To what extent can a scientist's answer be considered true, if scientists sometimes can't agree among themselves, and the concept of " truth” has changed over the centuries?

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4 Answers

  1. Truth is a philosophical category that modern scientists do not operate with. Scientists, as a rule, look for the best solution for a particular problem within a given framework (or, in rare cases, the opportunity to change this framework). Sometimes it turns out that the same problem can be solved in different ways, and then scientists argue which is the best way. However, there may be several quality criteria. For example, the more problems that can be solved in the same way, the better this method is. Another criterion is often considered simplicity or elegance of the theory. The third is its predictive power. Etc.

    Over the past centuries, it is not scientific truths that have changed, but ways to solve specific problems. At first, the abrupt paradigm shifts did cause panic. Many of Galileo's contemporaries refused to look through a telescope, so as not to accidentally convince themselves that Copernicus was right. Later, at the beginning of the 20th century, it came as a shock to many that Isaac Newton's theory was not the ultimate truth, but simply a very good but outdated theory. The French mathematician and philosopher Henri Poincare called it ” the bankruptcy of science.” How can science be trusted, he asked, if light has been considered a particle for many years, then a wave, and now both a particle and a wave at the same time?

    However, scientists quickly found the answer to Poincare's question. The fact is that from a qualitative point of view, each subsequent theory can reset the previous one. But from the point of view of explanatory and predictive power, it always takes a step forward. In other words, it predicts and explains everything that its predecessor explained — and a little more than that.

    Thus, the short answer to this question is as follows. Since truth is a binary category (something is either true or not), the scientist's answer cannot be considered true to any extent. However, if we are talking about a modern scientist, we can consider his answer to be the best approximation to the truth.

  2. The question already points out that truth is “historical”, i.e. it undergoes changes over time. Another question is that this can be viewed positively – as a process of expanding the boundaries of our knowledge, which is always “in progress”, in development.
    As for the humanities, there is a variety of approaches, each of which looks from a different point of view, so they complement each other. And it is commonly said that the social reality is much richer and more diverse.

  3. As you have already correctly written, but still I will add, science operates not with truth, but with theories, that is, descriptive models of reality. The new model may look completely different from the previous one, but this does not mean that the previous model was false and the new model is true. No, it just means that the old model described reality with the best approximation at that time and with the smallest error, and the new model makes all this even better. And tomorrow's model will be even better than today's. Is there a limit to this improvement process? Not yet, but you never know. Maybe someday science will reach the absolute limit and then it will be possible to say that it has come to the absolute truth. But so far, none of the scientists say so, as long as we see that the horizons of what can and should be known are only expanding.

  4. The answer of a spherical scientist in a vacuum implies that the information is most correct for the current time and state of science, but does not state that it cannot be recognized as false in the future.�

    The scientist will also not call his discovery or theory “true”, as various fans of sensations and popularity, supporters of various conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific trends usually do.

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