How much of what we 'know' is actually wrong?

[THolman Veteran]

Just a curious little thought I've been having over the last few days... when we look back at science or medicine, it's pretty easy to actually laugh at some of the theories and treatments that were accepted in the past. In their time, some of 'em even seemingly had evidence on their side. Why should what we 'know' today be any different? Has anyone else ever thought about how many of our scientific theories, for instance, are totally wrong? And what about medical treatments - some of the thing we're doing today are probably just as stupid as bloodletting.

[psionicinversion]

Science is just best guess with what we know today, the science of tomorrow will always be different. What we know now isn't necessarily wrong maybemore like inefficient. When it comes to quantum mechanics and stuff were still just in nursery school at best

[protocol7]

The way I see it, what we know is based on what we understand at a given time. In time the things that we believe to be true will be shown up. It's all part of the eternal quest for knowledge.

[Hum]

EVERYTHING :ninja:

[Charisma Veteran]

Just a curious little thought I've been having over the last few days... when we look back at science or medicine, it's pretty easy to actually laugh at some of the theories and treatments that were accepted in the past. In their time, some of 'em even seemingly had evidence on their side. Why should what we 'know' today be any different? Has anyone else ever thought about how many of our scientific theories, for instance, are totally wrong? And what about medical treatments - some of the thing we're doing today are probably just as stupid as bloodletting.

I'm absolutely sure of this, it's clear that a lot of what we do is more harmful than helpful.

[+John Teacake MVC]

I thought about this there is no generic treatment for anything, What might work for one person wont work for another so to speak.

[Salty Wagyu]

It's getting borderline ridiculous how much medical advice there is out there, you can never be sure it's accurate or right. Everyone's saying different. An newspaper article might say drinking a glass of wine a day will reduce heart disease, another article saying eating carrots or some other will reduce the chance of a type of cancer. And all the weight loss methods seem to be a sham.

I think it's getting worse :/

[t_r_nelson]

Chemotherapy is a terrible way of treating cancer. But it's also one of the few viable options for treatments. In 20 or 30 years I'm sure we'll look back at that and say 'WTF were we thinkinng?'

[Phouchg]

That's exactly what science is all about - that nothing is 100% true, ever. Those small control groups and a few years of testing (especially on non-humans) cannot account for all the genetic diversity of humans. And then there's too many charlatans, idiots and those looking to profit from it.

[ThePitt]

its called evolution. The evolution of the information. Of course most of the nowaday theories/technology are damn wrong, but we live on this time and we handle them the best we can.

[Growled Member]

EVERYTHING :ninja:

Maybe not everything but a lot of it is wrong.

[Dot Matrix]

its called evolution. The evolution of the information. Of course most of the nowaday theories/technology are damn wrong, but we live on this time and we handle them the best we can.

EVOLUTION IS A LIE! GOD CREATED KNOWLEDGE! :rolleyes:

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Just remember that once it was a "fact" that the Earth was flat and the sun revolved around it. It's wasn't an opinion or theory, it was a 100% given fact.

[THolman Veteran]

Just remember that once it was a "fact" that the Earth was flat and the sun revolved around it. It's wasn't an opinion or theory, it was a 100% given fact.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm not just talking about theories or even medical treatments - it's just kind of humbling to think that some of what we consider to be 'fact' today is probably bogus.

[primexx]

the difference between knowledge today and knowledge a thousand years ago is the methodology we use to obtain said knowledge, so given the significantly increased rigour it's reasonable to expect that a much smaller portion of today's knowledge is blatantly false, than it used to be. But we can't tell, of course, which of our investigative limits is actually giving us a wrong impression simply by asking this question within the same limits, it'd take an expansion of our powers of investigation to figure that out.

[Shannon]

I'm of the opinion we can never fully understand anything. It's impossible to completely understand the universe from within the universe.