In fact, I think that the idea that science is not about finding out what is "right" is actually counterproductive. The world is full of anti-science types, and those suspicious of science. They would find solace in the concept that science isn't looking for what's right because there is no right. If instead it's all about getting "less wrong," it's a lot easier for them to say they're getting "less wrong" as much as science is, but in a different way.
I think you have a valid point here, because if something is "less wrong," it still would imply that it is heading towards something that is "right." If something is "less wrong" then it is also "more right" by default. We may not be able to always ascertain what is absolutely true, but that is always what is being striven for.
There is a curious paradox that science is seeking the "truth," but will never label any of its findings "truth." If the point of the letter was to argue that science needs to make clearer that none of its conclusions are "truth," I agree wholeheartedly. But to argue for that point by suggesting that there is no "truth" is not the way to go about it.
Philosophically nothing else would make sense. Of course science understands this truism, as you share, but it cannot make such declarations in the form of absolutes. There is always something waiting to subvert it, and there is that curious part of us that just wants to see if it is possible. For the Laws of Thermodynamics, there are always the Maxwell's Demons waiting to prove the infallibility.
But perhaps it is like this: We all know that something like the laws of conservation and energy have never been demonstrated to be false. It is true always, as we know it. However, given these laws only make sense in relation to how the laws became laws in the first place (i.e. mass, velocity, gravitation, etc) they would cease to be absolutely true if we were under other conditions found elsewhere in the universe. But I suppose it is meaningless to talk about anything else, because should anything change the inviolable laws of physics, I'm pretty sure it would be catastrophic to humans, in which case, we wouldn't be able to relish in proving an immutable law wrong... because as a consequence of that law breaking, we'd all be dead.
“I know where I am and who I am. I'm on the brink of disillusionment, on the eve of bitter sweet. I'm perpetually one step away from either collapse or rebirth. I am exactly where I need to be. Either way I go towards rebirth, for a total collapse often brings a rebirth." -Andrew Jaramillo
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