Fulmen wrote:What I have a problem with is the attitude that since we don't know everything with absolute certainty we don't know anything with any certainty. In the last 100 years we have seen a veritable explosion of knowledge that has transformed our understanding of the world completely, and while we may learn that we didn't have the whole picture little of what we know today (at least in the realm of physics) will be completely obsolete in the future.
Take Newtons laws of motion, a revolution of almost unparalleled scale in physics. Today Einsteins general relativity have replaced it, and showed that many of Newtons assumptions about space and time were wrong. Yet we still use Newtons laws today, because it works very well within it's limitations. And while we already know that Einstein didn't have the whole answer, there is no doubt about the validity of general relativity. You're sitting right in front of the proof, modern computers wouldn't work if it was wrong. In the future we will learn more about the limitations of that theory and hopefully develop new theories that go beyond that, but it will still apply within those limits.
The trick is to look past the question of "right" and "wrong" and focus on what's useful. The question isn't whether general relativity is right or wrong but whether it is useful. We already know it must be wrong in the sense that it's not the absolute truth, but it is still a remarkably useful tool that opened up a whole new field in science we didn't know existed before. Same with quantum theory, Maxwells equations and all the other tools of modern science. They are not the absolute truth, but they are too well confirmed to be wrong.
I wish scientists were better at conveying this, they often come off as too damn certain. Sometimes they are, but most of the time they just accept the current knowledge as the best available tool and use it for what it's worth. They understand this, perhaps so intuitively that they forget to explain it.
Science is indeed a discipline based on provisional knowledge. Being as such, nothing is ever really outside of the possibility of being revised/refuted/etc. I believe that actual scientists understand this best, and because its a given, they don't usually make it a point to bring it up every time they discover something new. It's needless to say....to them, but not necessarily the public though. The problem comes when armchair scientists take what scientists have discovered and run with it, almost as if they don't quite grasp the notion that nothing in science is ever set in stone. Ever.
Science doesn't hold onto specific beliefs,
people do. The discipline of science has no agenda, has no emotional attachment to any theories -- it simply follows the evidence regardless of what that evidence might suggest. For example, if at some point in the future legitimate scientific evidence is found that God does exist, science will support that theory even though many scientists themselves may not. The point is that science and scientists are not one and the same thing...often times people forget that.
Fulmen wrote:What I have a problem with is the attitude that since we don't know everything with absolute certainty we don't know anything with any certainty.
I definitely understand what you are saying, but the philosopher in me is itching to point something out. When I use the word "knowledge" outside of informal conversations, I mean something very specific, i.e. "Verified" "True" "Belief" (a modification of the
JTB theory of truth to reconcile the
Gettier Problem). A belief that holds a true conclusion, but has not been properly verified, is not knowledge. It is still true mind you, but not knowledge. The reason why I make this distinction is because someone can make accurate predictions based on a belief that is true, without actually knowing
why its true...and can you really know something to be true without knowing why?
I'd say no, at least not with the definition of "knowledge" I am using. If we are using a definition that allows of someone to "know" things that are uncertain to them..then yes, we know many things. Otherwise, we simply have many true assumptions and very few actual pieces of knowledge.
Of course, understand that I am very much a man of science. I have very strong faith in the scientific method, and honestly do trust in the findings of the scientific community. With that being said, I also have a very clear understanding of why I do...and its not because I "know" those principles to be true. I do not. Like most, I can see the effects of science in my everyday life (technology, medicine, etc), I've read many pieces of literature and thus understand the logic behind a number of scientific principles, and I have even done a few basic of experiments myself -- but none of that actually justifies the extent in which I trust science. And I understand that. That's the difference -- I understand that I don't ultimately know what I believe is true.
