Does Science consist of facts?.

[aaabha]

Does Science consist of facts?

 

 

 

Hey guys and girls, I have to write a 1500 word essay on the following questions,

 

Does Science consist of 'facts'? If so, what are these facts, and how can we be sure that they are 'true' or 'correct'? If not, what does science consist of?

 

Can anyone offer any advice or any comments on this?

....

[iNow]

I do have some ideas on your topic, but since this is homework, it would be best for you to first share with us what your ideas are... sort of test them for accuracy, and get feedback. Right now, your post is a bit too open ended and any replies would be like us doing your homework for you... not so fun.

[Ophiolite]

I agree with inow. You can get a lot of really useful suggestions from forum members, but you need to offer at least some provisional thoughts of your own.

[Genecks]

I don't really care what the other two say.

 

Science consists of theories which may or may not be contradicted. To have "facts" would be hoping to have those facts act as "Truths," thus being ultimate knowledge that forever exists and cannot be overthrown.

 

There are many ways of approaching the philosophy of science.

 

One way is through truth-seeking (finding ultimate facts and creating a knowledge database from that).

 

Here is something for you to read about:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute_fact

 

You may want to do some google searches and read a few articles.

 

If you wish to take a truth-seeking approach to there being facts in science, then I suggest you attempt to say that if there is a brute fact within the realm of science, then it should be possible to build all future knowledge around it.

 

That is the main highlight of there being an ultimate truth, as many philosophers and scientists will state: You can figure anything else about nature in relation to it.

Edited July 9, 2010 by Genecks

[BJwojnowski]

I like the "tone" of this topic. All through grade school and high school I was "indoctrinated" with the scientific method. After college, to this day, I no longer remember what the five or six "steps" of the "scientific" method are. I "believe" the first step is "observe". I am "sure" that if I go on google and search it out I can once again become "familiar" with it.

 

Another interesting development after becoming college "educated", with head trauma resulting in an involuntary, partial, left frontal lobotomy preceding it, is where I enjoyed doing euclidean geometric "proofs" I could no longer even know where to begin as a post graduate. Recently, realizing the importance of words, I tried to "remember" what the word was for what "proofs" are "based" on and could not. Doing a perfunctory search I came across the word: postulate---"something we hold true with no proof but being "believed" with no basis as being proved. Now someone becoming an expert in other "fields" the closest words I could come up with was "premise", "tenet". Doing a computer search or looking at the "trusted, and true" thesaurus I probably would be able to come up with more "words".

 

To lighten the mood: if a word is not in the dictionary how do we know it is not a word?