On 21/09/2006, at 11:59 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Well according to Karl Popper there are no absolute facts in
science. All
scientific facts are in theory provisional since scientific facts
are by
definition falseafiable. Many things are so well established and
so imbedded in a
net of other well established facts that they are virtually
certainly true or
at least mostly true (gravity evolution atomic theory)
Sure, and that's the scientific small print that is implicit in every
statement of fact. But it's often used wrongly, to state that the
probabilitical nature of "scientific proof" means we can't be certain
of some things. Which is bunk. There may be details that need filling
out (we don't know every twist and turn along the family tree from
bacteria to elephants, for example) but that doesn't mean we're not
certain that there was a long time in between and that fish and
invertebrates are ancestral to elephants. Or in your own field, that
we're not certain that the brain is the organ that is responsible for
thought. Yes, we *could* be wrong. It could yet turn out to be the
heart. But really, it's not something that troubles us. So it's a fact.
Charlie
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