On 13 Jan 2021 at 19:46:28 GMT, The Natural Philosopher 
wrote:

> On 13/01/2021 18:33, Jim H wrote:
>>  I don't buy the*TOTAL*  debunking of anything based only on "we can
>>  never know for sure and thus everything is only belief." This is
>>  little more than sophistry in my book. The smart money goes with
>>  widely accepted (among scientists) science as being correct at least
>>  as far as it goes. There always seems to be more that builds on what
>>  is already known. Rarely, at least in the last several centuries, does
>>  it throw everything we "know" into a cocked hat.
> The problem is deep and you are sweeping it under the carpet, and it
> goes to the heart of all 'knowledge' about the world, because all of it
> is ultimately *models* - inductive propositions that are more or less
> useful.  Nowhere in any of it is there the solid testability that allows
> us to call it 'truth'.
>
> The real point here is not to dismantle ordinary knowledge that works
> pretty well, but to make us aware that ordinary knowledge that works
> pretty well is not the only take we can have on the universe. It is the
> antidote to 'One True Stickiness' that forces people to believe that
> they have it right, and other people have it wrong.
>
> Is Einstein truth, or just a model? - if truth then how come we believed
> in Newton?

Newton's gravity did as good a job as could be measured against at the time.
The anomaly pointed up by the precession of the axis of Mercury's orbit hadn't
been noticed yet, and it was a *huge* advance on what went before.

Remember also that if you simplify Einstein's theory (presumably by setting
speed of light to infinity), then AIUI Einstein's theory simplifies down to
exactly Newton. So there's no real conflict.

--
Tim

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