I Hate Astronomers

To J Sonmez:

No offense, but on the basis of your opinion, you're recommending people should put their greatest faith in the facts? Have you carefully thought through on what you're saying? To wit: How can one reliably recognize a fact versus an opinion, let alone a theory? Even being an eye-witness - the most primal way we each may determine and declare something to be a fact - is still a means fraught with errors.

Here is some food for thought. Though we moderns tend to conflate "fact" with "truth", the word originally was in regards to something having been made or done. A fact is a small bit of history or proto-history, if you will. The veracity of a fact will always be a matter of trusting the source, whether that's your own experience or a story from someone else. However, facts in and of themselves do not explain the world, and even so, how does one properly sort out which ones should be believed and which ones are suspect. Can one reliably see through trickery; can one avoid misinterpreting or misremembering what was seen?

And really, how does one "prove" a fact? That is to say, beyond being able to convince someone else that it is? Feel free to bring up evidence, if you like, but evidence comes from the word "evident" - something that is clearly seen or understood. Which brings one back to being either an eye-witness or believing that one already knows.

I'm not trying to be cute here, just saying that facts are not inherently provable.