New Homo erectus Skull Shakes up Palaeontology (page 5)

adamah

MadGiant said-

That doesn't mean that they (facts) changed.

Nope, you're flat-out wrong, and you clearly didn't read the article I linked to; do that, and then we'll talk.

Adam

Nathan Natas

"Religion is actually Science 2.0."

Actually, religion is Science 0.0.

Give me an example of ONE SINGLE THING that religion has done to improve the life of mankind. I say there are no such examples.

Religion has always been and shall always be a snare and a racket; a con game played by power brokers to keep "the herd" under control.

Actually, facts are useful and important, but they are far from being the most impor- tant elements of a scientific explanation. In science, facts are confirmed observations. When the same result is obtained after numerous observations, scientists will accept something as a fact and no longer continue to test it. If you hold up a pencil between your thumb and forefinger, and then stop supporting it, it will fall to the floor. All of us have experienced unsupported objects falling; we’ve leaped to catch the table lamp as a toddler accidentally pulls the lamp cord.

We consider it a fact that unsup- ported objects fall. It is always possible, however, that some circumstance may arise when a fact is shown not to be correct. If you were holding that pencil while orbiting Earth on the space shuttle and then let it go, it would not fall (it would float). It also would not fall if you were on an elevator with a broken cable that was hurtling at 9.8 meters/second2 toward the bottom of a skyscraper—but let’s not dwell on that scenario. So technically, unsupported objects don’t always fall, but the rule holds well enough for ordinary use. One is not frequently on either the space shuttle or a runaway elevator, or in other circumstances in which the confirmed observation of unsupported items falling will not hold. It would in fact be perverse for one to reject the conclusion that unsupported objects fall just because of the existence of helium balloons.

Other scientific facts (i.e., confirmed observations) have been shown not to be true. Before better cell-staining techniques revealed that humans have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, it was thought that we had twenty-four pairs. A fact has changed, in this case with more accurate means of measurement."

This is what I wrote in my previous post: Agree, but not completely: Human understanding have change/modified over the years. But the real meaning of the facts still in place. In 1687 Newton’s law of universal gravity define gravity as differently of what Einstein thought in 1915. Although Newton's theory has been superseded, most modern non-relativistic gravitational calculations are still made using Newton's theory because it is a much simpler theory to work with than general relativity, and gives sufficiently accurate results for most applications.

That doesn't mean that they changed. "Adjustments", yes changes, don't think so.

A fact is something that has really occurred or is actually the case. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be proven to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable experiments.

The understanding have been changed/modified. In this example; "humans have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, it was thought that we had twenty-four pairs."

That doesn't mean that our first understanding was that we have something else, and them it change to say that we have chromosomes.

Ismael

braincleaned

Semantics.

A "fact" that changes is not a fact by definition, as far as it being a thing of reality.
Reality is an absolute.
Philosophy questions that reality based on perception and theoretical interpretation.

However, reality is unmoved by this — only us humans are, furthermore crippled with bias conformation.
So facts (interpretation of reality) changes indeed, IF we separate the two.
The rest is semantics.

I think MadGiant meant that when he stated that scientific facts don't change, if I have understood him well.

adamah

Eugenie Scott, Executive Director for the National Center for Science Education wrote:

"Other scientific facts (i.e., confirmed observations) have been shown not to be true. Before better cell-staining techniques revealed that humans have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, it was thought that we had twenty-four pairs. A fact has changed, in this case with more accurate means of measurement."

MadGiant said-

That doesn't mean that they (facts) changed.

MadGiant, do you want to break it to Eugenie C. Scott, the person IN CHARGE of Science EDUCATION in the US, she's wrong about her understanding of a BASIC TERM used in science? A topic in which SHE WROTE A TEXTBOOK?

(Do you recognize her name, per chance? She's the "go-to" person in the media to speak for science-related topics on critical issues like attempts to insert creationism into public education, and she's testified in Court Cases on behalf of science education, even prominently featured on PBS shows, etc?)

She's on this PBS show called "Judgment Day"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/intelligent-design-trial.html

(Click on the green button that says, "Watch it now" in the right side of the screen).

Fact is, FACTS change ALL THE TIME, eg we used to think ulcers were caused by stress until a researcher discovered that a previously unknown bacteria played a role; the new information changed the way doctors approached the treatment of gastric ulcers, using an antibiotic instead of only yoga. If you took a physiology exam in 1960 where the subject was gastric ulcers, you would've been graded quite differently on a test (the professor would've used different answers on the answer key) than if you answered the same way in 2013. FACTS CHANGE, and that's what so great about science; there are "no sacred cows".

Now, OBVIOUSLY there's mounds of confirmed observations, such that we're not going to wake up tomorrow and have to discard the entire collective body of facts: ain't gunna happen. But it COULD, and if that scares you, get over it: life involves uncertainty, and the language of science is NOT absolute certainties (which is a lie), but probabilities.

And no, Braincleaned, the definition of 'fact' is not a matter of semantics: it's one of the most-important definitions and concepts to grasp unless you want to persist living in a world of fantasy where everyone is entitled to make up their own definitions for words (and your definition of 'fact' is oddly-similar to my definition of "perception" (interpretation of reality)".

That's part of science: everyone has to be thinking of agreed-upon concepts when they use a specific term. It's like JW Land, except it actually makes coherent logical sense.

Adam

braincleaned

I just use words as they are defined to be. I do agree with Eugenie C. Scott's definition "scientific fact" in context — I was referring to the more general sense.

I made my case — but it's really not that important to me. I did feel your meaning of fact sounded more like perception (as Eugenie C. Scott's does). I can live with the definition of fact as not obligatorily being part of reality... I'm not here to win the last word.

slimboyfat

There are no facts only interpretations, and that's a fact.

braincleaned

I disagree. it is a fact that you are alive now. It is not an interpretation.

braincleaned

I will concede that a fact can change, like in the case of me living today. If I die, that fact changes.

However, it could be argued that the fact did not change as much as it has been 'replaced'. The fact is that I am (or was) alive. The "new" replacing fact is that I am now dead. Not a changed fact, but two separate ones. Both based in reality.

In Science, facts change in the sense that the understanding of a current fact can be altered by new information. My argument is that the previous 'fact' was no fact at all.

I hope that makes my point clearer.

Interesting discussion...

slimboyfat

In giving such a commonsensical and apparently uncontroversial example you only underline the fact that even such fundamental facts are not stable and are in fact deeply a matter of interpretation.

Are life and death the binary opposites that modernity assumes them to be? Which kind of death are we talking about? Brain death, physiological, reputational? If death is a process of decay, are we not already dying? The walking dead. Is it the point at which decay becomes irreversible that we should properly call death? But in life isn't decay also often irreversible? Is it the point where our brains receive no sensory input? If so are persons in comas dead? Do we die when our brain stops or when people stop relating to us? When all the people who knew us are also dead, reputational death. If transhumanists succeed in storing all the information from our brains would that forestall death? If intelligence survived the body, either by mystical or technological means would that cause a rupture in our conceptualisation of death? Death is not so much a fact as way of conceptualising the various diminutions of what we consider of value in life, whether that be breathing, sensing, loving, remembering and being remembered.

New Homo erectus Skull Shakes up Palaeontology

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