(April 25, 2015 at 9:03 am)Alex K Wrote:(April 25, 2015 at 8:56 am)Red Economist Wrote: By "science is right" I mean the idea that Science gives us "perfect" knowledge of the objective world (which it doesn't). Its a misunderstanding that is more true of popular science as Science is something of a best guess approximation of how the world works and our ideas have to constantly be improved upon, so scientific knowledge is not absolute. Sometimes people think that scientific answers are true for all time, but that is relative to our technological capacity to reproduce natural phenomena and thereby demonstrate that our ideas correspond to the world as well as the system of ideas we have at our disposal to describe that world.
Yes, all theories are probably wrong.
I'd go for "incomplete" as otherwise that might give religion another chance.
(April 25, 2015 at 9:22 am)robvalue Wrote: I don't think I've ever heard anybody say science gives absolute truth. Where have you been finding people like that?
I've heard a lot of theists claim that atheists say it, however.
I think it's more implied than anything. It was something I realized I believed when I was young from noting really having a decent science education and is also true of popular science to some extent. My teachers taught me to repeat "facts" as if they were ready-made and self-evident, rather than really understanding that science is a way about asking questions and finding answers. In reality scientists have been struggling with these questions and re-inventing theories since they're were scientists.
