Moderators, you can move this to the science thread if you think it is more appropriate there than here, but I think this terminology affects some of the debates here.

Many people would be mistaken when talking about how science "proves" things. What needs to be understood is that the entire procedure in science fields do not "prove" things, but "support" things. Most science process in what is called inductive reasoning. Inductive logic, reasoning, or arguments do not prove their conclusions, but rather they use evidence, arguments, and logic to support their conclusion. Their support makes the conclusion more likely to be true. There are some processes that do use deductive reasoning, which demonstrates and proves the conclusion using a premise and an argument. Most of the time, this is only done in logic, mathematics, and science with the assumption that your concept is true. For example, we know our equation for certain principles, and we can use them to predict and reason through certain scenarios. However, this all happens while one assumes the principle is at work.

This has been how science was done using the scientific method and models. One goes through observation, hypothesis, experiment, analysis, and conclusion to produce a theory or a model, and people think that is the end of the scientific method. It's not. The person or another person would come along, read the theory or model, and will either reproduce the experiment or produce a different experiment or hypothesis, to either support or counter the original theory. It will continue and theories and models will stay the same or be modified. Overall, science does not "PROVE," it "SUPPORTS."

It has been like that for many different models. The model of the atom had to go through multiple versions, till we have what we theorize today: A nucleus with an electron cloud, which used to be a round thing with nothing in the middle. Gravity was viewed as a pull to the earth, and that if the sun were to suddenly disappear, the earth will immediately leave it's orbit, according to Newton. However, Einstein's theory of relativity denied Newton's claim, and created a new model for gravity, which is a spacetime curvature, or a "sheet" made of space and time components. Even though Newton's equations were fairly accurate, the model changed to Einstein's model.

So the field of science does not "prove" anything, rather it is a field where everything is "accepted when tested as most true, true until proven false." We should not have a mentality of saying science can know everything, for it continues to develop. We know a lot through science, but it has it's limits.

Well said. I had it pt to me this way:

You can't test if anything is true in science. You can only test was is not true and everything else left standing must be the truth, or as close to the truth that our current knowledge base allows.

Of course this is a never ending path in the search for what is the truth about anything. In my lifetime alone every branch of science has been fundamentally altered in some way by a new discovery that changes what we used to think. I imagine it's going even faster now than ever before.

Science does prove things and to say it does not is kinda pushing it. Your basically discrediting science altogether saying nothing is proven, only supported.

I can eat veggies and claim to live a longer healthy life but can die tomorrow of natural causes. That is what you are talking about, jumping the gun on things that are in no way accurate due to the overwhelming odds of outside and unpredictable elements that can disrupt the process. However science can be dead accurate at PROVING stuff. If I put a lit match in a gas tank science proves that it will blow up. There is always chance of things not going as planned no matter what subject we are talking about.

We are humans, we make mistakes through trial and error. Science is only knowledge obtained through tests but that doesnt mean science is just supported speculation.

If someone gets shot in the head with a gun and dies science can prove it was the cause of death. To claim getting shot in the head and dieing is only "supporting" not proving a cause of death would be ridiculous unless you died right before the bullet hit you in head.

Supporting usually means your jumping the gun on things like space. Claiming to know space with science is like claiming to know how to think like an adult at 2 years old. Going outside of your own realm with unknown elements is not considered science its instead considered pseudoscience which relies more of belief then actual proof to support it.

Support and proof are contradicting statements, you can prove something exists with some support or you can support something exists with proof. So the way I see it, they are one in the same. The only way to get proof is support vise versa that is what is funny about this

JigSaw : Let me reemphasize what support and prove mean.

Something is supported means that the argument or evidence makes the conclusion more likely, but not definite. It depends on degrees of it, like the stronger the evidence, the more likely the conclusion is true.

Something is proven means that the argument or evidence is valid and that it isn't possible for the premise to be true and the conclusion false.

The examples you gave were not to prove something, it is using scientific theories and principles FROM science to EXPLAIN things. Like the getting shot example (what a morbid example), we get from science is that the brain functions to be the "main operator" of all the functions, so when you shoot the head, it would stop it from functioning and cause the body to stop working. It is from you knowing about what was studied, that you explained it. This is like the observation and interpretation process. Their purpose is not to prove things but to discover. Speaking of observation, that is what your examples are, they are observational. They are not testing new principles. Same goes to your gas tank example, it is from seeing that the gas tank blows up that scientist would theorize and interpret on why that would happen. They undergo hypothesis and tests, theory after theory...and what do we get from all this? The field of Chemistry, which studies the science in elements, compounds and their interactions. And they create models to hypothesize about it until they get to it. Science is used to design the best model or theory to explain things that are observed.

Scientist would understand this (and this was confirmed to me by both my science teachers in high school and my profs in college).History backs me up on this, because all scientific studies undergo the scientific method repeatedly, and we get more and more up-to-date knowledge on everything. From this process, we discover more and more, and models and theories continue to get updated, remodeled, or totally scraped altogether.

Finally, I don't discrediting science. Science has done so much in discovering the world and knowing more and more on how the world. I'm saying that the process of the scientific method is inductive, not deductive. You don't prove things with the scientific method