Proving What We Already "Know"

[bennyboy]

Why would we need to prove what we already know?

Seems a silly waste of time to me if what you 'know' is true.

Because people "know" things that are false.  And in some cases, that knowledge is generalized to the entire population.  People once "knew" that the world was flat, or that the Black Plague was the product of witches.

And yet we today "know" very many things that neither come from objective proof or strong rationale. People are very sure about either their religious ideas or some bro-science-that-isn't-really-science, and have absolutley no inkling that they might be lying to themselves and everyone around them.

I would say eliminating that false knowledge as much as we can isn't a "waste of time."