Reply #29: But isn't that the strength of science?

[pokerfan]

That everything is subject to scrutiny? Answers that can't be questioned (religion) vs. questions that may or may not have answers? Yeah, science is done by humans and humans are fallible but, in the end, after all the arguing, the proof is in the testing.

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address)

"I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and in many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about a little, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me."(Richard Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out)

See also http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm">The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov.