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To: gore3000
While I like Popper's political views, I do not like or agree with his overall skepticism. To say that we really cannot know anything is silly.

Yes, it would be, but of course this is not what Popper says. Popper might say it's silly to pretend that our knowledge of nature, even our best knowledge, is certain when it isn't, or that the value of that knowledge is dependent on it being so.

2,396 posted on 08/10/2003 7:53:10 PM PDT by Stultis
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To: Stultis
Popper might say it's silly to pretend that our knowledge of nature, even our best knowledge, is certain when it isn't, or that the value of that knowledge is dependent on it being so.

The problem I have with the skeptical view is not that I think we know everything we need to know. We certainly do not and it would be a silly claim to say so. However, what I disagree with is that we cannot have certainty about anything. Scientists go through great trouble, sometimes working decades to prove one little point. I think it is a disservice to such seekers of truth to say that nothing is ever proven.

Further, while we have gone into some interesting side issues as a result of this question no one yet has been willing to deny that the Earth goes around the sun or that the parent's genes are the source of the child's (that of course would be an absolute contradiction of evolutionary theory if denied!). I mean, does anyone here really believe that in a hundred or a thousand years such will be proven to be false?

2,420 posted on 08/10/2003 8:42:26 PM PDT by gore3000 (Intelligent people do not believe in evolution.)
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