Randomnity
insert random title here
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Yes, exactly what the "rebuttal" (more of an explanation really) said. It can be summarized by the last paragraph:
The original article seems to be saying "oh noez, many science truths (i.e. theories) have been disproven" when this isn't exactly news, and the point of science isn't to start out 100% right and then never need correcting. In most cases even theories that end up being wrong can improve the knowledge base, leading to concrete applications as well as leading the way for the next "more correct" theory. It's not like we revert back to stone-age knowledge levels every time a theory is proven wrong.
And it bugged me when the original article was taking about "proven" theories being "disproven". If the theories are being "proven" it's not by the scientific method.
Although Lehrer makes some good points, where he stumbles, from my perspective, is when he appears to conflate "truth" with science or, more properly, accept the idea that there are scientific "truths," even going so far as to use the word in the title of his article. That is a profound misrepresentation of the nature of science, in which all "truths" are provisional and all "truths" are subject to revision based on evidence and experimentation. The decline effect--or, as Lehrer describes it the title of his article, the "truth wearing off"--is nothing more than science doing what science does so well: Correcting itself in its usual messy and glorious way.
The original article seems to be saying "oh noez, many science truths (i.e. theories) have been disproven" when this isn't exactly news, and the point of science isn't to start out 100% right and then never need correcting. In most cases even theories that end up being wrong can improve the knowledge base, leading to concrete applications as well as leading the way for the next "more correct" theory. It's not like we revert back to stone-age knowledge levels every time a theory is proven wrong.
And it bugged me when the original article was taking about "proven" theories being "disproven". If the theories are being "proven" it's not by the scientific method.