There needs to be more than blind belief something is so in order to consider it a matter of fact. That is not a reliable way to form an understanding of what is or is not so, of how the world and the Universe is actually ordered.
What you're describing is the way people throughout the Medieval period came to believe that the Earth was at the centre of creation. No doubt they had absolute unshakeable belief and faith that it was how the heavens were ordered.
We react, we plan, we do life with what we believe to be true, and we walk out our faith, these things are true so we behave this way and not that way.
I've worked in validation for CPUs for years, and it is never a simple thing processes have to be trusted, and getting data alone is not enough, even if the tests are all done the same way with the same equipment calibrations, wear and tear of equipment, unknown foreign material could have been introduced into tests, an error in the coding of a new program rev and step could have happen it is never simply straightforward and this is all something happening in real-time in the here and now. So tests that assume millions of years, calculations that promote billions of years, on face value are accepted with faith in an unquestionable manner?
Comparisons between biological Carbon-based systems and those that are fabricated in Silicon are of only limited use I think?
After that I'm not clear what you're asking - if you're trying to cast doubt on the process of evolution itself, you're on a hiding to nothing!
If you're casting doubt on the chronology, the dating of events from the emergence of the first lifeform, then also on very thin ice because that branch of science is well established and little doubt remains. The natural world provides us with atomic 'clocks' which tick at an entirely predictable rate.
The testing of isotopic decay against other dating methods has shown them to be reliable and accurate within certain margins of error (Carbon 14 dating of organic samples is consistent with that provided by dendrological methods for example).
These techniques no more rely on 'faith' than you place faith in your alarm clock to go off at the time you've set. You'd be very surprised if it didn't!
If you cannot look critically at something because that is casting doubt, you are not doing science you are adhering to a doctrine.
In any new branch of science or development of new methods, there will always be uncertainty and skepticism in the early stages and this is healthy because science is a self-critical discipline.
But when a body of evidence supporting some new theory gets to a certain size, there's little room for doubt then. If someone suggested that we should look again at the Heliocentric model of the solar system, shouldn't we think that very odd indeed?
In any new branch of science or development of new methods, there will always be uncertainty and skepticism in the early stages and this is healthy because science is a self-critical discipline.
But when a body of evidence supporting some new theory gets to a certain size, there's little room for doubt then. If someone suggested that we should look again at the Heliocentric model of the solar system, shouldn't we think that very odd indeed?
You are being contradictory here, saying that there is always uncertainty and skepticism while at the same time suggesting there comes a time when we shouldn’t have uncertainty and skepticism they should be set aside. Exactly what is it you mean because you can not both at the same time.
No contradiction at all! With time and the collecting of evidence and refining of our models of natural systems comes ever greater confidence that our theories do in fact accord with how the natural Universe works.
There should be questioning and uncertainty until an hypothesis is shown to more accurately reflect how some natural system works. Confidence that we're describing the working of a system builds over time.
Why on earth would you say that's contradictory?
Denying evolutionary theory is almost like claiming the Earth is flat! It's a sound and coherent explanation of why we see such variety in living things.
Because evolution can have so many flavors you need to get specific, common design can produce what we see too, the difference is going to be found in the processes not in the declaring what is true because we think so.
We can be confident that life emerged some 4000,000,000 years ago, yet remained in single -cell form for the best part of 3000,000,000 years after that before we see the first emergence of more complex life. That much more resembles a naturalistic process to me than one put in place by a mind.
One test that any hypothesis must pass is plausibility but is it plausible that life would be 'designed' that way?
We can be confident that life emerged some 4000,000,000 years ago, yet remained in single -cell form for the best part of 3000,000,000 years after that before we see the first emergence of more complex life. That much more resembles a naturalistic process to me than one put in place by a mind.
One test that any hypothesis must pass is plausibility but is it plausible that life would be 'designed' that way?
Well, as I said how much information needs to be added to your “life that emerged as a single cell?” Given the time you accept exactly how much change is required to see the life we see today, knowing that number at what rate is required? If you are suggesting these numbers fall into what we can call natural you have an argument if not, you need to redefine natural.
But you're proposing that life was the result of action by some undefined mind, so you do need to explain why such a mind would proceed in this fashion?
As I've said, a hypothesis does need to be plausible.
"If you believe you know about mechanics then those things you are trusting to be true are matters of faith, they are what you believe, trust, and have confidence in."
But if understanding of any natural system allows us to make predictions about the way they behave and the outcomes we observe are exactly as we predicted, how is that no more than a matter of faith?
We clearly don't use that word in the same way.
I use it as matters of trust and fidelity that can be expressed in common knowledge, trusting what I believe is correct, and/or pushing the limits to what can not be proven yet true nonetheless. As I said you would not do science if you didn’t believe it could be done, and it was worth doing.
The scientific model of examining natural systems in order to better understand how they work is the best we've yet found. A scientific theory does one thing that mere intuition does not, it throws up predictions about the way a given natural system works.
When Einstein was formulating his Theory of General Relativity he realised that even light would be forced to bend around any massive object. This was an astounding prediction that was doubted until it was proven to be true in 1919.
The verification of such predictions is a strong indicator that a theory is correct.
Like AI when we do those types of things like modeling we put in all the information with our very own assigned weight to each data point, and the numbers are crunched with the limitations we put into it. We are still limited to our current knowledge, unlike nature which we have some knowledge about all the attributes and variables in it.
I believe I made this point before, if we were for example put in all the information we knew about automotive engineering it would crunch those numbers and with the limitations we put in give us the best possible result based on just those parameters we put in. No new information would be available, only what was placed into AI so the best possible outcome with just that would show up, never in a million years would we get anything else, you'd never see how to plant a garden.
Yet you think new information would show up in biological life as it evolves and you say that is natural, its quite unnatural.
If something results from natural processes it is natural, period.
Immensely problematic as explaining the origin of life is, It has yet to be demonstrated why we should abandon the search for an entirely natural one. The very fact of our existence may well show that natural processes can sometimes throw up unexpected results and that increasing complexity may be the outcome.
At this point in time we simply do not know and would be wise to avoid fanciful speculation...
How you describe what we do maybe different but we are doing the same thing. It is when we believe we know we start acting on our beliefs we start walking in faith. You can have faith in many different things and people it is our confidence our faith in them.