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Comment by blackbear_ | Hacker News Reader

> Some people believe in science. [...] This is actually the opposite of science.

Adding to this, belief in science actually means believing in the _process_ of scientific discovery, i.e. believing that _eventually_ the "truth" will be discovered.

As you correctly point out, questioning the current consensus is a fundamental part of the process, but not all challenges to scientific knowledge are legitimate. Many (most?) concerns you hear in the mainstream media are not legitimate but based on logical fallacies, strawmen, ad hominem attacks, etc. I found this list [1] quite useful to guard against such unfounded attacks.

[1] http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/ENGL1311/fallacies.htm

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I don't think science is about "the truth", as the scientific process shouldn't allow definitive claims. Rather, there should always be an understanding that whatever is being said comes with a probability of being true. We can make a prediction and assign a likelihood the prediction will be accurate, but we can never say "this is the truth" using the scientific method. There are going to be things that are so close to true that they can be taken at face value, but science doesn't determine what that level is, that's a personal decision. It's up to the individual to determine what they accept as truth given the data they have, including nonscientific sources of information, such as expert opinion. Science has to reject expert opinion as a source of information, and yet the individual ( including scientists when not performing science) must accept expert opinion in order to live their lives.

Since is not about finding "the truth" as you put it, but it is about finding the current, most fitting truth. As circumstances change "the truth" also changes, as such science will never be able to find anything but "the current best bet".

Sure. I just don't think it's accurate to think science comes to a definitive conclusion. It is a process of constant discovery and coming closer and closer to the truth, but will never arrived at a final answer.

The idea that science is about finding the "less wrong", rather than the absolute truth, is actually fairly recent, only really becoming mainstream during the 20th century.

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