I have observed many individuals who are very successful business-wise and yet are fatally religious...a total disconnect when it comes to philosophy of life and religion...very frustrating...they do no want to listen to any facts about the age of the Earth or dinosaurs...etc...

in other words, as long as they can have a nice house, car, family, they blow off any serious discussion about life...

YES.

As an engineer, I always respected the scientific method as necessarily objective. However, reflecting on my many years dealing with the scientific community, I've come to realize they are very belief-oriented. That really hit home to me in a discussion with my equally senior brother in law, who has a PhD in solid state physics. I had asked him a question based on astrophysics principles, and he responded that he'd have to see the math. That was a curious answer, so I asked him about how he applied his intellect to his field. I wasn't prepared for his answer, which was that he never bothered with principles, just so long as the math worked out. He had faith that mathematics always represents reality.

Of course we all are aware that the climate change issue is heavily based on each parties' beliefs, since the subject is so complex complete understanding is out of reach. Likewise, the evolution vs creation argument is belief-oriented. The evolutionists have built a convincing trail of evidence, but choose to ignore findings that don't make evolutionary sense, while creationists ignore the mass of solid evolutionary evidence and focus on the small number of oddities, seeking proof of their belief.

Going back to my engineering, I always looked for evidence that either supported or refuted theory, and when the principles were affirmed, I applied them until new evidence arose. I had faith that what I learned in principle was a reasonable representation of reality, but looked for objective, real-world evidence to support those principles. I guess I'd say that there can be compatibility between belief and objectivity, so long as one is willing to revise his beliefs when objective analysis supports an adjustment.

No. What is incompatible is a belief in something which defies the evidence, such as that socialism is a moral societal value system or that Keynesian economics works.

What caused most scientific discovery? The belief that an undiscovered answer existed. What underlies invention? The belief that a better solution to a problem exists. What is the backing of entrepreneurs? A belief that they can offer up better products and/or services than their existing competitors. Belief itself is not incompatible at all with objectivity. It is holding to a belief in the face of evidence to the contrary that turns belief into bigotry and bias.

A belief is a proposition you accept as true. If you accept the belief with no evidence, not good. If you accept a belief as true based upon evidence, good. I think you may need to rephrase the question.

Such is me dino's outlook on life.

Yes, they are incompatible. A belief, by definition, is neither truth nor fact, simply a belief. Beliefs are interchangeable, truths and facts are not.

Consider it this way: once you know, and can objectively prove that 2+2=4 (in the appropriate base system of course), you can no longer believe it to be the case. At least, not in the way I conceive of belief. (see other response)

You'd have to define belief, and do it objectively, for a proper answer. ;)

Now the way I define belief is "the acceptance of an assertion as fact for which there is, or can not be, objective evidence to support it.". Under that definition, belief in something is incompatible with being objective about it. Which might lead me to say that belief is incompatible with objectivity. That doesn't mean, necessarily, that objectivity is incompatible with belief, per se, but it may well be. It may be that objectivity simply erases belief when what was believed in was proven either objectively true/factual or invalid.

Note that none of that says belief, itself, is inherently a bad or useless thing to someone being objective.

I was a substitute teacher in middle school in 2002 and in the orientation, we were warned with laughter not to accept it when kids cited Wikipedia as an authority. Well, in the above, for the speed of light, that's where I went. Furthermore, I wrote an article for publication about great naval battles and I started with the "standard references." Well, guess what? The Encylopedia Britannica and Grolier Encyclopedia Americana have different opinions about Oliver Hazzard Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie.

So, you probably agree that you don't solve anything with authority because you have the problem of authenticating your authority. How do you know whom to believe?

Also, as for WHY, that, too, depends on your standards of proof, which also need to be validated. A Bablyonian clay tablet with Pythagorean triples antedates the proofs by 1500 years, but the Babylonians would say that it is true by observation and needs no proof. Indeed, it does not need the many proofs we know (over 100 of them). It is true by observation, as is the fact that 2 + 2 = 4, given that we assign meanings to the symbols.

But the Greeks made a logical leap and developed the methods of proof in geometry. It is to that standard that we still hold just about all other evidentiary learning.

No. I base that on the way you asked the question. Both of concepts do exist together in the world we live in. This does not mean that they coexist in harmony. Far from it.

Interesting and thought provoking response.

Here is my conundrum. I can believe that two plus two makes four (because an authority figure told me so) or I can, because I understand the mathematics, know WHY two plus two makes four. These are two very different views of the world.

I believe that this coffee is pretty good; and I believe that my wife's pancakes for breakfast were well worth eating. I believe that the speed of light is about 3x10^8 meters/second give or take; and 299,792,458 m/s does not change my belief all that much. Even though many knowledgeable experts believe otherwise, I believe that the coins of Alexander the Great portray Alexander, and I have presented my facts at a couple of conferences and a magazine article. I am pretty firmly convinced that even though some do agree with me (or I with them) on this, most of the others are all wrong on this point.

But that is not what you are asking, is it?

My theories about the portraiture of Alexander are not a matter of faith. And neither are the facts of history, or the facts of science, or the facts of philosophy, or anything else.

What Objectivism (capital-O) teaches is that there are no contradictions. If you run into a contradiction, then you must check your premises because one or both of them is/are false. Contradictions do not exist.

That is not the same thing as the limits of knowledge. In science, an anomaly is an observed fact for which there is no theory of explanation. Quasars and quarks were anomalies until theory was extended to explain them.

Many people believe that Jesus or Mohammed (or several other people), ascended directly into heaven. At what speed did they rise? 100 mph? Because if so, they have yet to leave the solar system, and so, are probably a long way from God in Heaven... wherever that may be... So, that kind of believe is fraught with contradictions. Those who believe in objective reality simply dismiss such claims, along with the claim that Zeus appeared to Lido in the form of a swan or that Kali was stopped in her rampage only when her husband Shiva laid down in her path, and so on.