Reply #104: I never said that science changes reality

[Tims]

nor would I imply that Newton or Einstein changed reality. But you imply that those who challenged Newton or Einstein were attempting to change reality. This is not true. To challenge a person to provide evidence of the truth of their ideas is not persecution. And it is hard not to read into your statements that since we can never know the truth then anyone who demands proof of a theory is somehow asking for the impossible.

I said we cannot begin to know what reality is without testing the ideas that people put forth. The point you seem to be making in most of your posts is that skeptics and debunkers are somehow attempting to challenge reality. You suffer from 20/20 hindsight. Because we now know Einstein, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Darwin were correct, then are we to believe everyone who has ever challenged them were backward, blind and dogmatic fools. No! We cannot critically assess these challengers unless we can put ourselves in their place - limited by the knowledge and tools of their time.

Science's goal is to discover the truth, but anyone educated in the methods of science knows that they will never have "the full truth" of everything. But the truth or falsehood of a particular and bounded idea is often possible to obtain. Given a simple particular, such as whether the earth flat or is it round, there are simple tests which we can undertake which will prove both that the earth is not flat and that the earth is indeed spherical and not some other shape such as a donut (at least to the degree that we understand and can define what it means to be flat or spherical). Without resorting to extreme conjecture (such as we are all simply the dream of a giant computer located in the 5th dimension and the earth is just an illusion) the truth that the earth is spherical is a pretty well established fact.

You also suffer from the common malady commonly found among creation "scientist" and other religious fundamentalists (I'm not saying you are one) of accusing your opponents of practicing religion and that only they (you) practice or understand "real" science. I looked in the phone book here in Houston, which is a city of 4million people, and I didn't find a single listing for a "Church of Scientism" (sarcasm). This is what I believe psychologists call "projection".