What is true or false knowledge? You can have either useful or useless
knowledge, but true or false is really relative ;-)
A theory can explain things to you - but even if it's a very good
explanation, it might turn out to be misleading some day. And a theory
can predict things, more or less accurately. Just because a theory gives
a good explanation or predicts things accurately doesn't mean that it's
"true". If you approach science with the ideal to find truth, you'll
either be very frustrated real soon (because no matter how hard you try,
there's no certainty or truth) OR you may find something that looks like
truth to you, which is even worse. Truth doesn't change, so if you think
you found truth, you can't deal with a new theory that contradicts your
"truth" (but might be a LOT better).
> If there are 2 varieties of knowledge,
> and if science is for true knowledge,
> then truth is the true goal of science.
Ever read Popper? "Truth" is absolute - science may get better... btw, I
think the "true" goals of science have changed during history (so they
never were absolutely true - the only true thing was that at that
certain time, people considered those "goals" the goals of science...)
later,
Holger
-- o---------------------------------------------------------------o | "That's the funny thing about memories, isn't it? We are not | | what we remember of ourselves, we are what people say we are. | | They project upon us their convictions - we are nothing but | | blank screens." +$+ Trevor Goodchild in "Aeon Flux" | \_______________________o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| "Best do it so" -?- \ mailto:Holger.Wagner@lrz-muenchen.de | ! http://www.extropy.org ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^% PGP-Fingerprint: BD 78 AE 5A AD 20 91 AC E6 77 A8 B4 12 D1 9C 39