Science breaks the Absolute Zero barrier. (Alter all the laws of physics!)

1) Uncertainty is not of itself a mark of intellect; it is the acknowledgement of uncertainty that is the mark of intellect. (e.g. look at, for example, a good statistical model - there's X% chance of this happening, Y% chance of that happening, and a margin of error for each percentage). For example, we acknowledge that it is possible that all of our laws of nature apply only locally; however, as observations of the universe as a whole are, by and large, consistent with the laws of nature we have observed, it is more plausible (>99%) to say that, with our current level of knowledge, the universe's laws are consistent with what we observe locally.

2) Your point that "We cannot be certain of X" rings fundamentally of shifting the burden of proof. We have solid evidence that "X is true". You say "But X might not always be true. You have not fundamentally assessed every single possible situation where X could occur and not be true". You can *never* consider every single possibility once a certain level of complexity is breached.

Paraphrasing the essence of Null's post [as I saw it]:

If you don't accept X because you cannot be 1.000....00000 certain that X is true, then you are not being smart, you are just stating "I do not want to be wrong in the 0.0...001 event that this is wrong".

For example - newton's laws are *wrong* over the universe, but they're almost perfectly accurate over 90% of situations we deal with.

 

Uncertainty though has at least two different meanings. There's the uncertainty that an individual has for the answer to a specific question. And then there's the universal uncertainty that no one can know something. The first is definitely a sign of wisdom. You should always be aware of what you don't actually know. But to say that no one knows is a losing bet in a lot of cases.

As I've tried to explain previously, knowledge is built on knowledge. You always start with what you can see, what you can directly test, what you can disprove, and so on. Sometimes you need to discover some details to learn the limits of that knowledge, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the knowledge was wrong. Newton wasn't suddenly thrown out when relativity was discovered. He just needed some fine-tuning. We know Newton's laws are right because just about everything in classical physics is based on it, and all our observations (outside of relativistic and quantum systems) verify it to be true. It works, so its true. It just doesn't work for two general cases, so we fine-tuned our knowledge and came up with other rules that describe those other cases. And we know those rules are true because we can verify them experimentally and through observation. That doesn't mean we know everything about them, just that we know that the basis for them are true. Without knowing this, we couldn't have modern computers, communication satellites, and so on. The fact that we do have them is evidence that all the science that they are based on is true.

 

Shoulders of giants blah blah.

 

Newton's full of shit, that was all him, man. Humble, but full. of. shit.

 

Newton had a lot of strange beliefs, but his laws of motion and co-invention of calculus were brilliant. Even smart people can be full of crap.

There's a lot of cases of brilliant people (nobel prize winners, for example) that made incredibly dumb mistakes or had crazy ideas.

Newton believed in Alchemy. A more recent example is Linus Pauling and his advocacy of taking huge amounts of Vitamin C to prevent colds based solely on anecdotal evidence. I've heard others (Francis Crick, for example, had some strange beliefs). But those were the two that came to mind.

 

Specifically I mean he's full of shit when he said "I stand on the shoulders of giants".

 

Perhaps Newton took some drugs without realizing it?