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/sci/ - Science & Math

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5547246 No.5547246 [Reply] [Original]

How well do you trust what the scientific community calls fact, when it is so often changed and proven wrong time and time again?

I mean, how well can you trust modern science when you know in one hundred years, every science book will be unrecognizable, and they'll look back at what we knew know and laugh at it?

I struggle with this all the time.

>> No.5547261

What's the alternative? What we think we know right now is the best approximation anyone can make.
The fact that Newton's 2nd law is incomplete didn't hinder the invention of cars, airplanes, trains and skyscrapers. It's not the whole story but it's a damn good approximation.

>> No.5547266

I don't think it's really called "fact" by anyone but yeah that might be discomforting. Then again, I don't think ancient humans wondered about people discovering what really caused lightning instead of gods or spirits or something.

>> No.5547269

Yeah, fuck science. Always trying to figure out the truth and shit.

>> No.5547273

>>5547269
I'm not saying fuck science at all. I just sometimes get these weird thoughts about how the thing I turn to for answers might just entirely be wrong.

>> No.5547282

Like what, OP? The basic fundamentals of science hold pretty true. Evolution is a thing, gravity is a thing, electromagnetism; and a lot of equations and theories that go along with them are accurate, or at the least, defined as accurate within a certain scope of criteria. The stuff that's proven wrong time and time again isn't really stated to be a fact in the first place. If anything, what should bother you (as it does me) is your incapability to trust the human race anymore, whether through news or the media or through direct conversation. That's what bothers me. How I can't ever be truly emotionally moved by anything I hear, because I question its validity right away. With science, I know I am expected to question, so I don't feel so... disappointed.

>> No.5547297

>>5547273
It's not going to be "wrong" per se. If something works then it works. Newton's laws aren't "wrong," they just have a limited range of applicability. They're an approximation to deeper theories. Just because be have QED doesn't mean that Maxwell's Equations are "wrong." Whether or not we have a theory of quantum gravity in 50 years will have no bearing on the validity of General Relativity. GR will simply be an approximation of a deeper theory.

That's what science is. We learn more and get a deeper understanding in the process.

>> No.5547317

http://danluvisiart.deviantart.com/art/LMS-HEX-178886965

I've been wondering where this image came from

>> No.5547322

Don't be searching for absolute truth, OP -- thats not what science does. Ofcourse our current knowledge will be only a small piece of picture in the future.
You know, newton mechanics didn't stop working after constuction of quantum mechanics or special relativity. It just became a piece of it, a special case.

>> No.5547383

>>5547246
You accept truths to explain the world until these truths are left impractical or false.
Realistically we can not prove the three most fundamental facts of the universe we only accept them because it is convenient.
A good thing to think about if you start to research.
The best thing to do is just to look over all information you are told and care about its determination.
I trust the scientific community in most fields. There are just a few I watch out for one being medical since there are far to many people who can gain from biased research.

>> No.5547387

>>5547383
/thread
/science

>> No.5547399

>>5547322
Basically this. It's not that science (for the most part) was or is wrong in its theories, but that it was and or is incomplete. Newtonian physics still works after hundreds of years with 100% accuracy, just within in its scope.

>> No.5547404

>>5547273

As opposed to...what?

Where else would you turn that ISN'T completely wrong? Or that, rather than changing when it's proven wrong, just clings to its original statement, making itself even more wrong?

>> No.5547410

>>5547246
>calls fact
You mean hypothesis and theory? The only facts I know are mathematical.

>> No.5547426

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=approximation

>> No.5547432

>>5547246
yeah that's true an all op, but there's no better alternative than science