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I think there are two dimensions at work here.  The first dimension has
to do with your way of knowing.  Although contrasting faith-based and
scientific ways of knowing ignores many other ways of knowing, it could
be considered that this dimension is merely one 2-D slice of a more
complex picture.  So one could define a continuum from knowing all you
know through faith-based ways to knowing all you know through scientific
ways of knowing. Most people land somewhere in the middle.  I don't like
the implied competitive tradeoff of the two modes since I see them as
complimentary and potentially additive at times - I haven't lost any of
the richness of my scientific knowledge as my religious knowledge has
gotten much richer over the past decade - but it's a model.  

Where you fall on this dimension is a matter of belief (which is why
explaining the scientific way of knowing more carefully to a
fundamentalist is futile - their rejection of it is independent of
whether or not they clearly understand it, they simply don't believe it
has any value for them.) I've been taken to task for saying this on this
list before, but I'm a glutton for punishment.  Scientists (not just
novices, see below) accept the work of other scientists at face-value
every day and we do this because we believe that a community of people
following the rules we have set out can produce meaningful
understandings of the world.  Other people believe just as deeply that
it is sheer folly for humans to even try to understand the mysteries of
the world and that a meaningful relationship with that world comes only
through acceptance of the omnipresence of the supernatural.  

The second dimension is one's state of knowledge within that way of
knowing, which can range from novice to expert.  So I may be an expert
scientist and a novice at Torah study, but my rabbi, who was a dual
major in chemistry and physics at Harvard may be an expert in both.  The
degree of expertise has nothing to do with where one positions oneself
in ways of knowing - I was much farther toward the science-only end when
I knew a lot less about science - which is why I think these are
separate dimensions.

David Smith

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