I find this thread to be among the more interesting on the board lately. Although I am not a scientist by training or practice, I want to chime in with my understanding. Those who do, please feel free to correct or amplify my comments if needed.

Truth is a loaded word, with several definitions. Remember “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” each of these applications and many others are contained in the word “truth.” People also use truth in a religious context, such as “one true God” or “the truths found in the Bible” that are personal experiences and have no meaning in science. Given this vagueness of the word “truth,” I prefer to define science as a quest for a clearer understanding of the natural world. As part of this scientist go through a process of discovery that can produce knowledge, or an accurate though not complete understanding of the natural world.

One must also look at people when discussing this subject. The process of the discovery of knowledge is carried out by people and thus subject to human flaws and foibles. I have met people trained in science (particularly social sciences) and engineering that were as doctrinally dogged as fundamentalist members of any religion. They simple lacked the ability to see anyone else’s point of view, and were prone to portray their knowledge as “Truth.” This is a human failing that we are all subject to some degree, and applying it as a heuristic for many daily situations actually saves us a great deal of time. Though applied in excess it can lead to conflict.

By agreeing that knowledge is incomplete, knowledge becomes subject to degrees of certainty, or the reciprocal, uncertainty. Clarifying certainty is a primary activity of the practice of science. Theories can be developed with differing degrees of certainty but uncertainty can never be eliminated. I would like to give examples here but not being a scientist I leave it as an exercise for the reader. In the public reporting of science, relative degrees of certainty are frequently lost because non-specialist frequently don’t have the background to appreciate them in context and vagueness doesn’t make good copy. We should not be deterred by this in seeking knowledge, just look elsewhere.

Being defined as such, knowledge lends itself to falsification because it requires objective standards and evidence that is subject to challenge. This process is somewhat independent of the people that carry it out because each individual wishing to prove an inner belief of certainty correct must seek an objective measure of certainty for a hypothesis to become a theory or for a theory to be sustained or over thrown. Scientist and other researchers (in my experience) are a feisty and competitive bunch who tend to poke holes in others work by questioning evidence and the application of standards.

Though fraught with human failings, the process of creating knowledge that we call science is the clearest way to understand the natural world and we should not let exhibits of these failings prevent us from searching for knowledge or changing the certainty with which we hold it. Nor should we hold peoples failings against them as if they violated some truth. We all have failings and all need the forgiveness of others for exhibiting them, it's part of human existence.

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