[AQXt]

The problem with philosophy is that you can't tell the difference between an honest effort to seek the truth and a frivolous attempt to display erudition to win the debate.

Science is not perfect, but it provides evaluation mechanisms to reduce the doubt.

[vehemenz]

> The problem with philosophy is that you can't tell the difference between an honest effort to seek the truth and a frivolous attempt to display erudition to win the debate.

I'm not sure what you are including in "philosophy," but there are entire subfields dedicated to this very issue.

However, unlike the sciences, you have to work for it. Nature doesn't give you the answers.

[bonoboTP]

It's an annoying game because by this tactic philosophy is always good and important and can never be useless, because when you argue that it's useless, a philosopher will say "Gotcha! Now you are doing philosophy! You just proved how important philosophy is! Thanks for your contributions to it!" But if I don't do philosophy you keep prodding me "Hey, hey, philosophy is important, do philosophy!". If I tell you to go away because I don't need it for this and this reason, then I've fallen into the trap because I'm now doing philosophy.

But I guess science-denying people argue just like I did above when they dislike the idea that science admits that it may be wrong and will update itself with new evidence. But I can see how someone with a different epistemological footing would be annoyed with this.

Something of this sort can never be "wrong", because it will just incorporate an update when it's proven wrong. But is that updated thing really the same?

It's a cheap trick to try and get around of being ever truly wrong. If you turn out to be wrong you can just say "but I knew I may be wrong and would have to update" so you weren't really wrong in the deeper sense!

Note that I adhere to this scientific ethos as well, but I can see it has a wobbly structure in this way.