I have read that artificial intelligence may replace humans and do all of the science.

I doubt that AI believes anything about anything that it performs.

Belief is a choice, correct. Truth is not a choice - either something is or is not.

It's dangerous to not believe truths.

So, choosing not to believe in science is dangerous.

It's dangerous to not believe truths.

So, choosing not to believe in science is dangerous. — TheMadFool

That's not the question.

The question is if it is possible to do science while not believing the truth of the results.

Didn't Michael Behe study and start practicing science with the intention of destroying much of what sciences says? If I recall correctly, Kenneth R. Miller says in Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul that the agenda of people like Behe is to change the definition of science and in the process subjugate or destroy science. Yet, Behe is a scientist.

Doing science is like following a recipe for baking a cake, isn't it? How would what a person does or does not believe keep him/her from practicing science?

I tend to have postmodern worldview and take modernist/Enlightenment institutions like science with a grain of salt. Yet, that has never stopped me from successfully doing research in the social sciences. I'm sure that I could perform research in biology, geology, etc., in spite of my postmodern skepticism about all of it.

Science isn't the sort of thing that it makes much sense to say that one "believes any of it".

What would count as believing science.

What would count as believing science. — creativesoul

Using an established dating technique, getting an age of around 10,000 years for a fossil, and believing that the fossil is around 10,000 years old.

But a person could say that he/she believes that the Earth is 6,000 years old, perform the same dating of the same fossil, and get the same result: around 10,000 years old. He/she could then say that he/she still believes that the Earth is 6,000 years old.

So one holds belief that contradicts established knowledge.

What's the margin of error?

:)

The question is if it is possible to do science while not believing the truth of the results. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yes, apparently, we can. You're the proof.

Anyway...

Science is the world's official purveyor of truth and with good reason. It explains well and predicts well.

Not choosing to believe in science runs the risk of losing touch with reality and that has consequences, consequences which are generally harmful.

So, your choice boils down to choosing between truths and falsehoods, between safety and danger.

The beauty is, of course, that when it comes to whether or not some statement is true, the naysayers' belief isn't necessary.

I would think a scientist could not believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, because in order to believe that, s/he would have to deny science itself by flippantly dismissing all of the evidence, all of the alternative explanation. Of course, wherever there's a gap...

Or can you believe something without understanding it? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Sure you can believe something without understanding what you believe. I think that's very common. Someone tells you something, you believe it, without doubt or reflection, because you have faith in the person's trustworthiness, or authority. Then you tell others. It's like you say, we having the capacity to regurgitate what is fed to you. I think that a large portion of the "knowledge" which exists today is like this, belief without understanding.

Of course it's possible. You'd just be taking an instrumentalist approach to it--which is something that many people do anyway. It would be akin to engaging in something in the manner of playing a game. When you play chess you don't believe that the rules of chess represent something that's real beyond playing chess. The rules are just an invention for the sake of the game.

However, whether you can believe something without understanding it, I'd say "No." In that case what you'd be claiming to believe would just be something you're repeating by rote, something that you can't makes any sense of or assign coherent meaning to. (Otherwise you would understand it, which doesn't imply that you understand it as someone else does, but that's not necessary for understanding on my view.)

I've spent a lifetime being skeptical of "established knowledge", and what I've learned is that what is established is just the tip of the iceberg and there is much more of a story to be told.

But such an undertaking takes lots of time and I certainly understand why people wouldn't wish to devote a good part of the lives unearthing more of the story.

As for believing something, it seems that people believe in lots of things that they don't understand. Medicine is one example.

But a person could say that he/she believes that the Earth is 6,000 years old, perform the same dating of the same fossil, and get the same result: around 10,000 years old. He/she could then say that he/she still believes that the Earth is 6,000 years old. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Well, you could believe that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago, and that the rocks were created with a ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 such that the carbon dating formula outputs a result of 4,000.

I think people can do science without even understanding it or without any real feel for it at all. They must be very intelligent people with great memories but it's more common than you might think. Plenty of highly qualified biologists have no real understanding of natural selection, for example.

Well, you could believe that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago, and that the rocks were created with a ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 such that the carbon dating formula outputs a result of 4,000. — Michael

This is last-Tuesdayism, and I never understood why the flood geologists didn't just take that stance, that the universe was created with memory of nonexistent times, such as dinosaur bones and light en-route from stars more than 6000 light years away. It would hold up to falsification far better than what they propose now. How do they explain galaxies? They're really just tiny things much closer by? Did Adam see no stars at all, but they all winked on over the course of 6000 years?
The last-Tuesday approach is far more air-tight, unless the god is insufficiently omnipotent to set that up.

One doesn't have to believe in contemporary science because if there is anything that history has taught us about it is that the currently held view is wrong. But, it is productive and always gets us a little bit closer to the truth. If it is even possible to arrive at an epistemological end point.

We have a world of things that run on scientific discoveries, but we're really doing nothing more than grasping in the dark. We know how some things work, but I seriously doubt we will ever understand why.

The second Tuesday of next week is even better than last Tuesday...

I recall Dawkins or someone describing a paleontologist who was actually a young Earth creationist, but whose PhD dissertation was on the distribution of Mesozoic aquatic reptiles (which, of course, would have to be predicated on an old Earth model). The dissertation was apparently pretty good, despite the guy's not believing what he was propounding.

It seems to me that science is just like baking a cake: the whole time that you are following the steps of a recipe you could believe that nothing is going to turn out, but in spite of that you get a cake by following the steps exactly. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I recall Dawkins or someone describing a paleontologist who was actually a young Earth creationist, but whose PhD dissertation was on the distribution of Mesozoic aquatic reptiles (which, of course, would have to be predicated on an old Earth model). The dissertation was apparently pretty good, despite the guy's not believing what he was propounding. — Arkady

Possible, then, but it is a strange reason you'd need to follow a cake recipe not believing in cake. The phrase 'going through the motions' comes to mind. I'm sure it's a grave sin if you do it in church.