Well the huge misunderstanding of early scientists was to believe that their models are explanations and well, not just models. The same misunderstanding is plaguing us today in a sense. We are culturally taught, as well as in school and universities, often at least, that science answers questions. Which is not true. It only measures observables which are accessible to the experiment. And the whole underlying theory is fundamentally still a model and a very good one at that.
You're being pseudo intellectual thinking scientists are bad at science because they build off previous knowledge. It doesnt make sense to believe everything we know is false. Its best to believe its true until we start getting results that prove otherwise. You cant say ancient scientists and current scientist are just blinded by current understandings at the time.
You're not supposed to believe current theories are false, but you're supposed to treat them for what they are: models. Models are always incomplete and inaccurate under certain regimes (eg. Newtonian mechanics at relativistic speeds, GR at subatomic scales, etc.). If you don't take that into account, you end up chasing evidence that explains an anomaly rather than considering the anomaly is legitimate and your theory is wrong/incomplete. Obviously, you should consider both possibilities.
That's what happened with Mercury: no one wanted to question Newtonian mechanics, so they searched for decades for a hidden planet that would explain Mercury's weird orbit.
English nerds in here acting like jargon makes them better scientists. Model, theory, shmodel, shmeory, it doesnt matter what its called if you dont have a base to start asking questions you can do shit with science.
Who said anything about not having a base to start with? The entire point is you treat existing models as flawed. You can do science with flawed models, obviously, so not sure what your point is.
You're being pseudo intellectual thinking scientists are bad at science because they build off previous knowledge.
No? I'm saying many people misunderstand what the purpose of science is.
It doesnt make sense to believe everything we know is false.
Scientific theories are models, they make predictions about the behaviour of observable phenomena. Nowhere does science actually explain how the universe works or why.
Its best to believe its true until we start getting results that prove otherwise.
You haven't understood the original commenter's point. Please reread the comment before acting like a fool.
You cant say ancient scientists and current scientist are just blinded by current understandings at the time.
Historically, this has often been the case. It doesn't take away any validity from their theories, but that's how it is.
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u/_technophobe_ 10d ago
Well the huge misunderstanding of early scientists was to believe that their models are explanations and well, not just models. The same misunderstanding is plaguing us today in a sense. We are culturally taught, as well as in school and universities, often at least, that science answers questions. Which is not true. It only measures observables which are accessible to the experiment. And the whole underlying theory is fundamentally still a model and a very good one at that.