When it becomes a fact?

[_Velvet_]

Hello everyone, its me again, this is a post about Skepticism, not Atheism directly, so I apologize in advance if I should have posted this in philosophy sub-forums, but it just didn't fitted well there imo, I hope you guys can share your insights on the subject regardless, english is not my native language so exercise patience.

I was watching some random debates and speechs on youtube as usual and stumbled into the following assertion by Dawkins: "evolution its a fact".

He then elaborates on that saying that evolution is as well documented by Science as Napoleon is documented by History, and then concludes: "some things are just truth, they are not a matter of choice or opinion"

Yes, I do agree with him, but that made me scratch my head.

The more I experience and try to practice Skepticism the harder it is for me to make assertions like those, even about trivial subjects.

I started to notice everyday that people casually assert things like they were facts when its only their opinion or their personal taste for something (art/music), sometimes it reflects a hunch to explain why something happened, or even some quite reliable hypothesis misstooked as fact because its backed up by anedoctal evidence or some very limited testing with a great deal of confirmation bias.

After I learned that I simply stopped asserting things.

I started to imply my uncertainty by saying: "well seems likely to be X because ABCD" or "my ABCD experiences/tests so far point towards X", and things like that, to avoid saying "Its X".

I had decided that asserting something was simply too risky, risks that my reasoning was flawled somewhere I haven't noticed, or that I could just be suffering confirmation bias, and thinking that I have enough evidence to back up something, but instead being unreasonable without even noticing.

But then comes Dawkins and says something is a fact.

So... when some very fitting and solid theory becomes a fact?

A fact can be wrong? Wasn't all science subject to be changed at any given moment provided evidence of some more fitting model? So how we can have those facts?

And... if your answer is "after it gets published on peer reviewed journals and survives the scrutiny" how we could apply that concept to our everyday life's normal facts?

I can say something its a fact if I can reproduce that it works as I predict even without knowing the reason behind the workings of it? so people are expected to accept something as fact (due to it reproducibility) even with the absence of any reasonable thought process they can follow?

Those are my doubts...  I hope we can have nice exchanges. = ]

[robvalue]

"Fact", in a scientific context, means it has been established by a theory. It has survived scrutiny. It is beyond all reasonable doubt. It doesn't mean it can't possibly be wrong. This is indeed different to the use of the word in other contexts.

Informally, we can say it's a fact again because it's blindingly obvious and has been demonstrated to be the case in a variety of ways. But science never deals with absolute certainty.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not -actually- different in any other context.  We just don't, generally, perceive our "facts" to be the provisional things they are.  Every logical statement of truth, for example, contains either an explicit or implicit -if- as pretext. Even the system it;self contains an explicit or implicit if, as in, "if things are as they seem, and if these rules hold - than.....[insert "law" here]."

[robvalue]

By the way, this is the closest you can ever get to truth when modelling reality. Absolute truth exists only in abstract systems. So if you don't accept scientific facts as facts, there are no facts at all.

[robvalue]

It's not -actually- different in any other context.  We just don't, generally, perceive our "facts" to be the provisional things they are.  Every logical statement of truth, for example, contains either an explicit or implicit -if- as pretext.  Even the system it;self  contains an explicit or implicit if, as in, "if things are as they seem, and if these rules hold - than.....[insert "law" here]."

Sure yes, good point

[downbeatplumb]

Evolution is in everyway consistent with what is discovered in reality and has never been successfully refuted. It has passed enough tests to be considered a fact..
The alternative suggestions are all retro fitted to somehow make them less than totally unreasonable, and fail.

[_Velvet_]

But how you guys deal with your skepticism aside from science.

I mean do you actively avoid making assertions? do you consider previous events as evidence, allow extrapolations on your reasoning?

And about other people speaking to you, do you guys let them assert things blatantly because you guys know thats not exactly what they meant? or do you feel an urge to correct them as they cannot possibly know what they are asserting?

[robvalue]

Personally, I speak informally most of the time.

If I state something is true, or not true, it's shorthand for "All the evidence supports this position, beyond reasonable doubt". It would get tiresome to talk that way all the time. If I'm having a scientific discussion, then I'll be more precise with my language. Someone can always ask exactly what I mean, anyway, and a level of uncertainty is always implied by any reasonable person.

I assume most people treat things this way. Whether I challenge someone depends on the context and what they are saying. If it's important enough, I'll challenge it, if I think they are mistaken or they display too much confidence.

[robvalue]

To be honest, if someone is spending a lot of time picking away at your confidence levels rather than addressing the actual points, they probably don't have much of a defence.

It happens on here a lot. When someone starts losing an argument, they'll sink into semantics and try and make your statements contradict themselves and such. It's rather pathetic.

[The Grand Nudger]

But how you guys deal with your skepticism aside from science.

I mean do you actively avoid making assertions? do you consider previous events as evidence, allow extrapolations on your reasoning?

And about other people speaking to you, do you guys let them assert things blatantly because you guys know thats not exactly what they meant? or do you feel an urge to correct them as they cannot possibly know what they are asserting?

I try to avoid making un-evidenced assertions, when I can, yeah.  

Reason -is- an extrapolation, the question is redundant.....and that pretty much answers the next question, huh?  

More elaboratively, as to whether or not I correct people on what they can and cannot know. Well, I'm not exactly knocking on doors, now, am I?