Scientific Knowledge

Another RAZD Vs bluegenes Great Debate Peanut gallery spinoff.Over in the Peanut Gallery RAZD is asserting that knowledge requires absolute certainty. Given that ALL scientific conclusions are tentative RAZD is effectively denying the ability of scientific investigation to result in knowledge about the world. Consider the following: I am holding a pen above my desk. I am going to let go of it.

What do you think my pen will do?

How confident can we be of this conclusion?

Can this conclusion meaningfully be called "scientific knowledge" or not?

How probable is it that my pen will do something entirely inconsistent with the predictions of science?

​

Now I would say that I know, even before doing it, that when I drop my pen it will drop as gravity predicts. Tentatively - If you insist on philosophical pendaticism. But I KNOW to all practical intents and purposes.

​

Why tentative? Well it is conceivably possible that there is some reason that my prediction could be entirely wrong. The universe could conceivably have been created fully formed 1 second ago with completely different physical laws (esp with regard to falling pens) than the ones I falsely remember. So even when I say that I KNOW this degree of tentativity is implicit. Because as far as I am concerned ALL such knowledge is necessarily and thus implicitly tentative in this manner. So where does this leave us?

​

ALL scientific conclusions regarding the past depend on rejecting things like the 1 second universe proposition and all scientific conclusions regarding the future depend on the inductively derived conclusion that the laws of nature will continue into the future as they have demonstrated themselves to be up to now. Neither of these things have been, or can be, tested prior to the conclusion being drawn. Therefore ALL scientific knowledge is necessarily tentative no matter how well tested a particular conclusion may seem to be. With that in mind here are my own answers to my own questions:

​

What do you think my pen will do?

​

It will fall under gravity (+the effects of air resistance/flow - for the scientifically pedantic amongst us)

​

How confident can we be of this conclusion?

​

Very. It is very improbable that the pen will do anything but act in accordance with the objectively evidenced laws of physics.

​

Can this conclusion meaningfully be called "scientific knowledge" or not?

​

Yes it can. Tentativity is implicit because all evidence based knowledge is necessarily tentative.

​

How probable is it that my pen will do something entirely inconsistent with the predictions of science?

​

How probable is it that the universe was created 1 second ago with different physical laws to the ones we believe? If the behaviour of my pen as predicted by science can be considered very likely to be correct then conversely any evidentially baseless alternative is "very improbable". How can it be otherwise?

​

In the absence of certainty all we have are statements of relative likelihood. And science operates on the basis that objectively evidenced conclusions are far more likely to be correct than the various evidentially baseless alternatives.

​

Where this leaves claims of supernatural entities actually existing as compared to the likelihood that they are human conceptual inventions is something we can come back to. Here we are simply talking about what constitutes "scientific knowledge".

​

Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I think this is what it all boils down to. If you want to be a nit picker, RAZD is correct. Absolute knowledge does require absolute certainty. However, we don't live in a world that affords absolute certainty. What we have instead is practical knowledge that works for our day to day lives.My own feelings are that practical knowledge is different from faith based beliefs. While we may not have absolute certainty, we do have previous experiences and independent verification through inference that an idea seems to work. This is in stark contrast to faith based beliefs where there is no verification or inference from independent data.Science is practical knowledge. It doesn't pretend to be anything else. If you are looking for answers to metaphysical answers of ultimate knowledge and absolute certainty then you probably don't want to use science as your epistemology. We can dream up fantasies of why the scientific method could be rotten at the core (e.g. Last Thursdayism), but at the end of the day we use scientific knowledge because it works.

Hi Taq, Thank you. The issue to me is a little more complex, and has to do with the appearances of the claims of science to the common folk.You often hear people complaining that {X} is presented as fact when it is just a theory., which then usually results in discussions of the tentative nature of science.Many fundamentalist people are not interested in having "tentative knowledge" -- they feel they have "absolute knowledge" and that all knowledge should measure up to that level. A better choice of words than "tentative knowledge" (which implies "almost knowing"), but one is still fighting against the common (false) impression of knowledge being absolute in science or touted as absolute. Science has evidence from tests and conclusions with different levels of confidence depending on the degree of testing and validation, and the higher the confidence the more practical the concepts are to be used to predict behavior etc.An engineer makes practical use of the information available to him about the characteristics and behavior of materials when designing things. They don't know to the gnats posterior appendage when a steel beam will fail, for example, but they do understand the range of loading where the steel is not likely to fail and then throw on a factor of safety to make sure they are in the safety zone. Even then they will not say that they KNOW that the beam will not fail.They will, on the other hand, know that if they follow the proven procedures of design, take into account all the known variables, and diligently complete the design without making any mistakes, that they can have high confidence that the beam will not fail. And I think we on this forum in particular and science in general should be nit-picky about the language we use to prevent unintended confusion and false impressions.Enjoy.ps -- Straggler, please learn to use the [list] function properly.

I think there is something else going on. Even when it is made clear that scientific knowledge is tentative, creationists still push the idea that creationism is scientific. If what you say is true we should see the opposite effect, but we don't. In forums like these we sometimes jump on creationists who use phrases like, "show me evidence that proves the theory". We tell them that they don't know how science works, explain how theories are tentative and never proven, and (I think) unfairly attack their understanding of science based on this one phrase.Perhaps this conversation even takes a turn towards the genetic evidence, and I happen to use this quote from a peer reviewed and well respected paper on ERV's:"Given the size of vertebrate genomes (>1 109 bp) and the random nature of retroviral integration (22, 23), multiple integrations (and subsequent fixation) of ERV loci at precisely the same location are highly unlikely (24). Therefore, an ERV locus shared by two or more species is descended from a single integration event and is proof that the species share a common ancestor into whose germ line the original integration took place (14)." emphasis mine
Just a moment...Uh oh. So what do I do now? Here are two scientists (the authors) who use the word proof as part of a scientific hypothesis, and it is in a peer reviewed scientific paper. So are the authors ignorant of how science works? Are the editors and reviewers also ignorant of how science works? How did this slip through?The problem is that scientists tend to use sloppy language knowing that their peers understand how science works and can read between the lines. Scientists also let inappropriate anthropomorphic and teleological language slip into their papers for the same reasons.Should scientists pay more attention to the language they use? In a perfect world, yes they should. However, I hate the idea of scientists being strapped down with language and metaphysics. Scientists tend to view themselves as mavericks, whether that is really true or not. Scientists have a bit of machismo, and we tend to relish it a bit. So how macho is it to be strapped down by grammar nazis? Not very.Even more, I see no reason for scientists to cater to creationists. Peer reviewed papers are meant as a communication between scientists, not scientists and reality deniers. If creationists want to fly the banner of science it is up to them to bring their standards UP to the rest of science, not drag science down to their level.

I think RAZD summed it up suitably in Message 1677.To paraphrase:
We know with certainty that the evidence, test methods and information we currently have predict that the pen will fall downwards.I see no reason not to apply such a description to all scientific knowledge.

If we're going to be nit-picky then we are actually engaged in the study of epistemology^*. If we are going to be nit-picky we were talking about 'knowledge' not 'absolute knowledge'. Since there is no such thing as absolute certainty, there is no such thing as absolute knowledge.There is however, a thing that people call knowledge.I know that Henry VIII was King of England.Most people who speak English will agree that I know this fact. Most people would also agree that I could be wrong in my knowledge.RAZD wants to us to call this tentativity 'almost knowledge' but he is unique in this regard in English. Tentativity is pretty much built into most conceptions of knowledge.The simple, and common understanding of knowledge is: Knowledge is justifiable true belief.It is of course then a question of whether or not a belief is 'justified' or 'true'. And this comes down to how we justify beliefs and what constitutes truth. When we really get nitpicky, knowledge seems to become less than absolute certainty. In my view there is no knowledge that is not practical knowledge. So practical knowledge is all knowledge. So the word 'practical' is redundant.

---

^* Alternatively we can just look in an online dictionary and assume that is sufficient. This, contrary to the views you expressed, isn't being nit picky, pedantic or technically correct, it is being naive, over-simplistic etc.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Should that be "justified true belief"?

Well, if we are going to be exact about this, then we need to be discussing the field of epistemology. In epistemology, "knowledge" is defined to be justifed true beliefs.A person has knowledge if
(1) she beliefs that something is true,
(2) she's justified in her belief; that is, she has good reasons to believe what she does, and
(3) the thing she believes is actually true.There is no requirement of certainty.On the other hand, this sort of begs the question about when we actually know whether the thing believed is true or not.So maybe philosophy isn't where the discussion should lie. Maybe the discussion is about the plain meaning of words in everyday English.And in everyday English (to echo Modulus) people rarely require absolute certainty to use the word "know." In fact, the first example that pops into my mind of someone requiring absolute certainty for the use of the word "know" is when creationists try to insert their creationist beliefs as "possibilities" to be inserted into the school curriculum by insisting that one cannot "know" with absolute certainty that the universe isn't only 6000 years old.And that is pretty much the only time I ever hear anyone insist on absolute certainty: when their own arguments for their position is so weak that they can only claim it as a valid possibility by shoehorning it into that tiny, one-in-a-million chance that their opponent is wrong.Me, I'm going to the grocery store tonight. It will be early evening on a week night, and there is neither a natural disaster or human-made state of emergency, so I know it will be open. I can't be 100% certain of this, of course, but I am so certain that I can't think of a single reasonable person who will contradict me and claim I don't know whether the store will be open.Again, that is the plain meaning of the English word, the way almost everyone uses it in everyday life.Unless one feels they need more precision and uses the epistemological definition; but that isn't going to help out the needs-certainty crowd.

Hot damn! Here's what I wrote 10 months ago:

quote:

---

Message 502

​

I thought one of the big points was that science's conclusions aren't being proposed as the truth. Even with the always accepted amount of tentativety, they still don't go so far as to say that they are, in fact, the correct answers.

​

I've always argued that them working is enough. It doesn't matter if they really are real or not.

---

Hi Taq, thanks. They don't want knowledge to be tentative as that detracts from their fixed beliefs.They believe that science also claims absolute knowledgeThey want creationism to be seen as science so that it has the aura of absolute knowledge. Indeed, people can be lax in the way they express their opinions and conclusions. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be vigilant in this regard, as we are often placed in the position of interpreting science to lay people.I would comment on that article after posting it to the effect that Nor do I. That task falls on us when we present the papers to the creationists to portray the evidence and the conclusion in the most honest manner.Enjoy.

Which is exactly why the sort of knowledge he is demanding is impossible. Then the obvious question to ask is - Why does it work so much better than the alternative epistemologies if it is not providing us with answers which are in some way more correct than those provided by other methods of knowing?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Hello RAZ you old rascal.For years now you have been preaching the gospel of absolute agnosticism towards anything untested. Only opinions, as opposed to knowledge, can be formed regarding such things. But you also seem to be claiming that there are scientific conclusions which can be known because they have been tested. Now these two positions are ultimately completely contradictory. Because for every scientific conclusion an evidentially baseless but untested alternative can be posited. And you cannot know one thing whilst only having an opinion about the opposite.For example - It is ridiculous to say that we know that the Earth is over 4 billion years old whilst simultaneously declaring that we have no idea whether or not the entire universe was created omphamistically last Thursday, 1 second ago or indeed at any other point in the relatively recent past. However the fact that we cannot test such propositions doesn't mean that we cannot confidently (but tentatively) know the age of the Earth does it? Your position would seem to be plagued with these sorts of inconsistencies. But being the clever fellow that you are I am sure you can sort all this out for us. So with this in mind would you care to answer the following:1) Do you agree that objectively evidenced conclusions are far more likely to be correct than evidentially baseless ones (no matter how untestable these evidentially baseless propositions may be)?2) If the answer to 1) is effectively "No" why do you think we bother to base our conclusions on objective evidence at all? What is the point?3) I would say that it is very probable that the Earth is billions of years old and correspondingly very improbable that it was created omphamistically at some point in the relatively recent past. Does this make me a pseudoskeptic with regard to untestable omphalistic propositions?4) What do you think the rational conclusion regarding the age of the Earth is?5) How confident can we be that this rational conclusion is an accurate reflection of reality (i.e. the actual age of the Earth)I look forward to your full and unambiguous answers. Doh!! Too late. Next time. Maybe.

But why do some explanations "work" and others not? Why do some theories yield accurate and reliable predictions whilst others don't?And if the only aim of science is to "work" why do we do things like study the age of the Earth, the origins of the universe and suchlike? Darwin's theory of evolution is all about explaining the origins of species. It is probably the greatest explanatory theory ever devised by mankind. Are we really only interested in evolution because it provides us with some sort of practical tool for breeding dogs or is Darwin's theory important as an evidenced description of what actually occurred?Surely the aim of science is to explain at least as much as it is to "work"....?

Mathematics is evidentially baseless, yet far more likely to be correct than is anything that is based on mere evidence.