What if everything you know of science is wrong?

Science is ultimately supported by a philosophical viewpoint, but you have to have data to back up your observations and conclusions.

Science in the past ten years has become so politicized and divorced from material reality I wouldn't call anything in the soft sciences "science" anymore. Public Relations mixed with marketing and political propaganda.

Science doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but it's where we start. Knowledge is constantly being expanded on and improved. If the "facts" are incorrect, science will correct them.

I think what he is saying that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Whatever we know is open to being upended by new information. I don't think he meant that everything we know as science is wrong, but rather that it is possible that any one thing (or any number of things) can be wrong.

Science is based on logical thinking OP. It's closer to reality and truth than believing and pretending.

Let me put it this way:

If science in general or any particular scientific field is questioned by people who find the prevailing wisdom threatening or inconvenient... I believe the science.

I hate this topic because it feels potentially like trolling.

OP thinks the Earth is flat and that men become women by wearing their clothes.

I’ve always had my doubts about Specific Heat and Absolute Zero?

i'VE ALWAYS HAD MY DOUBT ABOUT SCIENTIFIC RESTRICTION ABOUT WHAT CANNOT BE PUT "IN THERE."

This topic is very uncomfortable for the evangelical physicalists who are scared of epistemological literacy (this is why they rush to insults instead of arguments). They are just as intolerant to different perspectives and creativity as the religious are.

Blood Types are made up just to charge some people more.

That whole dolphins are so smart is just because they have a strong lobbyist organization.

I think many are under this mistaken notion that science is clean and homogeneous and that there's certainty. It does not help that shills like Neil Degrasse Tyson and others with their arrogance and condescension mislead and muddy the waters. Many scientists are glorified shills, they get funded and paid to show results based on whatever circumstance.

[quote] This topic is very uncomfortable for the evangelical physicalists who are scared of epistemological literacy (this is why they rush to insults instead of arguments). They are just as intolerant to different perspectives and creativity as the religious are.

Reeeeaaaad, girl, and do with class and intelligence.

*do IT

Holy crap. People like R1 and R13 scare the living daylights out of me. And as for R10...

The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.

Has it [italic]always[/italic] been the case that “the good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it”?

Have no “scientific certainties” in the history of science been invalidated, i.e., reevaluated as false?

DUMB CUNTING thread opener. EVERYTHING in science can't be wrong.

What if you looked like David Gandy, were hung like Danny Dong, and had the intellect of Magnus Carlsen. Well, what if? WHAT IF!!!!???

If you have doubts about an specific topic (It's imposible to generalize about "science" as a whole) you are alway welcome to find your own answers and propose new paradigms, but you must prove them, find evidence, and everyone should be able to find the same answers following your methods. I do believe tha trust the scientists is an act of faith, but the scientific method make really easy to spot the frauds eventually, so the act of faith comes with some certainties.

Are you ready for another Red Pill to election losses with the OP?

science only grows from being wrong, that's why it CAN be trusted. science evolves and looks for new indisputable evidence until phenomena is completely understood. it doesn't care what anyone believes.

The history of science is very interesting, because it shows how things that were certain in science turned out not to true and scientific facts had to be changed. The atom being indivisible is one of the most famous examples. It’s very likely that some things scientists now believe to be true will not be true in the future.

[quote]science evolves and looks for new indisputable evidence until phenomena is completely understood. it doesn't care what anyone believes.

Science has always had a scientific establishment and orthodoxy that limits what is accepted. In the period we are in, there is even more limitation based on political correctness. So scientists, and thus science itself, do care what others believe. On the other hand, there have always been scientists who were ahead of their time, presenting new findings, who were ostracized in their day for defying orthodoxy but who are now known to have been correct.

Much of history that is spoon fed to children in public schools has been proven wrong.

Why not science?

The thing about current science is that certain inconvenient truths are being held back or distorted in the name of political correctness.

You know what I’m talking about.

I’m a lady!

Yes, I can get pregnant if my man ejaculate inside me

[quote]What if everything you know of science is wrong?

Except for the men having male reproductive systems and the women having female reproductive systems part?

[quote]What if everything you know of science is wrong?

I will be consulting my future with my fortune teller like you do, OP.

What if it's not?

The trans debate will break apart the myth of Scientific 'Orthodoxy'. No working scientist or academic is allowed to publish papers which contradict what the Trans activists say. "Research guided by activism" is not exactly being done via 'Scientific Method', although it is presented as if it were.

Sure - Pi and the Boltzmann constant are social constructs.

How can everything you know of science be wrong when for the most of things that science claims, you can see for yourself are true?

Didn't anyone here have to read Thomas Kuhn in grad school? Or was that just for us social scientists?

Back in the day, I remember seeing "Subvert the dominant paradigm" bumper stickers every now and then. Now, never.

So, in the abstract, OP has a point. If you ever want to watch a movie to illustrate this, check out Dark Matter (2007), in which Meryl Streep plays a minor role. This is the kind of movie that makes a grad student (or former grad student) squirm just watching it. I had similar issues in my Ph.D. program, that inspired me to walk away without my Ph.D. but with my pride intact.

R25 yes exactly like 13/52. Everyone knows. But we aren’t allowed to say it.

"Aren't allowed to say it" = the Death of Scientific Enquiry

Oh I read Kuhn and spent a week with him when I was a freshman in the 80s. He dined out on that book for decades. I tried to discuss the book with Hans Bethe, who rolled his eyes. Below his VERY high forehead.

[quote]What if everything you know of science is wrong?

Which is literally the point of science.

[quote]you know what I mean

[quote]aren’t allowed to say it

Oh ffs just say it!

R39, posters are trying to keep the thread open. That’s where we are.

Deborah Soh has stated that it’s impossible for scientists to speak or write openly on the topic within the confines of academia. She was told tenure would not keep her safe.

So she left academia and became a journalist.

R34 is my hero.

R22: "The history of science is very interesting, because it shows how things that were certain in science turned out not to true and scientific facts had to be changed. The atom being indivisible is one of the most famous examples. It’s very likely that some things scientists now believe to be true will not be true in the future."

No. This is where so many of you anti-science people fuck up, or at least follow fucked-up logic. The FACTS are the facts -true and unchanging. It is the interpretation and explanation of the facts which is changeable. I know many people are living in a fact-free universe these days, or at least trying to. But nonetheless in our universe there are facts. Too many people falsely equate "fact" with "true" and "opinion" with "false." If I say 2+3=47 I am speaking factually -albeit incorrectly. I can be proved wrong with objective reality. That I can be wrong about a fact doesn't invalidate the fact -it invalidates ME. Clinging to what has been proven wrong is insanity. Willingness to correct errors and reinterpret in light of new information IS science.

All of this attacking of objective reality smacks of Trumpism.

Oh, dear.

Arrogance always unravels itself.

5 science “facts” that are completely wrong

20 of the Greatest Blunders in Science in the Last 20 Years

21 science 'facts' you might have learned in school that aren't true

R44, no wonder they put the word facts in parentheses. The word should be misconceptions. Just because people are ignorant, their ignorance is not “fact”.

And r45, those “blunders” were not scientific blunders. They were blunders made by PEOPLE.

The FACT of the matter is that science has been and will continue to be wrong. That’s not to say I deny science as a whole - I do not - but I am skeptical of extremism on either side of the pendulum.

In fact, some might say skepticism is the fulcrum of science.

Some people seem to be under the misapprehension that science claims to always be right. Science offers the best, most reasonable explanation of the known facts, and updates its claims when new facts and information come to light. It is a process, not an entity.

Nice try, OP, but I’m still going to get the COVID vaccine.

[quote][Science] is a process, not an entity.

Precisely why dubious declarations such as “science is right” make no sense.

R49, science is not wrong. People are often wrong.

We're really entering into the fucking dark ages here, aren't we?

I'm aware that scientists make mistakes, but if given a choice between listening to a scientist and the denialists who post here, who do you think I should listen to?

I've tried to bring a little reason to this thread, but I give up. Too much like feeding the trolls. Let the philosophers here rant and rave about the unknowableness of knowing and the history of false statements made by somebody or other. I will remain in the land of the sane and scientific that keeps the world going along for these idiots. Hasta!

Damn that pesky law of gravity is such bullshit.

I agree, r54 and r55. Time to off this thread.

This thread reeks of Trump ignoramuses (ignorami?)

Some of the posters here are the same types of Evangelical evolution deniers who think they sound smart when they say "Evolution is just a theory".

Theories explain facts.

Evolution is a fact. Darwin's theory explains that fact until there comes along someone else who has a better explanation, based upon evidence, of the fact of evolution.

Gravity is a fact. If I recall correctly, Newton's theory is still the most accepted theory of that fact.

1. All scientists agree

2. Scientist disagrees

3. Scientist is silenced by the mob

4. All scientists agree...

The scientist that disagrees can provide valid facts or theory as to why they disagree. If it is just an opinion, then opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.

Science is a form of inquiry, not a belief system.

The anti-science brigade strikes again.

Setting aside the laughable strawmen and simplistic "science" that is quoted as being "wrong," the underlying argument of this "what if" is built on a fundamentally flawed premise.

The same people who believe in religion and a grey bearded sky daddy giving out gifts cannot help but view science as a matter of faith and belief.

smh.

[quote] (this is why they rush to insults instead of arguments)

As evidenced in this thread. I listen to and respect science; I don’t worship it and certainly don’t insult others who question it.

Some of the best and most prescient scientists questioned- and continue to question- the science of their day.

Have you noticed in this very thread that the science worshipers are intolerant to other perspectives? Their religious behavior is amusing.

Something for our QAnon-adjacent science deniers:

R65 Are you retarded or is your obstinance just a reflex?

Dear R66, don't you have some children to save from Wayfair armoirs? Or own me (a scientist) by jumping out of a window and thereby disproving the law of gravity?

R67 Oh honey, don’t even try flicking your greasy and paranoid straw man arguments my way. I’m sure you’ll next accuse me of completely denying science, which I have not, and of being a Trump supporter, which I am not.

How very scientific of you.

Interesting how R68 links to three articles on what laypeople get wrong about science, not what scientists get wrong about science.

Academia and NGOs are both entirely corrupted now, and to the extent that science is a part of academia and NGOs, science is corrupted too.

Science provides a model for reality. If a better model comes along the old one is discarded. But deep down is a firm believe that there is such a thing as reality, which can be quantified and is predictable. It’s about finding the truth not about controlling the narrative and discarding every bit that does not fit. Like journalism does nowadays.

Whatevs.

It's the old Buddhist parable of the blind men and the elephant.

Science is falsifiable. Meaning, if it can't be replicated, it wasn't correct, and discarded. Belief systems, such as religions, continue even when their beliefs have been proven false.

Science embraces and acknowledges change as the amount of knowledge on a subject increases. In other words, when what Science thinks it knew about something changes, Science acknowledges that. Belief systems, such as religions, never change, never acknowledge that what they was believed was wrong. It's the original received word, and that's that.

[quote] Belief systems, such as religions, continue even when their beliefs have been proven false.

How do you prove a religious belief, such as the existence of God or angels or an afterlife for the soul, is false? Whatever you are relying on as “proof” that it is false certainly cannot prove it.

[quote] But deep down is a firm believe that there is such a thing as reality, which can be quantified and is predictable.

Scientists acknowledge that “reality” is defined and limited by what we can perceive. There may be things that are “real” that are outside our ability to perceive them.

R74 He didn't stated the existence of God or angels or an afterlife for the soul. He said even when their beliefs have been proven false. Many of the religious believes can be proven to be wrong. By your logic, how do you prove that pink elephants or Santa don't exist? You can't.

Agreed R6. It's 100% trolling by a religious zealot in an underhanded effort to diminish the impact of logical thinking which is based on proof - in other words; science.