“So you’re telling me there’s a chance”

As I pointed out in my previous post, we can only advance scientifically indirectly — via falsification — rather than by confirmation. Correlation does not imply causation. And that rankles us. We want certainty.

But, to be clear, some things are so well supported that we can assume them to be true even while acknowledging that falsification remains possible, as the clip below so humorously illustrates.

Part of the problem is that we are so bad at math and at probability. Another part is that we misunderstand what theory means in science and, as in the video, overstate the amount of hope our discredited ideas truly justify.

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