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To: betty boop

Science doesn't deal in TRVTH. Just the most reliable descriptions of phenomena it can come up with.

What can be settled with opinion polls is public opinion. This is a statement of how well or how poorly the public has been informed about the scientific consensus.


219 posted on 09/01/2006 9:27:58 AM PDT by js1138 (Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!")
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To: js1138; PatrickHenry; Alamo-Girl; hosepipe
Science doesn't deal in TRVTH. Just the most reliable descriptions of phenomena it can come up with.... [Public opinion polls are] statement[s] of how well or how poorly the public has been informed about the scientific consensus.

So it doesn't matter whether the scientific consensus has a truthful basis? I mean it could "come up with" anything at all. But if what it "comes up with" is a description of a phenomenon as it appears -- and observation must be confined to what "appears" -- and then a bunch of other scientists replicate the observation and say "yeah, we saw that too"; and then this consensus properly "informs" the public about their consensus regarding this "appearance" -- then science's job is done???

Strictly speaking, I think the answer is: yes. Science's job is done at that point. And it's quite sufficient from a technical or engineering standpoint.

But human reality involves problems that are not amenable to technical or engineering solutions. The historical record gives ample evidence that "all men desire to know" (or at least the ones that aren't brain dead) -- not just the details of what are at bottom ephemeral phenomenal "accidents," but the TRVTH of reality itself.

If science can't deal with issues of TRVTH, who/what will? Or is science telling us that if it can't do it, then it's just not a problem? So fugedaboudid???

232 posted on 09/01/2006 10:10:16 AM PDT by betty boop (Character is destiny. -- Heraclitus)
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