Well, /sci/? Because I know STEMsters with masters in field who'd have a hard disagree with this.
>It can't supply absolute truths about the world, but it brings us steadily closer
>The COVID crisis has led many scientists to take up arms (or at least keyboards) to defend their enterprise - and to be sure, science needs defenders these days. But in their zeal to fight back against vaccine rejection and other forms of science denial, some scientists say things that just aren't true - and you can't build trust if the things you are saying are not trustworthy.
>One popular move is to insist that science is right - full stop - and that once we discover the truth about the world, we are done. Anyone who denies such truths (they suggest) is stupid, ignorant or fatuous. Or, as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg said, "Even though a scientific theory is in a sense a social consensus, it is unlike any other sort of consensus in that it is culture-free and permanent." Well, no. Even a modest familiarity with the history of science offers many examples of matters that scientists thought they had resolved, only to discover that they needed to be reconsidered. Some familiar examples are Earth as the center of the universe, the absolute nature of time and space, the stability of continents, and the cause of infectious disease.
>Science is a process of learning and discovery, and sometimes we learn that what we thought was right is wrong. Science can also be understood as an institution (or better, a set of institutions) that facilitates this work. To say that science is "true" or "permanent" is like saying that "marriage is permanent." At best, it's a bit off-key. Marriage today is very different from what it was in the 16th or 18th century, and so are most of our "laws" of nature.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/if-you-say-science-is-right-youre-wrong/
>It can't supply absolute truths about the world, but it brings us steadily closer
>The COVID crisis has led many scientists to take up arms (or at least keyboards) to defend their enterprise - and to be sure, science needs defenders these days. But in their zeal to fight back against vaccine rejection and other forms of science denial, some scientists say things that just aren't true - and you can't build trust if the things you are saying are not trustworthy.
>One popular move is to insist that science is right - full stop - and that once we discover the truth about the world, we are done. Anyone who denies such truths (they suggest) is stupid, ignorant or fatuous. Or, as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg said, "Even though a scientific theory is in a sense a social consensus, it is unlike any other sort of consensus in that it is culture-free and permanent." Well, no. Even a modest familiarity with the history of science offers many examples of matters that scientists thought they had resolved, only to discover that they needed to be reconsidered. Some familiar examples are Earth as the center of the universe, the absolute nature of time and space, the stability of continents, and the cause of infectious disease.
>Science is a process of learning and discovery, and sometimes we learn that what we thought was right is wrong. Science can also be understood as an institution (or better, a set of institutions) that facilitates this work. To say that science is "true" or "permanent" is like saying that "marriage is permanent." At best, it's a bit off-key. Marriage today is very different from what it was in the 16th or 18th century, and so are most of our "laws" of nature.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/if-you-say-science-is-right-youre-wrong/
