Science And Truth

[Guest]

A couple of quotes:

Karl Popper, one of the twentieth century's greatest philosophers of science, wrote:

First, although in science we do our best to find the truth, we are conscious of the fact that we can never be sure whether we have got it.... We know that our scientific theories always remain hypotheses.... In science there is no "knowledge in the sense in which Plato and Aristotle understood the word, in the sense which implies finality; in science, we never have sufficient reason for the belief that we have attained the truth.... Einstein declared that his theory was false: he said that it would be a better approximation to the truth than Newton's, but he gave reasons why he would not, even if all predictions came out right, regard it as a true theory.... Our attempts to see and to find the truth are not final, but open to improvement:...our knowledge, our doctrine is conjectural;...it consist of guesses, of hypotheses rather than of final and certain truths.

The Logic of Scientific Discovery in 1959


Bertrand Russell:

"the general principles of science . . . are believed because mankind have found innumerable instances of their truth and no instances of their falsehood. But this affords no evidence for their truth in the future, unless the inductive principle is assumed."
The Problems of Philosophy', ch. 6.

So how much should we rely on science to give us truth?

[Guest]

In science there is no "knowledge in the sense in which Plato and Aristotle understood the word, in the sense which implies finality; in science, we never have sufficient reason for the belief that we have attained the truth....

This may not reflect a weakness in science. It may simply indicate the chief epistemolgical problem. In epistemology (one facet of philosophy),
a person P is said to know that sentence S is true if:

1. S is, in fact, true.

2. P believes, that is, has 100% confidence, that S is true.

3. P has sufficient evidence that S is true.

The main difficulty with a knowledge claim is found in the word "sufficient". How much evidence constitutes "sufficient evidence"?
There is no general agreement on that. Indeed, with universal propositions, there never can be "sufficient evidence" in a practical sense. For example, consider the statement:

All ravens are black.

I may be able to display ten black ravens, or a hundred, or a billion. But this evidence is not sufficient to prove that "all ravens are black". There just could be a non-black raven out there somewhere.

[Guest]

In science there is no "knowledge in the sense in which Plato and Aristotle understood the word, in the sense which implies finality; in science, we never have sufficient reason for the belief that we have attained the truth....

This may not reflect a weakness in science. It may simply indicate the chief epistemolgical problem. In epistemology (one facet of philosophy),
a person P is said to know that sentence S is true if:

1. S is, in fact, true.

2. P believes, that is, has 100% confidence, that S is true.

3. P has sufficient evidence that S is true.

The main difficulty with a knowledge claim is found in the word "sufficient". How much evidence constitutes "sufficient evidence"?
There is no general agreement on that. Indeed, with universal propositions, there never can be "sufficient evidence" in a practical sense. For example, consider the statement:

All ravens are black.

I may be able to display ten black ravens, or a hundred, or a billion. But this evidence is not sufficient to prove that "all ravens are black". There just could be a non-black raven out there somewhere.

Yes that is the other problem with induction, and science is based largely on induction. This is why I believe that Biblical Revelation (as a source of truth) must trump scientific assumptions.

[Guest]

Yes that is the other problem with induction, and science is based largely on induction. This is why I believe that Biblical Revelation (as a source of truth) must trump scientific assumptions.

Okay. Now if we could be really certain about revelation!

Personal "revelation" seems subjective. Many say, "God told me this." We find that "God told others" something to the contrary.

As for Biblical revelation, we have the problem of which parts reflect God's inspiration of the authors ---- or if "every scripture is inspired" (as some translate it), then what qualifies as "scripture"? Only the Hebew scriptures? There are disagreements even about which of them should be included.

The New Testament canon was not defined until the fourth century. Prior to that there was disagreement about which writings to include. Even Athanasius included an OT book in his list of writings (that he described as "wells of salvation") which was subsequently rejected.

It's difficult or impossible to get an absolute handle on the truth. This leaves some with a feeling of insecurity, and so they latch onto some "absolute truths" to which they cling, and of which they will never let go ---- no matter what the evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps we simply have to act according to probability. In fact, we do just that in ordinary life. We trust a chair because it will probably hold us up. It has done so in the past. Yet, I have seen someone (on more than one occasion) sit in a chair and observe it to collapse under him.

It seems we do not possess absolute certainty. Thus we must act in keeping with probability. This is called "faith" --- Not groundless, blind faith, but experimental faith initially, and then experiential faith.

[Guest]

Paidion makes a good case for the view I currently hold. Jesus spoke about different types of soil recieving the same seed, with a varied end result. We often overlook the fact that what a person becomes convinced of is many times the result of the state of their heart. A person wanting to do evil will naturally reject the gospel because it would prevent them from continuing to do what they love doing. Someone who knows they are evil but craves to be pure in heart will more naturally accept the gospel.

Belief without absolute proof is involved in either case so the state of one's heart becomes the deciding factor. This has to be the case, because the sufficiency of the evidence is completely subjective. If evidence were not subjective, we wouldn't have so many debates in scientific circles. Einstein was smart enough to realize this and honest enough to admit it.