Question About the Scientific Method

[Rampant.A.I.]

Astronomers have taken what is likely the first-ever direct image of a planet that is still undergoing its formation, embedded in its “womb” of gas and dust. The protoplanet, about the size of Jupiter, is in the disc surrounding a young star, HD 100546, located 335 light-years from Earth.
If this discovery is confirmed, astronomers say this it will greatly improve our understanding of how planets form and allow astronomers to test the current theories against an observable target.

http://www.universetoday.com/100366/firs...otoplanet/

With telescopes. What you're attempting to do is open a god of the gaps argument by pointing out whatever is not currently falsifiable (testable). This is a misunderstanding of what science does.

Certainly those theories supported by direct empirical experience and testability hold more weight, so to speak, but you're arguing that regardless of how good their extrapolation, the Greeks had no way of knowing the earth was round without observing it from space.

[Angrboda]

It's worth noting as well that we don't actually know what things make one endeavor science and another pseudoscience. Philosophers have been working on identifying which factors define each, but so far have been unsuccessful. It tends to be a "know it when we see it" kind of thing. However, for every description of what makes something one rather than the other, there is an example which defies those neat descriptions and shows them to be inaccurate. So I'd worry less about whether it is or isn't science, because there's no good dividing line. On a "know it when you see it" basis, it appears to be science, as it's generating the hallmarks by which we identify science, but there's no hard and fast line between science and pseudoscience.

Scientific American: What is pseudoscience?

[ThePinsir]

With telescopes. What you're attempting to do is open a god of the gaps argument by pointing out whatever is not currently falsifiable (testable). This is a misunderstanding of what science does.

Certainly those theories supported by direct empirical experience and testability hold more weight, so to speak, but you're arguing that regardless of how good their extrapolation, the Greeks had no way of knowing the earth was round without observing it from space.

I'm not arguing that "god did it" or anything. Check my my avatar: it says "atheist" lol. I'm just inquiring into the nature of science, and whether or not we had seen it. Even if the answer would've been "no", I certainly wouldn't argue "god" lol.

About the Greek example: I'm not trying to argue that point; I'm just trying to make sure I understand the nature of "scientific truth". Maybe I'm getting into epistemology here...

[Rampant.A.I.]

Sorry, I think I'm annoyed by the rash of repeat threads with repeat questions that are really making assertions, and replied the same way.

I think you're right, it is getting into the area of epistemology, in a way, but epistemology itself has been hijacked by people like A. Plantinga, who are deliberately throwing regress out as preventative of knowledge without an ultimate authority.

Science is built on a foundation of Justifiably True Beliefs that are demonstrated true so often they qualify as a body of knowledge or facts to rest other JtBs on.

It's a scaffolding framework over regress, and it isn't perfect or based on any ultimate authority, but it still maintains, and parts of the structure can be repaired, updated or modified without the whole structure coming down.

We don't have observable evidence for some areas of science, especially theoretical physics, because of the span of time and size of events involved, but we can extrapolate data from the existing JtB framework and test them by computer modeling, with mathematics, and eventually in the case of planets forming with future observation.

[Jackalope]

"scientific truth"

Wrong room. Philosophy is two buildings down.