Can't talk to them

Let's assume for a moment that science is a religion. I'm hard put to it to explain how we reach a conclusion from the evidence presented. There is no way to retest the conclusion since all the evidence is hearsay and is written in a book. If religion is a science, then the conclusion was drawn and all evidence to make it the conclusion was drawn from the conclusion. Scientists draw conclusions from the evidence. If they do it the other way around, they are liable to get into a lot of trouble. They may sacrifice tenure or be fired from universities. Think of what happened to the scientists we've heard about in the news who have fudged the data and been found out?
A few weeks ago I had an IM conversation with a man who basically denied everything connected with science. He averred that all archaeological discoveries that have ever been made were planted, including Lucy. I believe that has happened once. It seems a stretch to extrapolate one incident to every discovery ever made, but I suppose if you happen to have an agenda you can fool yourself into believing that the person on the other end of the line is uneducated enough to swallow that excuse. I gave him the same scenario about scientists that I have written above, and his response was, "Not true." If you want to deny it, sir, go right ahead. Again, I'm a little more educated than that. I also explained the difference between a hypothesis and a theory, and he typed, "But it's still just a theory." Yup, straight from the mouth of Rush Limbaugh. I rather think it is a mistake to listen uncritically to a man who has admitted that even he doesn't believe some of what he says. Then again, if a person can't critically examine the facts and must rely on someone else to draw conclusions, I guess I shouldn't expect anything more. So with that in mind, here are some definitions as they pertain to sciene and religion in my own words:

Science-a way of doing things. It doesn't have to be science in the classical sense, but as I pointed out in a previous post, science has rules for how to do things.

Hypothesis-in school you probably defined this as an educated guess. That's as good a definition as any, I suppose. However, this educated guess will be tested.

Data-stuff that is drawn from your experiment and must be analyzed to draw an accurate conclusion.

Conclusion-will either lend evidence to or disprove your hypothesis.

Theory-this one's important, folks. Every theory starts out as a hypothesis, and takes many years and many more tests to become a theory. If the evidence from even one experiment fails to support the hypothesis for that experiment, it can blow a hole in or entirely collapse the theory.

If this all sounds complicated, that's because it is. Entire classes have been predicated on how to write a research proposal, experimental design, statistics, data entry, higher math, actually writing the research paper. And of course these classes will all take different forms depending on the scientific division. Biology, chemistry, and physics all need to be analyzed differently. Now for religion:

Religion-the worship of a supernatural deity.

Faith-knowing something is there without seeing it.

I'm afraid I don't know of any other definitions I can add, for the simple reason that science is a process with many words to define it, and religion has only these 2 (perhaps 3, if you count worship). This is not to say that religion is a dumb thing. It's a social construct that took many years to become established. If people want or need religion in their lives, I'm not going to deny that to them. I went to a Lutheran college, after all. However, the older I get (she says at the ripe old age of 29), I find I have less and less patience with uncritical belief. Unfortunately, it is the small-minded, uncritical crowd that is trying to push their particular brand of 'science' on everybody else. Let me be clear--science and religion are NOT the same thing, and never were. Unthinking people have just made it seem that way.