[recycled material - first appeared here]
Yesterday I listened to a podcast that featured a personal hero of mine, Neil deGrasse Tyson, in which he responded to questions from the audience. Before answering one, he objected to the word "prove" in the question, saying he didn't like that term. Right on! Neither do I. And he explained why he didn't like the word, paralleling something I wrote here roughly a year ago.
Rather than providing proof, scientific findings support hypotheses; they boost our confidence in a theory; they increase the probability that our understanding of how things work is accurate.
To read more of that post, click here: Prove, Shmoove
Tags: language, rationality
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