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[Philosophy Explorer]

What do we really know about science? For example, some claim that due to it being fluid, then science can not exist to which I can counter, what is it that can not exist? (see my point?) Or some will say that science relies on undefined terms and axioms to which I counter, so what? That flexibility is what give science its strength, the power to grow.

I turn the floor over to you.

PhilX

[A Poster He or I]

In grade school I was taught that the findings of science are objective truth, based on its great practical success and the rigor of the scientific method. It wasn't till I was an adult that I came to see the progressive nature of theoretical science for how it actually functions; how new theory comprehensively subsumes old theory rather than simply displacing it. But at the same time, I came to see how no theory is ever objectively true; they are models who owe their functionality mostly to what they can selectively ignore about reality, not what they can illuminate. Eventually, these realizations led me to Positivism, which I think is an excellent epistemology for scientific research, while at the same time I think it is a horrible epistemology for living. I ultimately found balance in the views of Bohr, whose Principle of Complementarity gives science the human dimension I want it to have while his Copenhagen Interpretation keeps science intellectually rigorous.

[Jklint]

Science per se is what it investigates, nothing more or less. On the other hand the consequences of its investigations become the instruments of destiny...good or bad.

[Paradigmer]

What do we really know about science? For example, some claim that due to it being fluid, then science can not exist to which I can counter, what is it that can not exist? (see my point?) Or some will say that science relies on undefined terms and axioms to which I counter, so what? That flexibility is what give science its strength, the power to grow.

I turn the floor over to you.

PhilX

Hi Philx, IMO, the epistemology of science with the officially endorsed scientific method, is in its true value with its pragmatic theory of truth. This is not a good criteria of truth as a result of false positives are possible, nonetheless, its propositions on know-how are self-apparent in their applications.

Although the equatorial mount, celestial sphere, and celestial coordinate system were the inventions of geocentrism, they are so successful, simpler, and cost effective that they are still being used in modern astronomy. And when it comes to astrophotography, even the modern Alt-Azimuth GoTo system of modern science is pragmatically inferior in comparison. These are examples on the true values with the pragmatic theory of truth with the scientific know-how of geocentrism, and these are regardless of their false positives for their propositional knowledge of an Earth-centered universe.

Science as it is, at its best it is merely valid in the subjective reality of its conceptual framework for its pragmatic applications.