I was using “fact” basically synonymously with “observation”. It is a “fact” that the apple I dropped fell to the ground. It is my hypothesis that this apple I am about to let go of will also drop to the ground, based on the theory of gravity.
Not in a scientific sense. In a scientific sense an observation is just that: an observation. And an observation can be wrong. In fact, with more complex issues than apples dropping, it’s a quite frequent thing that observations are wrong.
If, for example, the simulation hypothesis turned out to be correct, then not only did the apple not actually fall to the ground, but the apple actually never existed in the first place.
That’s why “facts” have no place in science and why even something we are really really sure about is labelled as a “theory”. Because nothing can be 100% verified and everything can hypothetically be subject of chance.
And that’s the main difference between religion and science. With religion the premise is that you already know the truth in advance and you try to find evidence to support it. With science you begin with Sokrates (“I know that I know nothing”) and work from that, trying to build models upon models to make sense of the world, fully understanding that the models might be flawed and will likely end up being changed in the future.
I was using “fact” basically synonymously with “observation”. It is a “fact” that the apple I dropped fell to the ground. It is my hypothesis that this apple I am about to let go of will also drop to the ground, based on the theory of gravity.
Not in a scientific sense. In a scientific sense an observation is just that: an observation. And an observation can be wrong. In fact, with more complex issues than apples dropping, it’s a quite frequent thing that observations are wrong.
If, for example, the simulation hypothesis turned out to be correct, then not only did the apple not actually fall to the ground, but the apple actually never existed in the first place.
That’s why “facts” have no place in science and why even something we are really really sure about is labelled as a “theory”. Because nothing can be 100% verified and everything can hypothetically be subject of chance.
And that’s the main difference between religion and science. With religion the premise is that you already know the truth in advance and you try to find evidence to support it. With science you begin with Sokrates (“I know that I know nothing”) and work from that, trying to build models upon models to make sense of the world, fully understanding that the models might be flawed and will likely end up being changed in the future.