Facebook Blub on Whether Acceptance of Scientific Belief is Like Acceptance of Religious Belief

Jackie Doe I do not understand quantum physics, but I don’t doubt that it exists. I do not understand all of God’s whys and wherefores, but I don’t doubt they exist.

Tom Gibson Jackie Blundell I also don’t understand quantum mechanics. There are many things in science that I don’t understand. But the way science goes about figuring things out seems more reliable than the way that religion does. In science a hypothesis is presented and people think up ways to test it. What would we expect to see if the hypothesis is correct? What observations would prove it incorrect? Then it is tested and retested. Then other people scrutinized the tests looking for flaws. Then others conduct their own tests. If the hypothesis doesn’t stand up to all this, then it isn’t accepted. 

I don’t understand quantum mechanics but I understand the reliability of the method that was used to discover it. I know that over a hundred years of increasingly sophisticated experiments have confirmed it over and over again. I know that test results have been the same regardless of where they were conducted in the world, and regardless of the political persuasion or religious beliefs of the person conducting the test. I know that it is even possible for me to test it at home using the double slit experiment. 

Even though I don’t understand quantum mechanics, it seems a very different thing for me accept it than to accept other things I don’t understand when I have to accept them based on faith.