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It is just a theory. There's no such thing as "scientific fact". That's simply not what science is capable of, and you're showing you're anti-science by promoti

It is just a theory. There's no such thing as "scientific fact". That's simply not what science is capable of, and you're showing you're anti-science by promoting those ideas.

teawrecks 5y ago
You're being pedantic about terminology which I've already demonstrated my understanding of in this thread. In the context of the general populous, "scientific fact" means that a random lay person on the street, despite not doing any of the research themselves or reading any of the literature on the matter, accepts the conclusions of the scientific community as the truth. It's a scientific fact that the world is round even though most of us have not taken any measurements to verify this, and almost none of us have been to space. We just trust the wealth of data produced by professionals in several different domains which all point to the same conclusion. You're also being disingenuous if you think "just a theory" isn't a phrase constructed to mislead. Your comment implies that you understand that a theory is literally the strongest model that science can give us about a topic, but saying something is "just X" implies that there is something else beyond X. So which is it? Is a theory as strong as it gets, or can science do better? If it can't do better, then never use the phrase "just a theory".
- exporectomy 5y ago
  I agree about the "just". You're right. It's about the same level of misleading as "scientific fact". People used to use "just a theory" to discredit relativity or evolution, exploiting the fact that the alternative terms like laws of physics or truth sounded stronger even though they weren't. I still think it's harmful to general understanding to put any scientific knowledge on a pedestal of being unchallengeable fact. How can we know where we might be wrong? The earth is round, is it? What if that's just a slice of it in 3 dimensions and it's actually some other higher dimensional shape? Future people might laugh at our simplistic belief based on only seeing a little part of it - similar to ancients believing the Earth was flat because it was flat as far as they could see.

It is just a theory. There's no such thing as "scientific fact". That's simply not what science is capable of, and you're showing you're anti-science by promoting those ideas.

teawrecks 5y ago

You're being pedantic about terminology which I've already demonstrated my understanding of in this thread. In the context of the general populous, "scientific fact" means that a random lay person on the street, despite not doing any of the research themselves or reading any of the literature on the matter, accepts the conclusions of the scientific community as the truth. It's a scientific fact that the world is round even though most of us have not taken any measurements to verify this, and almost none of us have been to space. We just trust the wealth of data produced by professionals in several different domains which all point to the same conclusion. You're also being disingenuous if you think "just a theory" isn't a phrase constructed to mislead. Your comment implies that you understand that a theory is literally the strongest model that science can give us about a topic, but saying something is "just X" implies that there is something else beyond X. So which is it? Is a theory as strong as it gets, or can science do better? If it can't do better, then never use the phrase "just a theory".

exporectomy 5y ago
I agree about the "just". You're right. It's about the same level of misleading as "scientific fact". People used to use "just a theory" to discredit relativity or evolution, exploiting the fact that the alternative terms like laws of physics or truth sounded stronger even though they weren't. I still think it's harmful to general understanding to put any scientific knowledge on a pedestal of being unchallengeable fact. How can we know where we might be wrong? The earth is round, is it? What if that's just a slice of it in 3 dimensions and it's actually some other higher dimensional shape? Future people might laugh at our simplistic belief based on only seeing a little part of it - similar to ancients believing the Earth was flat because it was flat as far as they could see.