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To: gore3000
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.

Popper wasn't a skeptic, he was a philosophical realist. And we indeed cannot have certainty (in the straightforward sense of the term) in ANY claim about the natural world because our information is ALWAYS incomplete and there is ALWAYS the possiblity that new facts or knowledge will undermine our previous claims.

This is NOT skepticism. It does NOT mean that our knowledge of the natural world is not good, or valid, or useful, or anything of the like. All it means is that our knowledge is always subject to improvement or revision.

2,433 posted on 08/10/2003 10:02:07 PM PDT by Stultis
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To: Stultis
This is NOT skepticism.

Of course it is. Denying that anything can be proven is even more than the definition of skeptic requires:

skep·tic also scep·tic ( P ) Pronunciation Key (skptk) n.
1. One who instinctively or habitually doubts, questions, or disagrees with assertions or generally accepted conclusions.

BTW - you cannot say that evolution is a proven fact and also say that nothing can be proven.

2,470 posted on 08/11/2003 7:26:25 PM PDT by gore3000 (Intelligent people do not believe in evolution.)
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