Is science the fundamental source of knowledge?

[Insuperable]

I remind you that you are a Christian and that lying is a sin. Do you honestly think that the purpose of this thread is not to undermine a counter belief to his religious belief? And why did he bring up De La Riva? By doing so he brought up religion into the thread first.

Who is De La Riva? I did not read this thread completely, only some parts of discussion and from what I have seen discussion about religion is not necesarry. Two atheists with background in philosophy can wonder about the same.

[Desperado]

"Fundamental" in this case means "from which all springs at its root"? Our collective scientific knowledge is a complex of known laws linked by reasoning. So, if we know law A, and we observe fact 1, we can deduce that law B is true. In this case, the truth value of law B depends on the truth value of law A. If we attempt to follow the scientific chain of reasoning backwards, we arrive at an obvious problem: where is the root, or the fundamental source of logic? If we posit that the fundamental source of logic can not be an a priori assumption (which would be highly un-scientific), the two possible scenarios would be a cycle, or "turtles all the way down". Thus, science requires either circular logic to be consistent with itself, implying that there is no way to prove it is consistent with reality, or it requires an infinite body of knowledge, which is not possible. I'm not knocking the value of scientific investigation here, it just seems that if we define "fundamental source of knowledge" the way Abubu seems to mean it, the entire foundation on which science rests can't be fundamental.

The question asked in this thread is indeed loaded and ultimately meaningless. Science is used to investigate the natural world, thus it requires the natural world to be real and regulated by internally consistent laws. It is indeed an a priori assumption. What gives the world these properties is up to philosophical debate.

[Peterski]

You ate it because you knew you could digest it. You didn't try eating marbles.

Even if I knew nothing about biological sciences and human digestive system, I would still not try eating marbles.

[Colonel Frank Grimes]

You just used the term "wrong" in its moral, ethical sense (not in the sense "mistaken / false").

Can you scientifically prove, that proselytizing is "wrong" (in the moral / ethical sense)?

No, you cannot scientifically prove, that "expecting people to abide by XYZ" is "wrong".

And this also shows, that science is not the only source of truth.

That's a circular argument. An unproven belief an individual has doesn't mean there is another source of truth. All it means is the person has a belief that can't be proven. It's morally wrong to claim an unproven belief is the truth for the simple fact that it can't (at that point). The person is being deceptive with others.

[Peterski]

It's morally wrong to claim an unproven belief is the truth for the simple fact that it can't.

Why are you saying that an unproven belief can't be true? Of course it can.

An unproven belief can be false or can be true. Being unproven does not make it automatically false.

E.g. gravity has always been true, it did not become true after being proven.

The person is being deceptive.

Surely not intentionally deceptive, if they really believe that something is true.

An unproven belief an individual has doesn't mean there is another source of truth.

The source of truth is the universe itself, not science. Science is a tool of discovering it.

All it means is the person believes in an unproven belief.

All beliefs used to be unproven at one or another point in time, and many are still unproven. But their logical value (true or false) was stable. They did not suddenly become true after being proven.

[Colonel Frank Grimes]

Even if I knew nothing about biological sciences and human digestive system, I would still not try eating marbles.

Of course you wouldn't even if you're starving because you know it's not edible. You know you can't digest it.

[Colonel Frank Grimes]

Why are you saying that an unproven belief can't be true? Of course it can.

An unproven belief can be false or can be true. Being unproven does not make it automatically false.

E.g. gravity has always been true, it did not become true after being proven.



Surely not intentionally deceptive, if they really believe that something is true.

I modified my post while you were writing.

[Colonel Frank Grimes]

Who is De La Riva? I did not read this thread completely, only some parts of discussion and from what I have seen discussion about religion is not necesarry. Two atheists with background in philosophy can wonder about the same.

A hack former atheist. I did find it funny that he wrote his name wrong.

[Peterski]

^ You modified:

for the simple fact that it can't (at that point).

Nope. This statement is still wrong.

Scientific facts are stable. They cannot be false at one point and true at another point.

A still unproven fact is just as true as an already proven fact.

Science is not making things true. It is just researching whether things are true or not.

And scientific mistakes also happen. Science is not infallible.

[Colonel Frank Grimes]

^ You modified:



Nope. This statement is still wrong.

Scientific facts are stable. They cannot be false at one point and true at another point.

A still unproven fact is just as true as an already proven fact.

Science is not making things true. It is just researching whether things are true or not.

And scientific mistakes also happen. Science is not infallible.

You don't understand what I'm saying: I'm saying there isn't enough evidence to claim it as a truth. I can say unicorns are real but until I find evidence of a unicorn it's not a validated belief (truth).