[lifeisstillgood]

Two things -

1. science is the search for being right. It has brought us untold riches and wealth (and weapons). But getting humans to accept the provable facts is really really hard and usually progress is made a funeral at a time.

2. Most people who think they are right are not using scientific rigour but their own instincts and are usually full of hot air - see any middle manager for examples

So yes, you are right - ring right is the most important thing. We should bend ourselves to the correct truth.

however

It's almost impossible that the thing you are arguing about today actually has a right answer that you can prove to even a neutral outsiders standards.

[__MatrixMan__]

Science is the search for consensus about predictions. It says nothing of truth.

[wongarsu]

That's what happens in practice, but the idealized version of science (like if you properly apply the scientific method in your backyard with no outside influence) is an iterative process for getting closer to the truth. Or maybe closer to an accurate model of reality, since "truth" is a bit of a weird concept. Of course the end point ("truth") may be unreachable, and often we get stuck in local maxima until someone finds some radical new approach. But it strives to get closer to "truth".

[TheRealPomax]

It's... not? It's an iterative process to come to a deeper and more complete understanding of any subject, with the quality of the result being measured by how well predictions based on that understanding correspond to observation.

Science does not concern itself with "truth", it leaves that to the philosophers. Instead, it concerns itself with finding models and the (often vast) set(s) of preconditions that must hold before those models can be said to apply.

In fact, many branches of science know that they can't decide on truth, simply because of fundamental limits in what can be done by science, illustrated by things like Godel's incompleteness theorems, astrological event horizons, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, etc. etc. etc. It's not that we don't know whether we can find truth, it's that we know that we can't, and that reality is what science works within.

[kelseyfrog]

> It's not that we don't know whether we can find truth, it's that we know that we can't.

And that's just for external reality. Science can't penetrate subjective experience for reasons unrelated to incompleteness, event horizons, or uncertainty principles.

I've a strong opinion that folks tend to confuse the objective and subjective by misapplying preferences or experience as "is" in far too many circumstances and too many disagreements are people attempting to dominate the objective with their personal subjective. Language, rather than helping clarify, tends to muddy the waters in these cases too.

As part of a larger project that you touched on, I believe it's important to convey the bounds of science as an epistemological process. There are other epistemological frameworks to draw on that do cover these areas and likely new ones to discover or create. If you couldn't tell, I'm an epistemological pluralist.

[__MatrixMan__]

In practice, some seek truth and others seek a useful story to tell and, conveniently enough, they can pursue the same scientific goals without having to agree on philosophy.

But this frame you've got where truth exists in some kind of metric space... it sounds like metaphysics to me.

[epgui]

Science (to be more precise: "the natural sciences") is much more about developing useful models, discarding flawed models, and characterizing and quantifying uncertainty.

It's the closest thing you can possibly get to a "formal truth" about the real world.

[macrolocal]

Science is more like a willingness to admit you're wrong when some agreed upon standard is met.

[akvadrako]

Science has nothing to do with consensus – it's the belief in the ignorance of experts.

[epgui]

1. Science absolutely has something to do with consensus, as a practical matter. Because humans are agents of "bounded rationality", and humans do the science. We have to defer to expertise not because it's the "spiritually ideal" thing to do or whatever, but because we have no choice.

2. Science is not about belief in the ignorance of experts-- on the contrary, expertise in science is all about having the skills and the knowledge to characterize and quantify uncertainty.

[__MatrixMan__]

What does science have to do with experts?

When somebody announces that a certain kind of particle exists and has certain properties... And they're equipped with all of these arguments, backed by experiment, which will help you come to the same conclusion. That's science, right?

The invitation to perform the experiment, replicate the result, and start using stories about things you can't see (e.g . electrons) to explain the world around you, that's consensus building, because now you're using the same stories as everyone else who has followed the same process.

For best results we should be skeptical about any notion that those stories won't later be superceded by different ones (i.e. skeptical that they are true), but that's as much a belief in our own ignorance as it is in the belief in anyone else's. So where do the experts come in?

[phkahler]

>> science is the search for being right. It has brought us untold riches and wealth

IMHO science is about understanding well enough to make useful predictions.

[robocat]

> science is the search for being right

I thought science is actually the search for wrong - the null hypothesis. And science seems to mostly progress by showing your predecessors and colleagues are incorrect. The laws of science are nothing like laws.

[epgui]

It's both, but not really either of these, IMO.

It's more about characterizing and quantifying uncertainty.

And the "null hypothesis" focus in introductory stats is hotly contested, both pedagogically and philosophically. It's not wrong per se, but it can be a bit misleading and it's arguably not the most elegant framework.

[dennis_jeeves1]

>But getting humans to accept the provable facts is really really hard and usually progress is made a funeral at a time.

Corollary: it occasionally may regress one funeral at a time.

[perfmode]

there is no proof in reality

there is no science in truth

riches and wealth signal progress on a relative plane

what of the absolute?

[whyenot]

> science is the search for being right

Is it really though? To me science is more about asking questions and then figuring out how to answer them. Both right and wrong answers tell us something potentially new about the world around us.