I need to read more Briggs. I will forgive him for his Thomism: but the Calvinism is a logical outworking of Thomistic theology. We talk about the reformed faith without saying what we are reforming, which is Western Christianity, by bringing it more in line with the scripture.

By stripping away pretence and dogma.

And so it should be in science.

I often say the root of all scientific evil is the love of theory. And it is so.

What is a scientific theory? Nothing except a set of premises—propositions, observations and the like—from which we deduce statements about the observable universe, where by “universe” I mean all the material + energy there is, including that in any so-called multi-verse or many-verse.

Here is a simple theory. Days following hot days are usually hot. This is as fully a scientific theory as that produced by the largest grants at the top indoctrination centers. From our humble theory, and given the observation “Today is hot”, we deduce that tomorrow is likely to be hot. There are no quantifications of “hot”, “usually” or “likely”, and there is nothing in the world wrong with that. The theory is understandable without quantification. Quantification is not what makes a theory scientific; indeed, over-quantification and quantifying the unquantifiable can ruin an otherwise workable theory.

Our theory does two things which all good theories should. One, it fits past data well. Two, it makes testable predictions.

Anybody can try our theory, and if decisions made relying on it work out for some individuals, they might want to adopt the theory as their own. Not everybody makes the same decisions. Some might want more precision in temperature; our theory will be of little to no use to them.

Should we only look for true theories? No.

What makes a theory true, and not just good or utilitarian, is when each and every premise in the theory is itself true (and the combination not self-refuting in some way). In our theory, it is true, given our observation, that today is hot. But it is not universally true that days following hot days are usually hot. That premise (that part of the theory) is only likely given other observations and premises. So we do not have a true theory; merely a good one.

I know of no scientific theory that is true in this absolute sense. To be a true theory, I reiterate, every single premise comprising the theory must itself be true, provably true given a chain of argument that indubitably leads back to unshakeable axioms and sense impressions. Candidates for true theories, then, are simple ones; indeed, the simpler the better. This is why particle physicists are much closer to true theories than fluid physicists.

True is a harsh, brutal, exacting word. Mostly true is not true; it is a little bit false. Mathematicians and meta-physicians speak of truth, and well they may. But scientists used to be, and now ought to be again, more cautious. They must re-learn to speak in uncertainties.

Richard Feynman? said, “When we know that we actually live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know answers.”

Theories which are not true are thus always in need of fixing in the direction of truth. And since there are not absolutely true scientific theories, this is why the scientist who says, “The debate is over” is a bad scientist. He has confused a likelihood with truth, a telling mistake.

Cab U add that it is easier to show something is false. All Swans were considered white, until explorers found black swans on Australia. One exception disproves truth.

Beware of those who too glibly say what the most learned of us admit they do not understand. Truth is a hard standard: to it none of us measure up, for all our ideas and theories will need correction.