by islander on July 21, 2021 2:41 pm
Curt, I have little doubt that you’re unaware of the poor arguments used by many people who, based on their misunderstanding of science, try to explain why science cannot be trusted to give us absolute certainty…as if giving us that kind of certainty was the job of science. They waste a lot of time justifying that fundamental mischaracterization of science.
Our understanding of what science can tell us was, and is, based on using our logic and reasoning to give us a clearer understanding of the empirical data that’s been collected and available to us at any given time, which is how science works.
But some of the explanations and conclusions in the past, as would be expected, were incomplete and sometimes in error (and this hold true for today) due to the fact that our data will likely always be incomplete. Therefore, to the “believer’s” way of thinking, basing our understanding on the findings of science is no better than their “beliefs” whether they arrived at them through wishful thinking or unjustifiable opinions. They can then claim that it is raining because they asked the rain god to make it rain, and then claim their “belief” is just as apt to be true as the scientific explanation since science can’t say there explanations are true with absolute certainty any more than they can. Science, however, can demonstrate why it’s raining using the empirical evidence and data that we actually do have which is something the believer cannot do.
Of course anybody is free to believe whatever they want. If someone wants to believe that the Covid-19 pandemic is a hoax, for example, they can. Linda Zuern, despite the readily available evidence and data showing otherwise…chose unjustifiable belief.