Reply To: Fusion Oil

[Rezwan]

It’s important to emphasize that science is not an ideology, rejects authority and expertise, and is by most measures a subversive activity. This means those who pay for science must want science’s results badly enough to tolerate a process that stands in opposition to all conventional norms of loyalty or tact.

In opposition to tact? There’s no excuse to be rude. Let’s not use the scientific method as an excuse for tactlessness.

Tact is more of a social skill. Etiquette.

In spite of how often one hears the term “scientific law,” there is no such thing.

* Because scientific theories cannot be proven true (see above), they cannot ever become laws.
* The commonly heard expression “scientific law” is an informal way to add emphasis to an idea, but it is technically incorrect.
* A “law” is by definition something permanent and immutable, but because scientific theories can always be disproven by new evidence, the idea of a “scientific law” has no basis in reality.
* As just one example, Newton’s “Law of Gravity” has been replaced by Einstein’s “Law of Gravity” and, because of some theoretical problems, Einstein’s “Law of Gravity” will eventually be replaced by a new “Law of Gravity” that is unknown at present.

In short, there are no scientific laws, only falsifiable theories.

Wonder by whose definition a “law” is something permanent and immutable. There is a range of definitions of law in the dictionary, of which this one applies: “a generalization based on a fact or event perceived to be recurrent”

Generalizations aren’t immutable or permanent.

They are convenient.