I call an idea correct if it allows me to anticipate outcomes correctly. After a time living in a given neighborhood, one has experienced enough restaurants that he knows where to find a good Italian meal if one can be found there. After several experiences there, he knows what day's they're closed and if besides good food, they have good parking, good service, good ambiance, good prices. He forms an opinion (idea) through induction. If that idea is correct, it will help him find a nice Italian meal (deduction).
I don't disagree. I do use different terms in most instances. Obviously when the odds of something exceed some level we are all prone to call it "correct" or some synonym.
Yes, and if we are critical thinkers and empiricists, what we believe is largely correct.
I believe this is where you go wrong.
Most people simply strive to have their thinking approach state of the art. "State of the art" is very good but it's not right and it's not correct. If it were right each peer, each knowledgeable observer would apply it the same way to events and predictions but they don't because their models are all different and... drum roll please... ...their models are not accurate. They are wrong.
"State of the art" is very important since we must proceed without hard and fast answers all of the time. We must roll the dice and take our chances. When something is principally the province of science we should go with state of the art in virtually every instance. But science is ill suited to many questions.
We don't so much employ science because it is "largely correct" but because it's the only game in town. We don't go to the doctor because we know he can help or that he may be largely correct, we go because there is nowhere else.
Meanwhile there may be crackpots, holistic healers, heretics, priests, and mystics who are completely correct. Life is rolling the dice.
Of what value to patients was the belief of surgeons in the 1860's that early surgery saved lives so it wasn't worth the time to wash their hands? Even the surgeons who worked at the pyramids knew to wash their hands and their patients survived. Of course the patients who mostly died in the 1860's from minor surgeries could tell Saint Peter that at least his surgeon was "mostly correct". It must have been especially comforting for the bereaved. If I'm curious I might ask Siri but if I need to know something I often study it myself. The search engines are so bad and so misleading that I wish I hadn't tossed out two sets of encyclopedias. Out of date data is FAR FAR superior to the garbage being spewed by search engines. They all get a little worse every day and most already have no value at all unless you like ads or to look up Sonny and Cher.
