"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
I found Science is not about certainty: a philosophy of physics to be thought-provoking, including ...
So, how do you feel about the following statement:
Voltaire
I found Science is not about certainty: a philosophy of physics to be thought-provoking, including ...
Science is not about certainty. Science is about finding the most reliable way of thinking, at the present level of knowledge. Science is extremely reliable; it's not certain. In fact, not only it's not certain, but it's the lack of certainty that grounds it. Scientific ideas are credible not because they are sure, but because they are the ones that have survived all the possible past critiques, and they are the most credible because they were put on the table for everybody's criticism.
The very expression 'scientifically proven' is a contradiction in terms. There is nothing that is scientifically proven. The core of science is the deep awareness that we have wrong ideas, we have prejudices. We have ingrained prejudices. In our conceptual structure for grasping reality there might be something not appropriate, something we may have to revise to understand better. So at any moment, we have a vision of reality that is effective, it's good, it's the best we have found so far. It's the most credible we have found so far, its mostly correct.
But at the same time it's not taken for certain, and any element of it is a priori open for revision. ...
The very expression 'scientifically proven' is a contradiction in terms. There is nothing that is scientifically proven. The core of science is the deep awareness that we have wrong ideas, we have prejudices. We have ingrained prejudices. In our conceptual structure for grasping reality there might be something not appropriate, something we may have to revise to understand better. So at any moment, we have a vision of reality that is effective, it's good, it's the best we have found so far. It's the most credible we have found so far, its mostly correct.
But at the same time it's not taken for certain, and any element of it is a priori open for revision. ...
So, how do you feel about the following statement:
Science is not about certainty but, rather, about finding the most reliable way of thinking, at the present level of knowledge.