04-07-2013, 04:01 AM
It is not a "fact" that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. It is simply a higher probability estimate than other estimates that have previously been made. Philosophy did not "prove" that the earth was flat. That was simply an inference made from the visual cues that people had at the time. Not that the concept of a spherical earth was nonexistent even then. The Socratic era Greeks used their geometrical concepts to demonstrate a spherical shape. But, even so, I'm misspeaking. Actually, the earth is not spherical, only approximately so.
TomK is right: science is based on probabilities and statistical evidence. A "fact" is simply something much more agreed upon (by folks who rigorously study the evidence) than not. You see this in discussions of Newton's "laws" of motion, which, while providing stunningly accurate predictions of low velocity objects, are also simply approximations.
TomK is right: science is based on probabilities and statistical evidence. A "fact" is simply something much more agreed upon (by folks who rigorously study the evidence) than not. You see this in discussions of Newton's "laws" of motion, which, while providing stunningly accurate predictions of low velocity objects, are also simply approximations.