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Can Science Ever Be "Settled?"
StartsWithABang writes "From physics to biology, from health and medicine to environmental and climate science, you'll frequently hear claims that the science is settled. Meanwhile, those who disagree with the conclusions will clamor that science can never be 'settled,' and then the name-calling from 'alarmist' to 'denier' ensues.
But can science legitimately ever be considered settled, and if so, what does that mean? We consider gravitation, evolution, the Big Bang, germ theory, and global warming in an effort to find out."
For well over a thousand years Aristotle's work in the physical sciences (including zooology) was considered settled... until people started testing his theories
We called that period the "Enlightenment"
The best description of this is Isaac Asimov's essay The Relativity of Wrong. He points out, that while science is often wrong, as time goes on, the degree of wrongness diminishes. For instance, Einstein showed that Newton's laws of motion were wrong, but Newton was less wrong than Aristotle.
My interpretation is that there is enough confidence from the scientific community for anyone who is not a scientist researching the topic to accept the current understanding as fact. It doesn't mean they should think it is a fact, just that they should lead their life and form opinions based on the assumption that it is a fact.
Research should of course continue, probably until the end of time, but at a certain point the general population should no longer question the findings. They simply are not trained enough to form an opinion that differs from the general consensus.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Yes, I like to use this relative wrongness to illustrate "what's wrong" with pseudoscience. Science advances when someone finds something wrong with current theory. You learn from your mistakes. So I ask you, when was the last time someone found an error in the theory of Astrology? Of Creationism? Of anti-AGW? If mistakes AREN'T being found in these "sciences" they aren't progressing. Instead, if they're finding mistakes it's not in their own theories, but in the competing theories, like Creationism finding errors in Evolution or anti-AGW in AGW. The funny thing about that is, to the extent they are actually finding legitimate errors (and not just misinterpreting, misrepresenting or misunderstanding), they are actually contributing to making their "opponents" science better.