Across the Universe: Science as Story

[MaxPC]

A friend sent this to me and I felt some of our friends here may enjoy it as well.

Once, philosophers of science insisted that our work had a truth value superior to any other form of human knowledge because it was based on the pure reason of mathematics. They called themselves “logical positivists.” But ultimately their greatest accomplishment was to show that science itself was illogical: just because the light comes on when you flip the switch a hundred times in a row, doesn’t prove that it will work the hundred and first time. Science has to assume, without justification, that a repeated pattern is evidence of a deeper law, not just a string of coincidences. But sometimes it’s wrong.

From Across the Universe: Science as Story