Reply #7: I thought the script misrepresented science. But it states the [View All]

[HereSince1628]

position of many science educators very well.

The Santos character spoke of science being based on "facts" that he suggested can be "proven." That rhetoric isn't correct.

Speaking of "facts" is legal language. Science deals with data which every scientist would admit is vulnerable to mistakes and biases at the levels of collection, analysis and interpretation. Which as the foundation of otherwise perfect theoretical constructions makes those theories subject to being modified or discarded by subsequent and more reliable contrary findings. Biologists, although they strive to get things done correctly, must maintain the possibility that their data is in error to a greater or lesser degree.

Moreover, biological scientists are very circumspect and skeptical that observations or understandings constructed via science can be "proven." Proofs are something for photographs, math, logic, and again the rhetoric of the legal system. Scientists would not say they conduct tests to prove facts, or prove theories. Scientific testing mostly works by negation rather than affirmation or acclaim (although fields using surveillance--involved in such things as finding the Flores hominid--do, at least in part, work this way. And Scientists admitted also conduct post hoc review of data for signal(s) of something potentially interesting for future study). Consequently, as in statistics, biologists would typically say that they reject or fail to reject hypotheses under test. That failure may ripple through understanding to knock down previously accepted conceptual understandings.

But, having rejected an alternative doesn't mean the remaining hypothesis correctly and perfectly reflects phenomena in the empirical realm. Neither does failing to reject. Consequently, scientist treat most of their understanding as tentative rather than proven.