Thoughts for the day (i)

[unixronin]

Science is an exacting, meticulous process of continuously discovering that most of what we think we know about the universe is wrong, discarding it, and replacing it with something incrementally closer to the truth as measured by how much of the universe it manages to successfully and self-consistently explain.

Comments

The most true statement I have heard

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Science changes one funereal at a time.

Laws are simply a hypothesis that has not been challenged successfully by new discoveries in a very long time. It doesn't make the law correct, but it does give it some staying power.

I would argue that an ideal standard, that is never met, is far better for science than an overly complex explanation and model. Something that is simpler is much easier to extrapolate from, providing predictions and directing experimental scientists in what to look for. (Lots of opportunities for a, "That's interesting..." moment.) Something that provides a great mathematical explanation, that is too complex to predict from, is useless to science. My favorite quote along those lines,

It's not even wrong.