[SampleMan]

For more than 200 years, astronomers thought that most of the stars in our galaxy had stellar companions

During that 200 years it "was scientific, irrefutable fact", once it is wrong it is "astronomers thought". This is why I don't hand over my life to the limits of scientific knowledge being passed off as irrefutable.

[Verginius Rufus]

It may have been conventional wisdom of late that most stars were double stars or had more than one companion, but I really doubt that astronomers have thought that "for more than 200 years." Sirius is one of the closest stars, and I don't think its companion (the Pup) was detected until the middle or latter part of the 19th century.

[AmishDude]

During that 200 years it "was scientific, irrefutable fact", once it is wrong it is "astronomers thought". This is why I don't hand over my life to the limits of scientific knowledge being passed off as irrefutable.

Ping.

[dangus]

>> During that 200 years it "was scientific, irrefutable fact", once it is wrong it is "astronomers thought". This is why I don't hand over my life to the limits of scientific knowledge being passed off as irrefutable. <<

Whoever said it was irrefutable fact?

[RightWhale]

it "was scientific, irrefutable fact"

Our metaphysics prof promised to award an F on any test paper that used a strawman.

[Wormwood]

This is why I don't hand over my life to the limits of scientific knowledge being passed off as irrefutable.

Scientific theories are always refutable---with better science. That element of self-correction is both the nature and the strength of the scientific method.