I think that you have a twisted concept about what science is. Plus that you are confused between how science is verified and how a scientific truth is conveyed.
Lead on Macduff
Science is discovered and verified mostly through its predictability. This requires a lab setup to achieve. The conveying of a scientific truth however is through faith.
Not so imo, science is not about proof or absolute truth, it simply attempts to explain the evidence, and to acquire knowledge.
No actual formal "truth" has to be established or believed on trust, and unknowns can just remain as unknowns, not presumed on faith.
But often science is far too well tried in practice to likely be wrong or require any faith. While it continues to predict more evidence and remains un-falsified it will often thus be regarded by many to be reasonably and rationally a virtual truth rather than a formal one. No faith is required because science is allowed to be wrong, it expects to be sometimes and wants to be shown wrong when it is, imo faith here is irrelevant and has no purpose.
As it is a very inefficient route if every single individual will have to rely on a lab to verify the truth by himself. The most efficient way for a human to approach such a truth is that they have to have faith in what have been written down by a small group of humans (the scientists). Peer review reports are just yet a form of human witnessing.
It's nothing to do with having faith in someone's opinion either. What actually matters is whether or not a scientific hypothesis can be falsified, does it always accurately describe the evidence?
Falsification too is not a matter of personal opinion and faith because it requires that something be demonstrably wrong by its own evidence or else it simply remains unchallenged as the best theory. Nobody sagely gets to deem something as proven true by having an opinion however esteemed they are.
In a nutshell, humans rely heavily on what have been written down by a small group of humans thought to be the direct contact of a truth. It is a process of human witnessing.
If what is written down best describes the evidence, has a range of verifiable sources and cannot be falsified by anything then I have no problem with written words. However blind faith in only written words, considering most individual's likelihood of embellishment and exaggeration is hardly very safe imo and would require rather too much faith.
To me, humans usually apply fallacious concepts without their own awareness.
Yes which is what the
scientific method is designed to avoid.
Science usually goes through 3 stages to determine a scientific truth,
1) Observation
Science is basically dealing with a set of rules behind a repeating pattern. Observation is achievable basically because the pattern itself can be repeated infinitively. Say, you can observe how the earth revolving around the sun because the number of times the earth revolving the sun is infinitive.*
2) Formulation
Through the possibly infinitive observations, you can develop theories about how it repeats. You can then try to quantitatively describe how it repeats, say, using a formula.
3) Prediction
Prediction is to put your quantitative descriptions (formulated rules) into tests. If they predict correctly, the set of rules discovered/formulated by you is considered a truth (a formal scientific truth). If the prediction fails or doesn’t fail within an acceptable variance (say, due to equipment capability limit), the set of rules you developed is considered falsified.
There's somewhat more to the scientific method as I understand it:
"1.Define a question
2.Gather information and resources (observe)
3.Form an explanatory hypothesis
4.Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner
5.Analyze the data
6.Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7.Publish results
8.Retest (frequently done by other scientists)"
(From Wiki link above.)
To simply put a set of rules behind a repeating pattern is considered "proven" when the prediction of the pattern using this set of rules doesn't fail.
Again you seem to think that "proven" actually is a scientific goal, it isn't.
For an example, water dissolves into hydrogen and oxygen. This holds true no matter what. That is, you make a prediction (that water must dissolve into H2 and O2) before each and every experiment and that your prediction will never fail. You deserve a Nobel Prize shall your this prediction actually fails.
Some things are just axiomatic from experience and theory and can reasonably be assumed to be true in all circumstances, nothing wrong with that and no faith or trust is needed imo.
A human brain thus realizes/recognizes that it is a truth as the numerous predictions never fail.
This is the nature (predictability and falsifiability) of what science is.
I regard the Theory of Evolution to be truth and a fact, but not by faith. No I can't prove it actually is true, it is simply my belief that would change if something better did come along to describe the evidence. I don't call it a "formal truth" and I don't need faith that it is, I just don't think there could be a better explanation from my own understanding of the evidence and because in over 150 years it has not been falsified by better brains than mine.
