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Robert Guralnick, after discussing the distinction between ontology and
epistemology in the philosophy of science, stated:
 
>> The point is, we need to carefully assess the claims of science,
>> and not take any findings on faith.
 
This point focusses on something I have never been able to understand in
critiques of science: what methods are we to use to "assess the claims of
science" if not the very methods of science, namely logic and experimental
verification? The basic tools of rationality form the basis of scientific
enquiry. Any other method of assesment would seem to require that we do indeed
take our results on faith.
 
As far as carefully assessing claims, certainly no other field of human endeavor
is as careful at assessing its claims as is science and its handmaiden
mathematics. The statistical nature of quantum mechanics, the role of the
observer, Godel's incompleteness theorm, and the uncertainty principle all posit
definite and well-defined limits to how completely we can know the world.
 
Nevertheless we can still know a great deal about the world, and not only those
things for which we are looking. Some of the comments on this thread might make
me suspect that quarks, the cosmic microwave background, black holes or plate
tectonics didn't really exist, but were just made up to satisfy someone's ego.
 
'Til the next packet switch.
 
Jim Swanson
Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies - Banff, AB T0L 0C0
403-762-2291/fax 403-762-8919
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