(December 6, 2022 at 10:08 pm)Jehanne Wrote:(December 6, 2022 at 9:40 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I think that all knowledge is tentative. If we're unwilling to change what we think of as facts, then we will be unable to learn. Sometimes hose changes are revolutionary (Copernicus), sometimes they're evolutionary (Einstein refining Newtonian mechanics).
But learning relies upon the willingness to consider oneself in error.
I disagree. Sometimes evidence reaches a "critical mass" that it becomes unreasonable to deny it. The fact that George Washington was the first US President is an immutable, eternal fact of Nature.
That's history, not science, which is the topic at hand.