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and amazingly the amount of information that comes out with peer reviewed science that has been repeatable enough to be accepted as fact and advertised as such

and amazingly the amount of information that comes out with peer reviewed science that has been repeatable enough to be accepted as fact and advertised as such can be thrown away 15 years later as wrong... how can a fact be wrong? Either it was a fact back then and you were right or you were wrong back then and it wasn't a fact but information supporting a non-factual hypothesis... given how often we see this presented on news programs, newspapers and touted as fact only to have it revoked years later leads us all to question how much we really know about these "facts". Case in point: Sugar is great, sugar is bad, fat is great, fat is bad, red wine is bad, red wine is good... blah blah blah. A fact is a fact, indisputable. Yet many of the facts when chased back to first principles seem to have enough ambiguity to beg questions over just how much we really know and how much we just think we know. I have whole days where I question everything I think I know and am still no wiser at the end of the day.

jimbokun 10y ago
Because the reality is humans don't really "know" anything the absolute certainty, but there are still ways of assessing which beliefs are more likely to be true than others. There is always the possibility the findings of a peer reviewed, journal published, replicated study are wrong. They are just more likely to be correct than assertions without such support.
meheleventyone 10y ago
This is fundamental to science though. Nothing is ever proven to be true. Scientific facts are contingent and corrigible. Science is just more rigorous than our other methods of establishing facts about reality.
- balabaster 10y ago
  So you're saying that my definition of the term "fact" is wrong... http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fact http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fact Fact: a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true. So... are you saying that a fact isn't something that's known to be true? Because my understanding of the word "fact" is that it means something indisputable, an underlying truth upon which you can base other truths and know them all to be true. If this is the case, then what can we possibly know with any sense of conviction?
  - meheleventyone 10y ago
    Dictionaries are not sources of objective facts either. The subject you're looking to know more about is the philosophy of science and in particular how it relates to epistemology which tackles this subject.
    - balabaster 10y ago
      These days I wonder if anything is a source of objective fact. The more I try and remain objective and strive for enlightenment, the cloudier everything seems to become.
      - Danihan 10y ago
        There is no such thing as enlightenment, only the worldview you choose to adopt and the results that it confers.
      - marknutter 10y ago
        Strive less for objective facts and strive more for keeping an open mind.
        balabaster 10y ago
        Objective facts are so few and far between and based on assumptions that are either vague in their definitions, limited or flawed that chasing them appears to enforce keeping an open mind. These two paradigms appear to be intrinsically linked.
  - philipov 10y ago
    Yes, correct. Humans are not capable of having access to indisputable truth. However, indisputable truth is not necessary for forming useful foundations for other knowledge. Humans exist in the space of the "probably good enough." What becomes a fact for you depends on how tolerant you are for uncertainty. You're probably going to die. That's almost 100%. A solipsistic universe is likewise very unlikely. Those are pretty good bases for facts, but they're not indisputable. Facts are not a simple structure. They are a conclusion of a series of comparisons after which we have considered many things and at the end decided that the evidence satisfies our threshold for uncertainty. People regularly make assumptions on which facts are predicated, and so we can say that we only have access to contingent facts, because they will always lead back to some assumption sooner or later. If you want facts that won't change after 15 years, you should study Mathematics.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >This is fundamental to science though. Nothing is ever proven to be true. Scientific facts are contingent and corrigible. That's science the abstraction, though. Actual science as practiced, and scientists, claim to know what's really "a fact" all the time.
  - meheleventyone 10y ago
    Scientists will absolutely tell you what they believe to be true based on the available evidence and we colloquially call those facts. So it's both true of science as an abstraction and working science.
gregmac 10y ago
> repeatable enough to be accepted as fact No. They are accepted as a scientific theory [1]. A scientific fact is "a repeatable careful observation or measurement (by experimentation or other means), also called empirical evidence" [2]. The media and general public doesn't really understand the distinction, and tends to call widely-accept scientific theories "facts" and treat them as if they are proven true -- when in the reality is the best science can do is just not yet prove something false. Unfortunately, there are also a ton of perverse incentives such as when the sugar industry pays to fund science that 'proves' fat is the cause of problems[3], not sugar. This doesn't mean science can't be trusted. Even flawed scientific theories can still be useful: for example, school children learn how to do basic quantum physics using the Bohr-Rutherford model before learning that model is actually disproven, because the model is still adequate to explain what's necessary at that level of education. You have to judge the source of the study, who funded it (and why), and if it has been reproduced enough to be widely accepted -- especially in cases where there are contradictory results or theories. It turns out Science, like many things, is hard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact#In_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact#In_science [3] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/...
- balabaster 10y ago
  > No. They are accepted as a scientific theory [1]. Thanks for clarifying that... indeed, I agree with that adjustment. The problem you highlight is that most people aren't exposed to anything but "this is fact" spewed by the media and don't have the benefit of time or contradictory evidence at hand to decide what is true and what isn't... so even with the ability to think critically, they're bombarded with so many alternative-facts that eventually they begin to believe it too.
  - gregmac 10y ago
    I think this is why science education is so important, even for people not going into hard science. Really the two main takeaways should be understanding the difference between empirical evidence and scientific theory, and that theories can never be proven 'true', but they can be proven false, and until then they're really only considered 'not yet false'. Using their critical thinking skills they can then apply this knowledge to non-scientific situations, so when a politician say something is a "fact" they can figure out if it's a "fact" like empirical evidence, or they just mean it's a theory they believe in. Through this lens, "alternative fact" must mean either "alternative theory" -- which is fine, and can be tested against another theory by figuring out a way to prove one false -- or "alternative empirical evidence" -- which is not possible, and therefore is just a fancy way of saying 'lie'.
d3ad1ysp0rk 10y ago
Probably because in all of your examples the science generally didn't say that - the news did. Nuance is lost when things get summarized, especially by people rewarded for viewership/ads and not accuracy.

jimbokun 10y ago

Because the reality is humans don't really "know" anything the absolute certainty, but there are still ways of assessing which beliefs are more likely to be true than others. There is always the possibility the findings of a peer reviewed, journal published, replicated study are wrong. They are just more likely to be correct than assertions without such support.

meheleventyone 10y ago

This is fundamental to science though. Nothing is ever proven to be true. Scientific facts are contingent and corrigible. Science is just more rigorous than our other methods of establishing facts about reality.

balabaster 10y ago
So you're saying that my definition of the term "fact" is wrong... http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fact http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fact Fact: a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true. So... are you saying that a fact isn't something that's known to be true? Because my understanding of the word "fact" is that it means something indisputable, an underlying truth upon which you can base other truths and know them all to be true. If this is the case, then what can we possibly know with any sense of conviction?
- meheleventyone 10y ago
  Dictionaries are not sources of objective facts either. The subject you're looking to know more about is the philosophy of science and in particular how it relates to epistemology which tackles this subject.
  - balabaster 10y ago
    These days I wonder if anything is a source of objective fact. The more I try and remain objective and strive for enlightenment, the cloudier everything seems to become.
    - Danihan 10y ago
      There is no such thing as enlightenment, only the worldview you choose to adopt and the results that it confers.
    - marknutter 10y ago
      Strive less for objective facts and strive more for keeping an open mind.
      - balabaster 10y ago
        Objective facts are so few and far between and based on assumptions that are either vague in their definitions, limited or flawed that chasing them appears to enforce keeping an open mind. These two paradigms appear to be intrinsically linked.
- philipov 10y ago
  Yes, correct. Humans are not capable of having access to indisputable truth. However, indisputable truth is not necessary for forming useful foundations for other knowledge. Humans exist in the space of the "probably good enough." What becomes a fact for you depends on how tolerant you are for uncertainty. You're probably going to die. That's almost 100%. A solipsistic universe is likewise very unlikely. Those are pretty good bases for facts, but they're not indisputable. Facts are not a simple structure. They are a conclusion of a series of comparisons after which we have considered many things and at the end decided that the evidence satisfies our threshold for uncertainty. People regularly make assumptions on which facts are predicated, and so we can say that we only have access to contingent facts, because they will always lead back to some assumption sooner or later. If you want facts that won't change after 15 years, you should study Mathematics.
coldtea 10y ago
>This is fundamental to science though. Nothing is ever proven to be true. Scientific facts are contingent and corrigible. That's science the abstraction, though. Actual science as practiced, and scientists, claim to know what's really "a fact" all the time.
- meheleventyone 10y ago
  Scientists will absolutely tell you what they believe to be true based on the available evidence and we colloquially call those facts. So it's both true of science as an abstraction and working science.

gregmac 10y ago

> repeatable enough to be accepted as fact No. They are accepted as a scientific theory [1]. A scientific fact is "a repeatable careful observation or measurement (by experimentation or other means), also called empirical evidence" [2]. The media and general public doesn't really understand the distinction, and tends to call widely-accept scientific theories "facts" and treat them as if they are proven true -- when in the reality is the best science can do is just not yet prove something false. Unfortunately, there are also a ton of perverse incentives such as when the sugar industry pays to fund science that 'proves' fat is the cause of problems[3], not sugar. This doesn't mean science can't be trusted. Even flawed scientific theories can still be useful: for example, school children learn how to do basic quantum physics using the Bohr-Rutherford model before learning that model is actually disproven, because the model is still adequate to explain what's necessary at that level of education. You have to judge the source of the study, who funded it (and why), and if it has been reproduced enough to be widely accepted -- especially in cases where there are contradictory results or theories. It turns out Science, like many things, is hard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact#In_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact#In_science [3] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/...

balabaster 10y ago
> No. They are accepted as a scientific theory [1]. Thanks for clarifying that... indeed, I agree with that adjustment. The problem you highlight is that most people aren't exposed to anything but "this is fact" spewed by the media and don't have the benefit of time or contradictory evidence at hand to decide what is true and what isn't... so even with the ability to think critically, they're bombarded with so many alternative-facts that eventually they begin to believe it too.
- gregmac 10y ago
  I think this is why science education is so important, even for people not going into hard science. Really the two main takeaways should be understanding the difference between empirical evidence and scientific theory, and that theories can never be proven 'true', but they can be proven false, and until then they're really only considered 'not yet false'. Using their critical thinking skills they can then apply this knowledge to non-scientific situations, so when a politician say something is a "fact" they can figure out if it's a "fact" like empirical evidence, or they just mean it's a theory they believe in. Through this lens, "alternative fact" must mean either "alternative theory" -- which is fine, and can be tested against another theory by figuring out a way to prove one false -- or "alternative empirical evidence" -- which is not possible, and therefore is just a fancy way of saying 'lie'.

d3ad1ysp0rk 10y ago

Probably because in all of your examples the science generally didn't say that - the news did. Nuance is lost when things get summarized, especially by people rewarded for viewership/ads and not accuracy.