True, and so that should be taken into consideration, rather than just throwing away DNA testing, and calling it a guess.
I am not suggesting that it should be thrown away by calling it a guess. I am simply asserting that, due to its lack of certainty, a degree of caution be used.
Weather is very unpredictable and complex, so it is hardly fair. One would suspect that it doesn't rain often when there is only a 10% chance of it. It probably only rains about 10-20% of the time, but humans tend to remember the bad over the good. If you had plans, you remember they got messed up by the rain, could question the weather forecasters. On the other hand, if everything goes well, then people tend to forget to think that the forecasters got it right.
One problem with placing percentages is that we do not know if we are placing them correctly, but the larger problem is that we do not know that something we give only a 1% chance is actually correct. There is nothing to stop the 99% probability from being wrong.
There is a certain percentage chance that the Higgs Boson exists. It is a very high percentage, but not certain. But if you were to call that merely a guess, that would seem quite silly.
Why you call labeling an idea that is not proven a guess and reserving the word fact for those things that are proven silly is not clear to me. Perhaps it is because you deem it necessary to add "merely" to it. You seem to not give guesses their due respect.
Your problem seems to be with the philosophy of knowledge and proper use of the word 'guess'.
This is true. As I have been discussing elsewhere, a fact is "indisputable," and a guess is "disputable." In one discussion, a poster suggested the modifier "to date" be added to the definition of a fact. It would make fact mean "indisputable to date," and to me, that seems to eliminate the possibility of ever being able to call something a fact. I am an agnostic because of my problem with knowledge, and I have been this way for around 20 years or so. BUT I do not discount guesses and their benefits, and I do not live restricted by only allowing facts to influence me. I do not throw away things because I call them guesses.
We don't know with 100% certainty that it is correct, but then I don't know if you exist either. I don't know anything with certainty. If you want certainty you will be disappointed.
You are precisely right, I think. When I wanted certainty, I was disappointed, but I am not convinced that it is unobtainable. I pray to live long enough to see it obtained.
It depends what you mean by fact. I don't generally mean 100% certainty when I say 'fact'. Nothing would be a fact in that case. I use the word 'fact' like normal people do in normal conversation. That for all practical purposes, we consider it true. Just because we can be certain doesn't mean we should say it is comparable to astrology. It isn't people just making stuff up, and guessing.
I think most people generally assume a fact, when spoken in normal conversation, to be held as true. If a speaker says "I believe X," the listener is put on alert that the speaker knows that X may not be true, but if a speaker says "X is a fact," the listener is alerted that the speaker holds X to be true.
If you just said that we can't be 100% certain of it (like everything else), I would agree. But I saw your very specific attack on carbon dating to be very anti-science. You calling it a 'guess' contributes to the anti-science of creationism. These people have been indoctrinated, and people like you using the wrong words to describe carbon dating wont help. They don't understand what the words, guess, hypothesis, theory, and law mean, and will be lead further into falsity.
By creationism, you mean that God created all? I consider that to be a belief, and as such, it is in the same boat with dating techniques. To be a fact, someone would have to prove that God created all, and I do not see any reliable verification method. If I encountered someone stating creationism as a fact, I would launch the same objection against that statement as I did against carbon dating.
Fossils are millions of years old, and this is a fact; as far as the word fact has any practical meaning.
Taking "fact" at its definition of being "indisputable," how can that be so?
No, we are assuming that we don't know what time we went in. We then use the stop watch afterwards to figure out how long we were in there. Unless you think there is a worldwide conspiracy against us, it shouldn't be hard.
I had the experiment backwards. We would know the time when we came out of the room rather than the time we went in. Gotcha.
You will never believe in facts then. The problem is your philosophy of knowledge, and use of words.
No I will never believe in facts, and I do not think you will either. A fact, once a fact, will not have to be believed in. It will be known as it will be indisputable.
I loved the video!
