Adrian and I disagree on faith.

[Purple Rabbit]

It would be a red herring if leo was deliberately trying to divert from the subject. He clearly isn't. He is elaborating on what we can know. That's totally on subject. The inability you show to grasp what he is saying does not amount to him raising another subject.

Yes, but he's arguing that there is a limit to our knowledge therefore we need faith to plug those gaps, that's not an effect method to resolve our lack of understanding. I'm not prepared to forfeit relevant information for blind hope or halt our on-going learning process just because someone states "But you can't know for sure".

The word 'faith' can mean different things. Leo's use of it to me simply seems to mean 'assumption that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence'. Where did you spot 'blind hope' in his answers?

As I understand leo, nothing of this is refuted by him. The point is that 'to the best of our knowledge' does not necessarily equal 'truth'. About truth we should be precise. We should be careful to not overstate the claim. Leo is just being careful and precise.

I never said models dictate reality because I don't stupidly overstate or generalise up some authoritative circular argument such as 'our knowledge is truth because we defined knowledge'.

Your lengthy expose on celestial motion seemed to suggest that that's all there is to it. You did not acknowledge in there that there are things we don't know, or don't know exactly. But now you have cleared this up you can join Leo in his assertion that we have to assume some things we don't know, not meaning that the assumption cannot be questioned.

The model of the world created by man does not dictate reality. There is no logical reason why the model should work for future events.

Yes human constructs are subjectively true and certainly arguable this much I already know, but concepts based on reality play their role in reflecting and demonstrating to us a *better understanding* of how reality works.

Of course. I am not arguing against it, quite the opposite.

Would you rather us simply have no predictive theories to rely upon at all?

I indeed have quite extensively argued for the advancement of science here on AF and against the pseudo-knowledge of theism. But we should not overstate the claim made by science, that's all. Often in arguments with theists that have all the 'answers' provided by their god, a need might emerge to claim the same for science, but this is a trap we should not step into. I agree that scientific knowledge is the best around but at the same time it is not complete and it is tentative. It is OK not to have all the answers.

To the best of our knowledge, they redefine themselves only when current explanations are found to be invalid or unreliable at explaining reality.

So? Isn't that what is meant by tentative knowledge? Or are you in need for other reasons?

That's why the scientific method, while not perfect in the context of absolute certainty, is still one of the most powerful tools for analysing our universe we have today. Faith on the other hand can't even hope to provide us with any answers to discern what is probable from the improbable (bad pun no?).

I completely agree and in discussion here on AF I have found no reason to think that Leo has a different opinion on this.

This is where the empirical scientific method differs from deductive mathematical reasoning. This is acknowledged by science itself and known as the Problem of Induction. Please read up on it.

I fail to see how confidence in something improbable or unlikely being true (faith) is the answer to philosophical question of whether inductive reasoning leads to knowledge.

Leo should speak for himself but I think you got stuck on a particular interpretation of the word 'faith' and that there really is no issue at hand.

And still you cannot claim absolute truth when you're done with that. All scientific truths are tentative truths. Just as your mechanical account of movement of celestial bodies was a tentative one that was replaced by the more accurate relativistic account that Einstein formulated.

I said understand it better, not entirely. I'm not claiming absolute certainty; get rid of this pointless notion of 'knowing anything and eveything for sure', arguing for or against objectivism is nothing but a red herring and counterproductive. I'm talking about practical knowledge, i.e. in the context of what is useful to determine fact from fantasy.

It seems the world is rapidly decaying in nothing but red herrings with you. If you watch closely, your discontent over absolute certainty smoothly integrates with what Leo is saying.

To the "best of our knowledge" Earth will continue to rotate today and for the foreseeable future, which obviously counts for something, since its morning where I am, and the sun is rising.

Who am I to disagree? Travel the world and the seven seas... And words along that line.

EDIT: had the ordering of my sentence arse-backwards there. XD

Don't it somehow makes sense that your arse is at the back ;-)