This is kind of a spin-off of another post in Debate, but now that I've had time to think about it, I reckon that post should have been placed here in the first place.
Some further ruminations while trawling through the rival FES forum led me to the following hypothesis:
"If the evidence submitted in support of a scientific claim has been obtained by adhering correctly to the scientific method, rather than the claim simply being the result of a mistake in one's attempt to adhere correctly to the scientific method, then the evidence can be relied upon to provide us with a solid and reasonable approximation of what we call 'true.' Therefore, the same can be said of the method used to derive said evidence."
This is meant to support the claim that we exist in grounded, objective reality. Here is what I mean in the most practical way I can put it, broken down, with
bold for emphasis:
1 )
To test the ruggedness and reliability of any method is to test its capacity for making predictions successfully and accurately. This is what it means to "test" objectivity itself.2 ) To attempt to demonstrate objectivity, we must
first agree upon a
reliable method for determining what we "know," and conversely, "don't know," for all that objectivity means in a practical sense.
3 ) The method in question - the scientific method - attempts to root out what is
unreliable, implausible, or otherwise unreasonable to call "true" or "known..." That's why we call it
science, from the Latin
scientia, from
scire, which means "to know."
4 ) The scientific method, like any tool, is susceptible to user error,
but that is not the same as the method itself being in error.
I don't mean to suggest that just because someone
claims something is "scientific" or "it's science, bitch" means that the claim itself is
true, just that the method for deriving the evidence in
support of that claim has to be
consistent with the scientific method in order for it to be called true scientifically, which is to say true objectively.
Put in the form of a hypothesis, what I'm saying is what you saw at the start of the post:
"If the evidence submitted in support of a scientific claim has been derived by adhering correctly to the scientific method, rather than simply being the result of a mistake in one's attempt to adhere correctly to the scientific method, then the evidence can be relied upon to provide us with a solid and reasonable approximation of what we call 'true.' Therefore, the same can be said of the method used to derive said evidence."
Does that make sense to you?