Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: BroJoeK

My problem is not what we can observe today or others observed. I have issue with the overconfidence in suppositions stated as settled science.


237 posted on 11/18/2014 7:32:02 PM PST by redleghunter (But let your word 'yes be 'yes,' and your 'no be 'no.' Anything more than this is from the evil one.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 224 | View Replies ]


To: redleghunter
redleghunter: "I have issue with the overconfidence in suppositions stated as settled science."

That term, "settled science", to the degree it's ever used accurately, only means we don't see other scientists actively working to falsify it.
It certainly doesn't mean that something is necessarily true, only that scientists themselves can't find a way, given today's data & tools, to prove it false.

Of course, "settled science" can be, and has been in the past, overturned as new data or ideas are applied.
However, no amount of eyes-closed hand-waving by anti-science religious believers will ever change "settled" to "unsettled" science.

Here's the bottom line: strictly speaking, no scientific theory is ever really "settled", it's only ever provisionally accepted, pending some new data or idea.
So I wouldn't get hung up on that term, because it only tells us about what scientists are now doing, not how valid the theory might prove to be, in the very long term.

Does that make sense?

251 posted on 11/20/2014 11:42:31 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 237 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson