What's true is determined by the scientific method. You can make as many theories as you want but if you can't make predictions based on that theory and devise experiments to verify those predictions, and perhaps most importantly, be open to abandoning your theory when even a single one of those experiments doesn't pan out, all you have done is shot an arrow in the dark and claimed it could have hit the target. Yes, but that information is nearly useless, and definitely can't be put on the same pedestal as someone providing actual evidence that the arrow missed the target.
1) "What's true is determined by the scientific method" is, in fact, an axiom based on the old "obviously true" assumption.
2) There is thus far no evidence that the scientific method can deduce what the universe is and why it came into being. So according to the scientific method, we should probably be concluding that the truth isn't determined by the scientific method. It is a window into a fairly small subset of the truth.
3) We don't use the scientific method in court cases, we use standards of evidence and reasonableness tests. So when it matters what the truth is we don't use science (and, indeed, probably could not because it is too limited to achieve fairness).
1. The scientific method is a way to rank all the available theories that has proven remarkably useful in practice. There is no presumption in the scientific method. It's the right way only because any other way is chaotic and doesn't lead to a single answer (shooting arrows in the dark).
2. To unseat the scientific method would require a method with even more usefulness and consistent and proven track record. There is no other such method.
3. Courts are responsible for application of human law (which is completely different from an exploration of what is true). Would you be able to determine the laws of gravity in a court of law? Does that even make sense?
> ...any other way is chaotic and doesn't lead to a single answer (shooting arrows in the dark).
"God did it" isn't remotely chaotic and is a much more consistent answer than what the scientific method turns. One of the key parts of the scientific method is that scientists are constantly throwing out theories that are thought to be reasonable but eventually turn out to be inconsistent with the evidence; the process is quite muddled.
And you can't justify why you think consistency of the answer is the best indicator. It is still unlikely to give correct answers about the truly foundational stuff, the scientists just don't know.
> Courts are responsible for application of human law (which is completely different from an exploration of what is true)
You're implying that we don't care about the truth when deploying force against our own community. I put it to you that this is an area where the truth is of utmost importance. It has immediate implications on how people live! The only reason we don't make a habit of deploying scientists in the courtroom is that their methods are ineffective at working out the truth in general. They are only good at deducing a small handful of truths that are usually only important to engineers.
Which god? There are billions of them if you lump all the religions together.
And what did they do exactly? And what are they likely to do in the future? How is this position any different from "we know nothing and can deduce nothing"? I don't know about you but I find that a very sad way to live a life.
> What's true is determined by the scientific method.
Not quite. This is how what is said to be True is determined...within some subset of the (culturally dominant) population, at this particular era in our semi-self-aware species' ongoing development.
Science practices watered down epistemology even in the lab, and the further you get away from the lab and toward public discussions, it gets watered down even further. And by the time it gets to the point of public discussion (science's fan base), epistemology is pretty much gone from consideration, it's regurgitation of memorization, if not worse (LLM level hallucination).
> You can make as many theories as you want but if you can't make predictions based on that theory and devise experiments to verify those predictions...
So far so good....
> ...and perhaps most importantly, be open to abandoning your theory when even a single one of those experiments doesn't pan out...
Ah crap. Crash and burn.
> all you have done is shot an arrow in the dark and claimed it could have hit the target.
This isn't true, and there's also no way for you to know these things (what individual scientists are doing, saying, thinking).
> Yes, but that information is nearly useless...
There's no way for you to know this.
> ...and definitely can't be put on the same pedestal as someone providing actual evidence that the arrow missed the target.
Yes it can. You can literally say and do pretty much whatever you want in this simulation. There are almost no constraints whatsoever, other than sheer lack of imagination (which is an extremely big problem imho)....I mean, just take your comments, and the vast majority of other comments in this thread. There's (almost) no need for anything anyone says to be true....in fact, even venturing a little outside of the Overton Window (to the positive side, on certain topics) of acceptable levels of epistemology here will certainly get you downvoted, if not warned by moderators. We have a culture here, and cultures have beliefs, and those beliefs are to be respected, regardless of the actual truth of the matter.
The truth of the matter, very often (on certain topics), is off limits for discussion. And even more interestingly: it seems like all social media platforms have somehow adopted the same set of rules for That Which Cannot Be Discussed. I often wonder if this is sheer coincidence.
