(December 12, 2013 at 12:25 am)I and I Wrote: If science is a search for facts then it is based on an ever changing series of what are called facts, what a "fact" is, is determined by time in history, place in a culture and environment. This means there is no reason to hold science as anything "better" than religion. Science is the honest bullshitter, they honestly admit that science changes and methods change and that there is no "absolute". Which begs the question: If scientists know that science changes then what are scientists doing? Do they believe they get closer to a fact or a truth? How would they know they are closer?
Perhaps you should learn what a scientific fact is, for starters. Secondly, science isn't a mere hunt for empirical facts, it's an attempt at a systemized understanding of reality through accurate predictive models.
Further, the underlined bit is true of everything. Words and understandings of concepts change over time; this is just unavoidable, so pointing it out is an obvious non sequitur. And as for your bit directly after that, puh-lease. The difference between science and religion alone is that given that people tend to see something better, in this context, as that which is predictively accurate, empirically verifiable (where applicable) and pragmatically useful.
Of course science and its methods change over time; what doesn't? As we learn more about the world and the issues with certain philosophical and metaphysical assumptions, of course the way scientists tackle answering certain problems will change with it. That's just a red herring there.
I suppose they know they are closer to, but perhaps never truly reaching, truth-y conclusions when the accuracy of predictions are made.
Quote:If science is claimed to be a collection of "truths" then what is truth? How is a truth determined?
Science isn't ever, to my knowledge, defined as 'a collection of truths'. At best, science is probably defined, as I noted earlier, as something like 'a systematic enterprise of accurate empirical predictions about reality'.
Science, from what I can tell, has an interesting interplay between accepting the correspondence theory of truth (empirical facts and observation) and the coherence theory of truth (attempts at coherent system-building and reduction). So clearly it would determine what is true by empirically verifying what is fact.
