Maybe they just thought you were exaggerating, like many people do in reply to this insight by Kahneman. From the fact that Kahneman misjudged some studies in e

Maybe they just thought you were exaggerating, like many people do in reply to this insight by Kahneman. From the fact that Kahneman misjudged some studies in experimental psychology it doesn't follow that all of science is hopelessly lost, philosophical, or wrong. To put it in another way, most people I've met who criticized science couldn't even explain how a toaster works if they had to and had no grasp of what they were criticizing. Hearing superficial criticisms by people who do not know anything about the methodology and maths can be very tiring, and these criticisms have become abundant in online forums. It can be easy to overcompensate and react needlessly aggressive to such general criticisms. At the same time, the critiques of science I've met so far (in academia, and all leftists, not that it matters) were all relying on the outcomes of obvious and constantly ongoing scientific progress on a daily basis. From lossy image compression over GPS over microchips to modern medicine and diagnostics. Maybe in your case people overreacted and missed the fact that you're a smart mathematician and not some random dumbass who says "statistics lie" as if that was an argument for anything, and you felt butthurt about it. Still, they are right when they say that science is not a philosophy. I should know that, because I have a Ph.D. in philosophy, and the standards for our 'theories' are not even remotely as stringent as in natural science or mathematics. And maybe you're also overreacting a bit. Contrary to what seems to have become fashionable - mostly in certain political circles outside of Europe to be honest - the scientific process continues to converge to the truth in almost all disciplines and we reap the benefits of science daily. (I say almost all because I'd like to exclude literary science and the like.)