidence. The result is that very many hearers/readers interpret the phrase “scientists believe” to have the same sort of meaning as “Catholics believe.” The word is not inaccurate in “scientists believe,” but it is easily misunderstood. “Scientists think” or “Scientific evidence indicates” would be much clearer to the general public. Of course, if one isn’t much interested in attempting to be clear to the general public, then I suppose the wording wouldn’t matter.

  7. Craig O. says

    When people learn that I do not believe in any gods, they will sometimes ask what I do believe. My answer is “the evidence.”

  8. Scott Hatfield says

    When I debated creationists last February in Fresno, one of my lines that got the strongest response from the audience (it was in a church), was that “science doesn’t care what we believe. It’s interested in claims that can actually be tested.”

    BTW, it was an almost overwhelmingly positive response.

    SH

  9. Owlmirror says

    Nitpick: While the image link above is correct, the text link incorrectly has “title=” rather than “href=” before the URL.

    Sorry. Nerd moment, there.

  10. Jeff Stubbs says

    Good one. When I read the last panel, lil ricky santorum came into my mind. What a loon.

  11. Jillian says

    There’s a wonderful quote which I have often seen attributed to one of the more interesting SF authors, Phillip K. Dick:

    “Reality is that which remains after you stop believing in it.”

  12. SEF says

    The two versions of “believe”:

    Scientists have worked out that …
    vs
    Religionists have made up that …

  13. truth machine says

    This illustrates one of my pet peeves about news articles. They very often include in the story, “scientists believe . . .”

    The problem is that there’s no other convenient verb in English that one can plug in there.

    Yes, there is: “infer”.

  14. says

    “Deduced” is good as far as it goes, but most of science is not pure deduction–the process of hypothesis generation, for example, is inductive. So it seems a little too specialized for this purpose.

  15. DP says

    So, “inferring” or “deducing” or “concluding” or “believing” are OK if you’re a scientist but not a Christian?

    Unbelievable that so many can’t recognize their own preconceptions that lead to their conclusions. Sounds like a religion to me.

  16. Lord Zero says

    Im so going to post it in my blog !! ^^
    I like the scientific cartoonist too, great
    biology related jokes inside, jeje.