I disagree. This is one of those arguments that's insoluable because it eventually winds down to semantics. One perspective holds that, as science makes no claim to ultimate authority--theories rather than givens--it makes no statement about "truth," while the other maintains that any attempt to describe the world involves an assertion of belief and therefore an assertion of "the way things are," i.e. which things are "true." So instead of arguing, here is Robertson Davies, who is classy: "Life itself is too great a miracle for us to make so much fuss about potty little reversals of what we pompously assume to be the natural order."
"Truth" in science runs afoul of semantics only because we use certain language which happens to be convenient and mostly OK most of the time. But science makes no real claim about what the world "actually is" (I put that in quotes as it is language of convenience)--it is too empirical for that. It can only describe the assembled body of experience. That it does this well is not particularly relevant in overcoming this core limitation.
For example, in physics we have a really good theory of the atom, which we say is good because it includes all known observations and there is no reason to expect any data which will force a serious revision. Still, there is a finite possibility that there will be something crazy, like a fifth fundamental force that only works over incredibly short ranges that we've never seen, that forces a revaluation of all of particle physics and what we know about the atom. This is what happens in science all the time. The theory which describes the neutrino, for example, has undergone fundamental shifts in the last decade or so due to impressive new experiments; neutrinos, which before came in three different "flavors" (electron neutrino, tau neutrino, mu neutrion), are now described as linear superpositions of three other species with the spectacular names 1, 2, and 3. There is further some evidence that might actually be more, supermassive flavors of neutrinos. In 1929 the neutrino was one particle which fixed a small problem with momentum in nuclear decay. In 1900 it was generally agreed that the physics of the 20th century was to be the physics of the 7th and 8th decimal places.
Kant raised an interesting objection to a priori knowledge in science. He said that everything we can possibly imagine, and therefore experience, must be either spatial or temporal. There might be more to the universe that is neither, but not only can we never know it, we also can never know that we don't know it. There are certain things we can know for sure, such as a statement in mathematics is true, because it can be proven in as rigorous a manner of which humans are capable. In general truth follows as a consequence of knowing the axioms of a system. If you can only make a guess at those axioms, and, as in science, your guess must be inherently incomplete to a degree which is entirely unknowable, how can you ever claim any sort of truth? The best anybody yet knows how to do is say its a good model, empirical accuracy, and leave it at that. There is no confidence a better guess won't come along. Of course, what do you say if ten million years in the future, nothing better has come along? That this becomes "true" is, like you say, a matter of semantics, but more than that I think it is a matter of sloppiness.
So this got kind of long, but its a fun topic and I'm bored.
Hmmmmmmmm. I think your argument is perfectly valid. Unfortunately, while science, as you say, makes no claim to any sort of truth, it must come to us via the medium of scientists. While religion does claim to provide or reveal or whatever the truth, it has the same problem. And hey, you're raising the intellectual tone of my lj tenfold.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-12-22 08:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 09:39 am (UTC)So instead of arguing, here is Robertson Davies, who is classy: "Life itself is too great a miracle for us to make so much fuss about potty little reversals of what we pompously assume to be the natural order."
no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 09:26 pm (UTC)For example, in physics we have a really good theory of the atom, which we say is good because it includes all known observations and there is no reason to expect any data which will force a serious revision. Still, there is a finite possibility that there will be something crazy, like a fifth fundamental force that only works over incredibly short ranges that we've never seen, that forces a revaluation of all of particle physics and what we know about the atom. This is what happens in science all the time. The theory which describes the neutrino, for example, has undergone fundamental shifts in the last decade or so due to impressive new experiments; neutrinos, which before came in three different "flavors" (electron neutrino, tau neutrino, mu neutrion), are now described as linear superpositions of three other species with the spectacular names 1, 2, and 3. There is further some evidence that might actually be more, supermassive flavors of neutrinos. In 1929 the neutrino was one particle which fixed a small problem with momentum in nuclear decay. In 1900 it was generally agreed that the physics of the 20th century was to be the physics of the 7th and 8th decimal places.
Kant raised an interesting objection to a priori knowledge in science. He said that everything we can possibly imagine, and therefore experience, must be either spatial or temporal. There might be more to the universe that is neither, but not only can we never know it, we also can never know that we don't know it. There are certain things we can know for sure, such as a statement in mathematics is true, because it can be proven in as rigorous a manner of which humans are capable. In general truth follows as a consequence of knowing the axioms of a system. If you can only make a guess at those axioms, and, as in science, your guess must be inherently incomplete to a degree which is entirely unknowable, how can you ever claim any sort of truth? The best anybody yet knows how to do is say its a good model, empirical accuracy, and leave it at that. There is no confidence a better guess won't come along. Of course, what do you say if ten million years in the future, nothing better has come along? That this becomes "true" is, like you say, a matter of semantics, but more than that I think it is a matter of sloppiness.
So this got kind of long, but its a fun topic and I'm bored.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-23 10:50 am (UTC)And hey, you're raising the intellectual tone of my lj tenfold.