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0.4.2 Belief and Knowledge Version 1.0 March 2013                              Previous Version Some philosophically minded people get hung up on the word “beliefs”. We don’t. · The argument goes like this. They say that everything that can be called “knowledge” must be definitely true, otherwise we don't “know” it for certain. They call things that are not definitely true, but that we still hold dear, “beliefs”. They imply these “beliefs” must be dogmatic, because they aren’t definitely true but we still believe them, despite the uncertainty. · Here we don't use the word “beliefs” in this way. The statements that make up these “global beliefs” are not definitely true, but neither are they dogma.  They are NOT beliefs we hold regardless of reason and the evidence. They are not “beliefs” devoid of any reasonable justification. They are not “beliefs” like purely faith based religious beliefs. As we said in section 0.0.3, even the scientists who say they don't have “beliefs” must have working hypotheses so that they can think and talk about, and conduct, science. These understandings are what most ordinary people – like us – call beliefs. Anyway scientists do believe in the validity of the scientific method! Instead, we offer our contributions, o being as open as we can to all the evidence and to criticism from all parties, o knowing there is considerable uncertainty about the basics underlying these beliefs, o being as conscientious as we can be to get the reasoning right. We put forward these “global beliefs” as evidence-based working hypotheses that help us to make decisions on what to do when we need to act.
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