Is science an absolute truth? What does a 'scientific theory' literally mean?

Digression: Do you trust in science? That is, are you reliant on science; do scientific principles affect your perception/ your decisions/etc... on life even in the remotest way?

Also, does this acknowledgement of limitation not irk you (interminable search for an understanding of the world (how it functions) which is unlikely to be found)?

The skeptical argument is also circular though is it not? It presumes we don't know anything to conclude we don't know anything.

No, the argument relies on whether knowing we are not in a SP is a prerequisite for knowledge. With that definition in hand, it follows we can't know anything.

So it's to do with the definition of knowledge, really.

Do I trust science? Most of the time. Depends on the nature of the research, and who is doing it (and by extension, what their motives are). Medical research can be quite controversial as sample sizes are often small and trends are not always highly significant. Social science is particularly vulnerable to bias. To give an example: I read a paper recently which attempted to show that the Fukushima nuclear disaster was killing hundreds of people a week in the USA. Close examination of the figures revealed they were nowhere near as statistically significant. Subsequent examinations of the levels of radiation detected in the USA showed that there was not enough to cause significant health effects in the long term, let alone the short term (which is what the paper was discussing). Clearly the motives behind this 'science' paper are to scaremonger rather than ascertain the truth through original research.

Physical sciences can be trusted a lot more, as results can be verified by anyone with the equipment in order to do so. One has to trust that what you read in the science journals is indeed a faithful representation of what the people doing the study did and what they found. This is why peer review is important. It's not infallible, but it can weed out a lot of bad science if done properly.


Science massively affects my perception of the world. I studied a physics degree as an undergraduate. During my time, I learnt a lot about the way the world works, and it gave me a great intuition of how things I'm unfamiliar with should work because I understand the world at a fairly fundamental level (interactions of particles via forces, thermodynamics, energy etc). There are a few principles in physics which we can be certain are correct and will never be violated on a universe wide scale, and a lot of other ideas which we know to be very accurate in virtually every situation, while knowing the limitations of them. We know that theories are rarely complete and work 100% of the time, but they're good enough for the vast majority of the time when they do describe reality.

The limitation of science does no annoy me at all. As someone who intends to spend the rest of his life in science research, it's kind of a good thing to know that I'll never no longer be needed!

Further digression: Can scientific theory be irrational?

By irrational do you mean not logical or not intuitive?

Can a scientific theory be logically fallacious.

Why search for something (understanding of the world) which you can never find (it is impossible to even partially grasp the complexity of the world in its entirety).