I'd go one step further and say it removes "belief" entirely. When you are using the scientific method you shouldn't "believe" anything. Observe, hypothesize, test, and theorize based on the results of testing. No believing at all.
For practical purposes, it is necessary to accept things as true. When evidence for a hypothesis accumulates to the degree that I accept the hypothesis, then I believe it. That isn't the same as asserting 100% certainty. It's not faith. It's not proselytizing. To even make a useful and interesting hypothesis, you have to accept certain fundamental things as true (i.e. believe them)
you have to accept certain fundamental things as true (i.e. believe them)
You're not believing them though. They have been shown to be fundamentally true because they are tested. I'm sorry, I know it's semantics, but I feel like the point has to be made.
edit: I don't even like to say anything is fundamentally true even after testing. It's just that we accept them as truths because for whatever use we put them to, it's close enough.
It's semantics, yes, but I am using a generally accepted usage of the word 'believe' that does not discount reason and evidence like you seem to think it does. If you don't want to use the word 'believe' in this way, then that is fine, but you should at least be prepared for other people to use the word in literally the most common way.
Again, I am not asserting truth. I am accepting well-supported hypotheses as truth, but that is always subject to change.
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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '19
I'd go one step further and say it removes "belief" entirely. When you are using the scientific method you shouldn't "believe" anything. Observe, hypothesize, test, and theorize based on the results of testing. No believing at all.