Posted by Robert Hill on March 02, 2006 at 22:47:24 from 195.92.168.164 user eclrh.
In Reply to: Re: History of Science (was Map dowsing) posted by Peter Ceresole on March 02, 2006 at 22:24:50:
I was planning to post something in reply to Lyn but I find Peter Ceresole has done it beautifully for me. The only creed, if you can call it that, that lies at the bottom of science is that there seem to be regularities in the world; that maybe we can learn about them by observation, experiment and reason; and that all knowledge gained in this way is provisional.
As the person who I think introduced the phrase 'established science' into this branch of the discussion, and as the person from whom Jock quoted that phrase when he said that established science is constantly being overthrown, I was aware that the phrase is an oversimplification. My point was not to suggest thsat 'established science' is never overthrown, but that a particular argument used by RichardG was philosophically problematic.
At the same time, I think it's worth noting one remarkable quality of science, that even though its foundations are overthrown from time to time, they reappear in familiar form, and a lot of the superstructure stays up. Thus, Newton was 'overthrown' by Einstein, and yet Newton's laws of motion and gravitation are still with us and still good enough to send spacecraft to the planets. Thermodynamics and Maxwell's equations are still relevant after 150 years or so. Einstein's equations are still relevant after 90-100 years and are being tested in new and more precise ways all the time. Quantum mechanics is still with us after 80 years.