Quote Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro View Post
This thread is sad now. I know it's fashionable/pro-religion to stomp your feet and claim we can't know or prove anything but surely we're better than that.

To prove means something like "to demonstrate that X is true". If you agree that we can demonstrate that gasoline is flammable then you agree that we can prove it. It's similar to how we can have knowledge without absolute certainty.

So what the whole counter-science argument amounts to in this case is something like:

1) science can't prove even basic facts (which it can)
2) science can't prove models and untestable theories (real scientists will laugh at you and say duh)
3) scientists are people to and have the same cognitive biases (by far the best point, and an important one, but less focused because the truth of this point is one of the main reasons for the scientific method in the first place)

The sophists most powerful argument in this case turns out to be radically pro-science, ironically.
i agree that science can prove certain things. but there are also certain things which it cant prove, things that imo cant be proven (empirically atleast) by any method i can imagine to be possible for humans. its not something bad, or something that should be held against science, i dont claim that science had such pretense at all (usually scientists are more aware of the limits and possibilities of science than those people who kinda support it without fully being aware of what it actually is). But this does mean that there is a gap which i think can only be leaped by faith, and it is this gap which makes all the big systems equal at the base