“Why do scientific ‘facts’ are sometimes spoken as if they were certain?”
Because one can be certain of facts (where ‘certain’ means ‘assigning a probability arbitrarily close to 1’) even if we’re not certain of the mechanisms behind them. Newtonian gravity was wrong, but if you let go of a lead weight it will drop to the ground. You can be certain of that. Try it as many times as you like.
“Why do some scientists fail to notice that those ‘facts’ are subject to falsification when new evidence is introduced?”
If they do, then they’re not scientists. In fact the scientific method is precisely equivalent to Bayesian reasoning—formulate a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, revise based on results.
On the other hand, there are some facts (evolution, lead weights falling to the ground, heat never passing from a cooler thing to a hotter one) that are so well established that the probability of their being falsified is effectively zero.
“Some—not all—natural scientists, on the other hand, seem to have so much faith in scientific methods, which I believe is somewhat flawed as well. ”
In what way? The scientific method is simply updating of one’s beliefs based on new evidence. That’s all it is. I can’t see how that is flawed, and can’t in fact see any other way to discover truths about the universe. What do you offer as an alternative?
“I am sometimes intellectually group-raped by scientists as though I offend them”
This is a horribly incoherent sentence, with some very unpleasant attitudes in it. To start with, disagreement, however vociferous, is in no way comparable to gang rape. Furthermore, while I don’t pretend to understand the motives of rapists, their behaviour is not usually explained by saying they were offended. Perhaps if you rephrased this so it refers to actual people’s actual behaviour, your writing might be clearer.
“If you are a scientist or a science follower, may I ask, what do you think about social scientists? Sometimes I feel like scientists look down on social scientists, and I don’t feel comfortable working with them.”
No scientist I know looks down on social scientists. Plenty of scientists I know, however, look down on people who witter on about supposed problems with the scientific method without actually saying what those problems are, and then take disagreement as ‘rape’...
“Why do scientific ‘facts’ are sometimes spoken as if they were certain?”
Because one can be certain of facts (where ‘certain’ means ‘assigning a probability arbitrarily close to 1’) even if we’re not certain of the mechanisms behind them. Newtonian gravity was wrong, but if you let go of a lead weight it will drop to the ground. You can be certain of that. Try it as many times as you like.
“Why do some scientists fail to notice that those ‘facts’ are subject to falsification when new evidence is introduced?” If they do, then they’re not scientists. In fact the scientific method is precisely equivalent to Bayesian reasoning—formulate a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, revise based on results. On the other hand, there are some facts (evolution, lead weights falling to the ground, heat never passing from a cooler thing to a hotter one) that are so well established that the probability of their being falsified is effectively zero.
“Some—not all—natural scientists, on the other hand, seem to have so much faith in scientific methods, which I believe is somewhat flawed as well. ” In what way? The scientific method is simply updating of one’s beliefs based on new evidence. That’s all it is. I can’t see how that is flawed, and can’t in fact see any other way to discover truths about the universe. What do you offer as an alternative?
“I am sometimes intellectually group-raped by scientists as though I offend them” This is a horribly incoherent sentence, with some very unpleasant attitudes in it. To start with, disagreement, however vociferous, is in no way comparable to gang rape. Furthermore, while I don’t pretend to understand the motives of rapists, their behaviour is not usually explained by saying they were offended. Perhaps if you rephrased this so it refers to actual people’s actual behaviour, your writing might be clearer.
“If you are a scientist or a science follower, may I ask, what do you think about social scientists? Sometimes I feel like scientists look down on social scientists, and I don’t feel comfortable working with them.” No scientist I know looks down on social scientists. Plenty of scientists I know, however, look down on people who witter on about supposed problems with the scientific method without actually saying what those problems are, and then take disagreement as ‘rape’...