

Rethinking relativity: Is time out of joint?  - dimas
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427314.400-rethinking-relativity-is-time-out-of-joint.html

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fnid
Science is just what we can't yet prove to be wrong through observation. In
other words, what we believe about the universe is only true because it works
within the limits of our observation. If we could observe better, we would
find that what we believe is not true -- not perfectly true -- it's merely
true enough.

This happens over and over again, yet people still believe science and
theories are facts. They aren't really facts in the sense that they are
perfect, they are facts in that there isn't something _more_ perfect -- yet.

We thought the world was flat, then we observed orbits. We thought orbits were
round, then we found ellipses. We thought gravity was constant.

You know, when I think about constants, I think they are really just a number
we put in there to compensate for the range of realities that we can't
measure. The gravitational constant isn't really a constant, it's part of the
fluid and movable function that comprises the portion of the numbers we can't
observe yet. There is a lot of change going on in there that we can't detect
or believe to be wrong. That 9.8 meters per second squared actually changes
while the objects are moving, yet 9.8 is good enough.

That's what science is: good enough.

~~~
randallsquared
Would you assert that there is no final truth, or only that we can never know
if we've found it?

~~~
fnid
There is a final truth, I believe. Doesn't mean the truth won't change.
There's nothing in science that says something can't come from nothing, so
something could just ... come to exist that would change everything.

I'm agnostic about human knowledge of truth.

