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> On Mon, 29 Aug 2005, Mike Hannibal wrote:
>
>> We also need to be careful here: "Science" is simply a
>> framework of belief, a set of rules that determine
>> whether something is or isn't "science".
>
Alex responded:

> Science is not just "a framework of belief".
> It is very different from all other "frameworks of belief".
> It is not a set of rules to determine "what is "science",
> it is a set of rules to determine what is TRUE.
> The ONLY set of rules available to determine this.

There is another description of the scientific method I like: "Science
cannot prove anything, it can only disprove the false."

How much of what we believe we have proven to be TRUE may later become
false? Think back to spontaneous generation of life proven to be false when
mesh was put over a jar opening so flies could not get in.  No more maggots.
Considered the recent suggestion that the speed of light is not a constant,
but rather a slowly changing variable.  Add in the apparent failure of
unification in physics without untestable (string) theories.  Pretty heavy
implications that what we think we know is in deep trouble.

A consolation is that by virtue of being out of my depth when standing in a
puddle in a parking lot, I have so much less to unlearn and relearn. 

Bill

   

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