Yes I have read some Armstrong.
Truth. Can be very straightforward, more often is very complicated. And needs more or less agreed undestanding as to meaning in a good discussion. Most people think they know what truth is. Personally, I find it a difficult concept; perhaps I make it a problem myself. For example, I feel the need to distringuish between 'fact' and 'truth.' Fact is fact, but truth is (for me) considerably more. How to describe that 'more' is where I have difficulty.
John Saxon's poem based on the South Asian story of the six blind men of Hindustan who independently met an elephant illustrate just part of the issue. Our senses and perspectives are limited, and we seldom, if ever, can see the whole, or full truth. We cannot even be sure how much, or which part, of the truth we can see. One consequence of this is that we are likely to make erroneous extrapolations and conclusions from what we do see/"know." Scientists like to think that the modern scientific method is one that will reliably test for multiple alternatives to stated hypotheses, and many like to believe that all theories are open to revision, refinement or repudiation. Most conveniently forget the fact that every scientist is a human being and therefore subject to all the general types of bias, defence of pet theories or postulates, etc. etc. There are some ideas that have been very very difficult to debunk. Probably just as hard as some old religious beliefs. What becomes fascinating when watching scientific development is just how much of science is actually based on belief. Our old model of the atom, with its rings of electrons, was so much easier to grasp than the current one in which the "location" (you can't really call it that) of a specific electron is expressed as a probability. When it is the observer who through the act of observation determines (as a consequence of observing) the position of an entangled particle (and now no longer entangled particle), then "truth" or "fact" is in the eye of the observer, not independent of it. When I was taught the scientific method it was said very very clearly that repetition of the same experiment over and over again with the same results was the only way to be sure that theory being tested could be proved..."but there was still no 100% certainty, because if the result in a future test was different, then the theory could no longer be supported."
Even in the scientific world people ultimately believe what they want to believe. If I think of Thomas Edison, it could not (I surmise) have been thorough material science theory that convinced him to keep looking for a suitable filament material after "thousands" of attempts. (He is quoted as saying "I didn't fail, I just found 10 000 ways that didn't work!") He really believed he would find something and that gave him the motivation to continue. Darwin had an idea (not entirely original) that caught his attention and interest, and he set out deliberately to find a plausible explanation for the differences between the beaks of the Galapagos finches. He wouldn't have continued if he hadn't believed in his ideas. Certainly in the beginning he couldn't, and didn't know it was true. But he believed it. So science would not progress without people believing in something and going at it tooth and nail. Aristotle believed many things and taught them as true. But he was wrong. That doesn't mean that in everything he did was wrong or nonsense.
And I suspect that even you Barry hold "truths" on the basis of convictions and beliefs, that you hope very very much are not false. And you cannot live a meaningful social life without this. Friendship depends on trust, trust is a matter of belief, of faith. No doubt there have been times when you have discovered that that trust has not been underpinned by reality. My concept of truth links to the reliability of the one in whom I have put my trust. He or she is a "true" friend because of the nature of his or her trustworthiness vis a vis what I have committed to her.
Where I believe evolutionary scientists (like Dawkins) make a fundamental logical flaw is going from "we can explain the process. There is no designer." This is a logical non-sequitor. We don't need a God of the gaps, but just because people can no longer lazily say "I don't know how it happened, it must be God." the inverse is not necessarily correct.
