The ‘arrogance’ of science
I see, especially in theistic literature (as opposed to scripture — but it’s there too), that science is often denounced as being arrogant. Those who claim such things usually have a reason to: it contradicts their own dogmatic view of the universe, usually in some quite fundamental way.
There are many levels of confidence: in science, confidence means that a theory supports new evidence that it is tested against, it can make accurate predictions, it is repeatable and reliable. There are, of course, scientific ideas (hypotheses) that do not have overwhelming masses of evidence to support them, but time provides the necessary framework for evidence to be gathered to support (and hence increase the confidence in) good hypotheses (which in turn can become ‘theories’) or oppose bad hypotheses, which are either re-worked to make them fit the evidence, or discard them completely.
Confidence, where there is an overwhelming, and increasing, amount of evidence to support good hypotheses, is justified in this case.
Then there is the confidence of faith. This generally takes the form of simply accepting that which matches the worldview of the faithful, and simply ignoring, naysaying or shouting down that which contradicts it.
To say that 1+2=3 is not arrogant, it’s confident: it’s correct. No amount of metaphysical wrestling is going to make this wrong, no matter how loudly one campaigns against or tries to vilify it. Conversely, shouting louder than anyone else doesn’t mean that a weak hypothesis is valid nor justifiable. Confidence in this case isn’t about the support of an idea of “truth”, it’s just self-important conceit.
The only arrogance is perceived, possibly as a result of a failure to understand what’s actually going on. This could be chalked up to another example of the projection of the failures and narcissism of faith onto the scape-goat of science by those who don’t begin to understand the principles of it.