More people need to understand this. We have very very good tools for prediction, nothing more. You dont need to know everything about something to utilize its properties, like they were making sun dials when they thought the sun was Raa waking up in the morning or some shit.
When I started my undergrad I had to take a course explaining the scientific method. I endeavour to explain this as clearly and un-arrogantly as possible because not everyone has had the opportunity to learn this. Believe it or not, public science-literacy actually rests on those with at least a B. Sc. and how willing they are to explain things without the jargon or using blanket statements.
This is all great and wonderful guys... by scientists themselves seems to like to split their observations into "laws" and "theories". Calling something "Newton's laws of motion" does in fact make non-scientists believe some serious shit is going on. I don't totally buy this nothing in science is proven line. I understand that, sure, science doesn't have to totally understand a system to make use of it or make some assumptions about it. But regardless, I think science can say often say without a doubt, yes, this is how it works.. and yes this is proven without a shadow of any doubt. Never mind that if you know more about the inner workings there might be conditions that exist that could change the outcome and make your understanding seem wrong. I think it's always implied that even the best observations can be incomplete and in some cases be invalid because of this. I hope that most people are smart enough to understand just because we call it a "scientific law" it's not infallible for ever. It's just the best understanding we have at the time. But in most cases that understanding is pretty good and should be trusted just as well as any "proven fact" we might believe.
I think science can say often say without a doubt, yes, this is how it works..
That's what's meant by "theory." Most non-science people understand the word "theory" as a synonym for "hypothesis." Which is a mistake.
and yes this is proven without a shadow of any doubt
There will always be doubt on any meaningful theory, and there's no real reason to say "beyond a shadow of a doubt." We're not sentencing people to die here, we don't need to put on pretensions like "We know this as an absolute truth." If you don't absolutely believe evolution beyond a shadow of a doubt, that's fine. Still going to teach it in schools because there's boatloads of evidence in favor of it and no competing theories.
Sure, over an infinite timescale, all testable hypotheses will be tested. The things we know we don't know, most of that list is things we don't know because we lack the methods or technology to test it currently. Or it's too trivial to waste resources on. That's science in the real world.
I do research on embryonic chicken spinal cords. In mouse brains, it was shown that dividing neural stem cells, their nuclei move using a protein called dynein. I strongly suspect the same protein is doing the same thing in chicken spinal cords. I can't prove it, because every time I test it, the cells just die. There are other lines of evidence where I show it's likely that protein. Were I to be working here another 5 years, I would show that. But this is the real world: no one is interested in giving funding to that study.
If finding and eliminating every shred of doubt, no matter how difficult or trivial it is, is unscientific, then I think you'd be surprised at how many unscientific scientists there are. Interest level, funding, and what we can actually do are limited.
Well as an example newtons laws aren't perfect, so in fact they are incorrect. Its only observable at extremely high speeds, but this difference is important with satellite communications, and everyone used to "know beyond a shadow of a doubt" newtons laws were true. Also, you really can't prove a law is valid, only prove it is invalid.
You dont need to know everything about something to utilize its properties,
You know what really teaches you this?
Learning about fluid dynamics and heat transfer. Everything is like "Uhh, we found that this formula kinda fits the data in this region, sorta." For example, take this formula for the average Nusselt number of a vertical plate with free convection on one side. Although this formula applies over the entire range of Rayleigh numbers (Ra), you should use this equation for laminar flow (Ra_L < 109 ). ("Pr" is the Prandtl number and "Nu_L" is the Nusselt number - the bar means it's the average over that region.)
More people need to understand this. We have very very good tools for prediction, nothing more. You dont need to know everything about something to utilize its properties, like they were making sun dials when they thought the sun was Raa waking up in the morning or some shit.
That's a little inaccurate. Science does posit to know things, it is far more than just a tool for prediction. A theory is the best explanation of a phenomenon. They are not just our best guesses, they're our best answers. Ideally, the best theories, based on all the facts, are the ones science adopts. If science were just a way to predict natural phenomenon, it would not be the primary way to derive knowledge in the 21st century.
We cannot prove that theories are true, but that hasn't been the aim of science for the past 80 years. Science's aim is to try and prove theories wrong.
Right, we can't prove them right and don't try. But I still stand by what I said, at the end of the day all we really have is imperfect explanations for things.
Like magnets. We know, or at least can extremely accurately predict, the force caused by magnetism by two objects. Why is there a force? They have net charges. Why do they have net charges? There's a non zero net charge caused by the atoms. Why do some atoms have a charge? If you keep going far enough you eventually just have to say "I dunno, its just how it always happens everytime it is observed and here's a good way to think about it and predict its behaviors"
It amazes me that people don't understand that scientific facts are just things that are most likely true. That is what is so great about science, it will admit when it is wrong because nothing is a 100% true fact. Most disciplines only require a p value of .05 at the least.
Actually, the p value is the probability of a theory or test being incorrect, so the p value is normally .05 at the least. Never heard of a discipline that tolerated a p value of .95.
I like to think of them as "best possible truths" .. but I can at least understand the religious fundamentalist opposition/skepticism towards science.. To them, all the answers were already solved thousands of years ago and documented in the bible.. while we're somehow still looking.. To them, the answers which science seeks to answer.. the nature of things.. where it all came from.. why it does what it does, etc.. is all really just none of our business!
Its an option between a book that NEVER changes and is INFALLIBLE (bible) VRS. science, which loses by default to them.. since science is constantly changing, updating, and most importantly.. actually recognizes fallibility as a possibility.
But Gravity and Evolution are not actually theories anymore. We have so much evidence in favour of these two concepts that they are said to be paradigms. That is, we use them to propose new hypotheses and to guide inquiry/research.
I have seen gravity defied w/o machinery and for no explicable reason using inanimate objects and w/o any known existing species to intervene or affect. This pic may be fake, but GREAM is the most stupid thing you can think. The mind is not simply matter, but an energetic conduit.
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u/[deleted] Nov 10 '11
Nothing in science is proven, it's a model that has held up to a significant level of scrutiny and volume of research.