HugodeCrevellier

The sciences are subject to the same political and economic realities as the rest of us. There's an ideal "hard science" that is removed from such but what qualifies exactly or not does often become very subjective. Proper science can also lead to conclusions which are patently incorrect.

That's indeed the case in a short-term kind of way. Scientific conclusions are only supposed to be there until the next better, simpler, more precise or more complete conclusion is reached. Ideally, we eventually hope to reach some ultimate 'theory of everything', where all the pieces fit together.

But beyond the 'political and economic realities', which place practical obstacles to knowledge, there may also be a more serious limit to genuine scientific undemanding, even ideally. The laws that govern our Cosmos may be too subtle for our current brains. It doesn't matter how much you try to teach difficult abstract concepts to e.g. a baboon, it could not possibly grasp them. You cannot therefore expect a baboon to understand the Cosmos with its current brain, no matter what. Humans may be smarter than the baboon, but they/we may nonetheless not be smart enough. A 'theory of everything' may require us to enhance our brains.

Of course there's also tendencies towards orthodoxies of thought in the sciences. You see examples of that in the reactions towards things like "flat earth theory" or geocentrism or whatever. It's worth nothing that both of these can be valid scientific models assuming a lack of information we now have. I think adherents of both are ignoring obvious realities about the world that make the models unworkable but the discussion surrounding the model and how to falsify or prove them is very useful.

Indeed.

Most people go into the sciences with certain assumptions and never question them. It's an obvious fact to us that the earth is round but if you can't explain why we know it is round you aren't really holding a scientific belief just repeating what you have been told. It's quite easy to prove the earth is round yourself if you learn how. That is useful

Yes, well said.

With more obscure topics, like the existence of dark matter. There's orthodoxies of scientific thought especially in journalism that fails to get the nuances. There's good reason to believe that dark matter exists but all experiments so far to try to identify what it is have failed, it exists as a hole in our models, and while it's rational to look for something to explain a discrepancy in an otherwise workable model, there comes a point where you have to consider the model to be wrong if you cannot find a solution.

Yes, well said again.

It's possible our understanding of science isn't as good as we think. Each generation thinks they know better than before but we will always lack the full picture and we always have the potential to be dead wrong about things. Especially when it comes to the boundary of science and philosophy.

Yes.

PS) Assuming access to accurate relevant information, when reasonably intelligent and sincere people address a subject, they should eventually all reach similar, if not identical, conclusions.

Furthermore, these conclusions will expectedly reflect the conclusions reached by the civilised/scientific part of humanity at that time in history.

The trick is always to prevent the primitive and uncivilised (and, typically, more numerous and violent) parts of humanity from completely destroying the civilised part of it, as has happened before in history, delaying and even undoing understanding.

Stupidity may end up being our own Great Filter.