Comment by hakaaaaak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hakaaaaak | Hacker News Reader

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Watch it. Next thing you know you'll admit that we don't really "know" anything and get into the realm of metaphysics! But, I agree. In fact, the fallibility of science should be something taught in elementary school along with the scientific principle. It is already taught that science helped us get from "the sun revolves around the earth" to "the earth revolves around the sun", but we are not taught about differences in outcomes of valid scientific studies proving AND disproving global warming and what that really means, which is that science is biased, flawed, and does NOT elucidate truth, but it is helpful and practical in many ways and produces what is currently accepted as "fact".

It is important to have a critical mind when it comes to science and understand that faith doesn't just reside in religion- atheists and those that claim that science have the answer to everything often truly believe that science is a constant or that it "evolves" as some sort of mystical truth that will lead us to enlightenment, but, practically speaking, science is always incorrect. We don't have all of the answers and we never will. Don't get me wrong- science has made huge advancements in our civilization and almost everything we interact with has been produced in part or has been affected by science, often in a good way but not always. However, science is not and never should be a religion. You can use scientific principles and "facts", but if you call it science, do not be beholden to those "facts".

This does not mean that we should give up exploration or research at all. But by accepting the wonder that is everything we don't and will never completely understand, we are all scientists.

No faith needed, at least for a philosophically grounded scientist. We are never going to get at some essential true nature through science. What we can do is expand our reality and capabilities in the world by creating useful models, and creating new models when the old ones are no longer sufficient.

Almost every person, scientist or no, has personal beliefs in addition to understanding of some of the scientific models we use. The two shouldn't be conflated though.

The fallibility of thought and observation should be taught over "science", because otherwise we'll have even more obnoxious pseudoskeptics than we do today, who think that yeah, what does "science" know anyway? Then proceed on with their folksy but ungrounded, still harmful beliefs.

But people associate "the results of the study on..." with science and fact (truth), rather that is possibly evidence-based but may be wrong because it is biased, misguided, or incomplete. People assume that there is such a thing as fact produced by science, and when they learn this fact from a teacher, friend, the media, etc., then they believe these things are true, and that they will not change. That is not science.

Using unhelpful skepticism as a reason for hiding the fallibility of science will produce more generations of people that believe whatever the scientists tell them, which at times will be wrong and yet accepted by almost everyone as truth.

"Using unhelpful skepticism as a reason for hiding the fallibility of science"

I'm not suggesting that, I'm suggesting a de-emphasis on framing it as a matter of "science" and leaving folk wisdom and all other assumptions of perspective and "trusted sources" untouched.

This is a problem far more deeply engrained than just the public's perception of science.

I think the primary problem is the inability for most people to self reflect on what they know, and most importantly, whether they even know it at all, to critically evaluate their assumptions about the universe and the extra meta level of how they came to those assumptions. It is painful to mercilessly question yourself and your entire belief system and in today's world it is probably harder than ever to build a coherent picture of reality due to increasing noise and complexity of ideas.

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