Youâre giving examples of how itâs been in the past. So, if youâre saying that because it always has been, arenât you really begging the question? So I ask again why should we expect the FUTURE to be like the past?
Three years ago, this thread/question wouldnât have been asked - and, incidentally, wasnât - but now that so much of the population lives a reality based upon âalternative facts,â silliness such as this exists.
Can I come and live in the dimension where all science is performed to the utmost best of honest human endeavour no matter the results, where it is always completely transparent, the data procured and findings released in a manner that is never skewed, hidden or adjusted, without any agenda, bias or pre-determined goal set.
Where governments, politicians, organisations, corporations and companies have absolute integrity and put the truth before all else, even profits and personal goals?
It sounds really nice there and I promise I will be good too
Because I donât expect that in the future the interaction of a switch or the effects of the earths rotation will change. Certainly given enough time the future may indeed be different. However, even though at some point in the future the earth may indeed stop turning, the past does indeed tell us that it is very much likely, and indeed reasonable, to expect it to remain rotating for the foreseeable future. What possible reasoning would inform one to believe otherwise?
In science one can test theories to determine if it can be proven or validated as fact. Philosophy uses arguments of principles rather than testing to explain things. Scientific fact can and will change as our body of knowledge/techniques expands (physics is a good example) but thatâs a good thing rather than holding onto false ideas and beliefs. In philosophy itâs just a matter of opinion and not subject to testing or experimentation so itâs not worth much in my opinion.
I donât understand the distrust of peer review. While clearly research and experimentation can be falsified peer review is the mechanism for determining if a study was falsified or incorrectly done. So whatâs bad about that?
The comment that we should expect to the future to be like the past I think referred to âI expect that it will get dark later tonight like it did last night.â. I doubt that anybody would expect things to be different with regards to that.
Why indeed. The level of scientific illiteracy exhibited in this thread is disheartening and alarming.
But there is little point in berating ignorance. Some of the frustrating questions may be asked earnestly, and those might be well-served by answers. Maybe that would deserve its own thread, though even this thread might already be in the BLF Rules grey zone.
Agreed. It is an example of the application of âsoftâ sciences (sociology psychology) applied to a population to achieve a result â in this case the distrust of science in order to promote a different set of interests.
Newton and gravity are taught and largely understood. Whitaker and Baxter ought to be.
Even Aristotle knew that the earth wasnât flat. It truly amazes and depresses me that some people today believe that the earth is flat. :person_facepalming:
The beauty and strength of science is that none of those points matter. After all if they did, it would suggest that money, power, biases, agenda could somehow alter truth and reality.
Did âNazi scienceâ during WW2 with its clear agenda change the underlying reality of say eugenics, biology, rocket science, etc?
Lies and illusions are hard to maintain. Science is a self-regulating process of discovering what is true, i.e. consistent with reality. Frankly we donât know of any other way of reliably understanding reality.
We can hope that but my impression is that education in the US is being increasing dumbâed down and politicized with the goal of educating students no longer the primary consideration
Many people don't wholly trust science because it has one monumental flaw. If it can't explain, document and verify something, more often than not, that thing does not exist in their minds and then they ridicule people and even perform well documented smear campaigns against those who have experienced something that cannot be easily verified. It's a fatal blow that continues to turn many away. They can be quite arrogant at times too, not accepting that not everything has to be explained by science to be real.
First, thatâs patently untrue. Science exists because we donât know things, otherwise there would be no point.
The fundamental question is about âways of knowingâ. Science is the only reliable way we have found because it is based on logic, rigour, and repeatability. Other methods typically use assertions and logical fallacies, to which humans are very prone. The scientific method tries to get away from those problems. And the âproofâ is in the pudding of the descriptive and predictive power of the models produced.