🚀 go-pugleaf

Uhh - in case anybody's keeping track there are physics threads in
sci.philosophy.meta now ...

In article <1992Dec19.215537.3152@aee.aee.com> gene@aee.aee.com (Gene Kochanowsky) writes:
>either case, no matter, it is possible to do science without faith, but 
>the converse, in "most" religions is viewed as hypocrisy. 

You got a different list of religions than me.

>It would be interesting if people would post what they think the word
>faith means and then a citation from their dictionary with reference. 

No, that would be pretty boring. Strictly speaking, definitions are matter
of agreement between the parties to the discussion. Otherwise it's the
same thing as shouting. Much better to skip the dictionary reference,
since if the definition persuades the disputants to agree, it isn't 
important if it comes from a dictionary. Even the OED cannot be taken
as beyond dispute.

>Much of this discussion centers around differing definitions. This process
>might result in a definition that all would agree reflects the common usage,
>like it or not. 

So what. If you want to convince people, you have to get them to agree
to _your_ usage, not common usage. Science is chock full of terms which
have important and useful meanings which are not in common usage. Take
for example the commonplace 'rate of speed'. Do _you_ use this  to be
synonymous with 'speed', the way it is _commonly_ used? If so, you cannot
expect many readers of sci.physics to join you, even should you produce
an entire stack of errant dictionaries to support this usage. I expect
most physicists are glad to be able to use acceleration in preference to
'rate of speed'.

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt