Science is based on the same foundations as philosophy - it only works if you take, on faith, particular unprovable metaphysical propositions.
What are those?
You also have to be very careful not to make distinctions that are not accurate about how people believe in God or in any particular scientific idea.
No I don't, at least not based on that juxtaposition. I'm not meaning to be antagonistic. If you're going to place religion and science in the same realm of testability, I simply have to disagree.
Many people believe in god for what might be called personal reasons, but many others believe in god for reasons of metaphysical necessity and philosophical coherence. Some people with a scientific bent even believe in god because their scientific ideas lead them to those particular mataphysical conclusions.
Physics and metaphysics part ways from the start. One is testable, the other is not.
By the same token, many people believe in scientific ideas because they see a logical argument for them or evidence of them. On the other hand, many believe scientidic explantions purely for personal reasons - on faith, or because they trust someone who says it is so. How many people have looked at all the mathematical data or models that physicists use to draw their conclusions? Even someone well versed in the evidence for evolution may be largely accepting a scientists explanation of how it must fit together as a matter of trust. And a person can believe totally that gravity exists, while rejecting the idea of relativity or any other particular description of how it works - just as with belief in god.
Just because someone believes something on faith doesn't change whether it's a testable phenomenon, or whether it was determined based on faith or intent. If a group of people plant their crops in certain locations based on what kinds of birds their shaman sees flying around, they may have a very successful crop year, not because they believe the shaman can read the birds to determine the deity's favorite planting ground, but because they've inadvertently hedged their bets against crop failure through a random distribution of crop locations.
Well, yes, marbles poured into a box are ordered, that is rather the point, isn't it? In a fundamentally ordered universe, that is what we would expect. I am not clear on why you think that contradicts the idea of an ordered universe.
Actually, they're only ordered because we say they are, because it fits what we have tested in the universe. But the fact that marbles in a box fall into a pattern doesn't really tell us anything about the universe.
The idea that all order comes from our perception is interesting, and leads to some interesting conclusions - but not ones that I would have expected from someone who seems to really like science. But maybe I am wong on that?
I would definitely say you're wrong about that. I don't like science. I love it. It helps me earn graduate degrees, get published in peer-reviewed journals, further my career, and, most importantly, pay my rent.
In any case, even if we impose order on things which are truly disordered (would that be even possible?), it means that WE are ordered, which means there is order.
Order and disorder are ideas that we define, not essential truths. So it's not a conflict of possibility vs. impossibility. And we are not ordered, unless we say we are. Finger. Moon.
