| | Michael,
Scientists do not use faith. There is more to faith then you described with "Faith is merely the belief in something that has not yet been proven."
Faith: Belief in something when it lacks evidence or even has contrary evidence.
Knowledge: Belief in a concept supported by observations of reality, induction, and deduction. "Grasps an aspect of reality. (importanceofphilosophy.com)"
Confidence: Belief that a concept is true (or false): supported by many observations of reality, induction, and deduction, while lacking contrary evidence.
"Every scientist who has ever accomplished anything has had faith."
No, a scientist does not necessarily believe his hypothesis is true until it is supported by an experiment-- or many experiments. Have you studied the scientific method?
"Faith in their work, faith in their intelligence, faith that they will succeed."
No, not faith, but confidence. The confidence comes from past successes. Maybe even some scientists do not have confidence that they will succeed... but they try anyways, just incase they might discover something incredible.
"Going to the moon was an act of faith, faith that it could be done."
Maybe if the people who went to the moon were a group of faithers sitting in a cardboard box covered with tin foil. Now really... NASA scientists and engineers studied the earth, the moon, and space. They figured out what was necessary to accomplish the mission. They proposed possible solutions for each constraint, and once all of the constraints were met, they had confidence that they could do it.
Basing one's decisions on knowledge is useful when choosing what to do to achieve a goal. This is because knowledge is dependent on reality.
Basing decisions on faith is either useless or even counter-productive when choosing what to do to achieve a goal. This is because one's faith is independent of reality or even contrary to.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores
on 8/12, 8:13pm)
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