gnostic
The Lost One
With regarding to the OP:
Nothing in science is absolute, unless you just talking about the mathematical side (forumlae and equations) of science.
Science deal with mostly relative and evidences. Though there can be a lot of mathematics in branch like physics, scientists can still observe and test their hypotheses or theories, or discover or obtain evidences that either validate their explanations/predictions or refute them. Most science, including physics, fall under the broad category of experimental science (or in the case, of physics - experimental physics). They are testable science, and they have practical application.
Science that don't with evidences, are some of the theoretic science - an example being theoretical physics, like super-string theory or M-theory. Theoretical physics prove difficult in attaining evidences, or seemingly untestable, so they relied on mathematical proofs and models, overly complex equations.
We may in the future find a way to test these theoretical science, or find verifiable evidences to support their theories, but for now they remained in the domain of mathematical proof or models.
And then there are those that don't fall on either experimental or theoretical science - and are called pseudoscience, like creationism (or creation science) or Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design is just Christian creationism that avoid using the word "god" or "creator", but instead use "Designer"; it is just creationist BS for fake science.
People who worked at the Discovery Institute based their works on ID, not on science, but on PR, propaganda (misinformation and deliberate deceptions) and tried to make or fool US legislators into thinking ID is a legitimate "science", so that it can be taught in science classrooms.
The whole concept in some religions or some sects of religious groups that their faith is based on absolute truth, is just propaganda.
Science (that is experimental science) don't rely on absolutes, but on verifiable evidences. Theory can be changed or corrected.
If a new theory have enough verifiable evidences to demonstrate it is correct, then either it will completely replace the old theory, or supplement the existing theory.
An example of theory being replaced is the cosmologies of the Big Bang theory vs the Steady State model. Both were conceived during the 1st half of the 20th century. The BB theory won out, because the main evidences supporting an expanding universe were the redshift of stellar or intergalactic movements, and the presence of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.
An example of the original theory being updated, is that the theory of gravity. While Newton's original theory have worked well for centuries, and can still be used, it is useless in the field of astrophysics, where object, photon or space can move at the speed of light or near that speed, and on the space-time continuity. That's where Einstein's relativity come in. But even Einstein's theory don't take into account of gravity at level of subatomic particles, so Quantum physics was born.
So we have 3 different working theories on gravity, and there is no way we can unite General Relativity (GR) with Quantum Mechanics (QM), so in the last 3 decades, theoretic physicists have been trying to unite the 2 competing theories, with String Theory.
The String Theory is supposed to be theory for "everything", with regarding to gravity. But as you can recall, I wrote that String Theory, and all their variants (super-string theory, M-theory), prove to be untestable, and fall under the "theoretical physics".
I am not a theoretical scientist; my field is in the more practical "Applied Science", in which have qualifications in civil engineering and computer science, but even then I can recognize that science don't work on absolutes.
Nothing in science is absolute, unless you just talking about the mathematical side (forumlae and equations) of science.
Science deal with mostly relative and evidences. Though there can be a lot of mathematics in branch like physics, scientists can still observe and test their hypotheses or theories, or discover or obtain evidences that either validate their explanations/predictions or refute them. Most science, including physics, fall under the broad category of experimental science (or in the case, of physics - experimental physics). They are testable science, and they have practical application.
Science that don't with evidences, are some of the theoretic science - an example being theoretical physics, like super-string theory or M-theory. Theoretical physics prove difficult in attaining evidences, or seemingly untestable, so they relied on mathematical proofs and models, overly complex equations.
We may in the future find a way to test these theoretical science, or find verifiable evidences to support their theories, but for now they remained in the domain of mathematical proof or models.
And then there are those that don't fall on either experimental or theoretical science - and are called pseudoscience, like creationism (or creation science) or Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design is just Christian creationism that avoid using the word "god" or "creator", but instead use "Designer"; it is just creationist BS for fake science.
People who worked at the Discovery Institute based their works on ID, not on science, but on PR, propaganda (misinformation and deliberate deceptions) and tried to make or fool US legislators into thinking ID is a legitimate "science", so that it can be taught in science classrooms.
The whole concept in some religions or some sects of religious groups that their faith is based on absolute truth, is just propaganda.
Science (that is experimental science) don't rely on absolutes, but on verifiable evidences. Theory can be changed or corrected.
If a new theory have enough verifiable evidences to demonstrate it is correct, then either it will completely replace the old theory, or supplement the existing theory.
An example of theory being replaced is the cosmologies of the Big Bang theory vs the Steady State model. Both were conceived during the 1st half of the 20th century. The BB theory won out, because the main evidences supporting an expanding universe were the redshift of stellar or intergalactic movements, and the presence of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.
An example of the original theory being updated, is that the theory of gravity. While Newton's original theory have worked well for centuries, and can still be used, it is useless in the field of astrophysics, where object, photon or space can move at the speed of light or near that speed, and on the space-time continuity. That's where Einstein's relativity come in. But even Einstein's theory don't take into account of gravity at level of subatomic particles, so Quantum physics was born.
So we have 3 different working theories on gravity, and there is no way we can unite General Relativity (GR) with Quantum Mechanics (QM), so in the last 3 decades, theoretic physicists have been trying to unite the 2 competing theories, with String Theory.
The String Theory is supposed to be theory for "everything", with regarding to gravity. But as you can recall, I wrote that String Theory, and all their variants (super-string theory, M-theory), prove to be untestable, and fall under the "theoretical physics".
I am not a theoretical scientist; my field is in the more practical "Applied Science", in which have qualifications in civil engineering and computer science, but even then I can recognize that science don't work on absolutes.
