By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.
It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent with it. But all science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of natural laws - a thing which can never be demonstrated.
The Enlightenment was an attempt to liberate myth and base truth claims on evidence, not just dogma. But when science threw out the church, they threw out the baby with the bath water.
Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science requires martyrdom - that may be necessary in religion, but in time a scientific result will establish itself.
Science is only truly consistent with an atheistic worldview with regards to the claimed miracles of the gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science, especially in the schools of America.
The infinite faith I have in people's ability to understand anything that makes sense has always been justified, finally, by their behavior.
Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles never did and never will agree.
The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.