Chap wrote:This view of science as being liable to a total 'overturn' at any moment is odd, and does not really represent that way things have gone on over the last '100 or 200 years'.
Large parts of the science we still use are really very old - such as the system of dynamics established in its essentials by Isaac Newton in 1687. Although we have learned that Newton's system does not represent accurately what happens at high speeds or when very large masses are involved, it is still reliable for all everyday purposes. Maxwell's electromagnetic equations were published in 1861-2, and still do for electric and magnetic fields what Newton did for the motion of masses. In five years' time, general relativity will be 100 years old, and it is still one of the most powerful physical theories we have. Like Newton's dynamics, it may eventually be shown to have its limitations, but that time is not yet, and any competing theory will be in part judged by whether it tells us why general relativity seems to be true in all the tests it has survived so far. We have known about atomic nuclei since Rutherford's paper in 1911. And so on. The science that Franktalk speaks of as entirely provisional and likely to be 'washed away by future generations' isn't the science known to people who actually understand and practice it.
Franktalk,
What Chap wrote here is absolutely true and well said. Perhaps you might consider the fact that some of the folks contributing to this thread have made real contributions to science. (It is a requirement for earning an Ph.D.)
For example, my small contribution to science, as set forth in my thesis and in a number of papers thereafter, is highly unlikely to be "overturned" in the future.
I identified a previously unrecognized hormone in humans and helped describe and verify its metabolic pathways, one of which, interestingly enough, can result in the production of small amounts of DMT.
Unless humankind evolves so as to lose the genetic sequences that code for the enzymes that produce this hormone and the endogenous psychoactive compounds that can slip out along its metabolic pathway, I would think my contribution is pretty safe. I would also think that anyone who has made contributions to mathematics or physics (as others here certainly have) can be reasonably confident that their contributions are similarly "safe" from overturn.
As Chap, keithb, and others have described, now multiply this by the millions who work in scientific research at some time in their careers and you get some idea of the "weight of evidence" problem that science deniers and religious fundamentalists have.
Again as Chap pointed out, some of the most important theories we have today, those that we recognize as fundamentals of nature, including electromagnetics, relativity (and I dare say evolution) were developed in the 19th (or early 20th) century and are at least 100 years old.
By contrast, 19th century LDS Church prophets, claiming inspiration from God, assured humankind that the sun received its light from Kolob and that both the moon and the sun were inhabited.
Talk about overturn.