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Short Answer
Can people who deny naturalism consistently believe in science?
Yes. The belief in naturalism does not preclude supernaturalism. If one starts from faith, and then accepts science, then there is no inherent contradiction. Likewise, it's likely most philosophically sophisticated scientists recognize Hume's scandal of induction and fallibilism. ...
7
Can someone explain how a person can consistently believe in the supernatural without denying induction and science?
By starting from a different premise.
Everything we see in our life can be explained using the laws of physics. By induction, we can say that there is no supernatural stuff. Naturalism should be considered true until it is falsified.
A ...
4
Most of the modern science is theory-laden, which means that it is not so much inductive, but deductive:
Induction: Observation -> Generalizations -> Paradigm
Deduction: Theory -> Predictions -> Experiments
We form any hypotheses by deduction, and then we conduct experiments. Of course, induction is heavily used within any such theory locally ...
1
Specifically regarding scientific theories, what's "real" is typically what's "measurable", i.e., detectable by some reproducible experimental apparatus (or maybe just your five senses).
But the universe as a whole contains mostly spacetime regions outside our light cone (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone) with which we can ...
1
I understand that you ask what ontological claims about reality scientific realism makes.
Scientific realism is committed to the claim that reality is described by our best scientific theories. Let's assume that it is physics that best describes what fundamental reality really is.
Take colours as an example. Herein, a typical claim is that the colours are ...
1
Our best theories are the ones which 1) accurately account for experimental data collected before they were written, and 2) accurately predict the outcomes of experiments not yet performed, including 3) predicting the existence of entirely new phenomena not described or hinted at by previous theories.
If those new predictions are borne out by new experiments,...
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Let's first address the elephant in the room. Ayn Rand was a philosopher who would not engage in any philosophical debate with claims that ran contrary to her common-sense vision of the world. A theory or a philosophical stance which attempted refuting Rand's claims would typically be ridiculed as "irrational", "bad science", or "bad ...
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