Never, ever fall back on "Science was wrong before."
The phrase "science was wrong before" (or variations thereof, such as "science has been wrong in the past", "science is only human", "science keeps changing", or "science is not infallible") is a fallacious technique used in order to reject or disparage a current scientific consensus, especially on topics such as evolution or global warming. It usually works like this:
The "science was wrong before" gambit exemplifies both the continuum fallacy and the nirvana fallacy. It is a sister-fallacy to "media was wrong before".
Contents
- 1Flaws
- 2Uses and examples
- 3Realism versus anti-realism in science
- 4See also
- 5External links
- 6Notes
- 7References
Flaws[edit]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions_2nd_edition_Thomas_Kuhn.jpg/330px-The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions_2nd_edition_Thomas_Kuhn.jpgThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2nd edition, Thomas Kuhn
https://rationalwiki.org/w/images/thumb/6/6f/Scientific_method.PNG/300px-Scientific_method.PNG
The scientific method.
Usually (or at least often) "science was wrong before" is used to defend the existence of a disproven phenomenon — alternative medicine, perpetual motion, crank theories of everything, faster-than-light travel… the list is really endless for where this has been applied before. The usual examples of science being wrong (like the geocentric worldview that "science" used to hold) were theories that were in no way disprovable at the time, much in the way that string theory cannot be readily disproved at this time. Many alternative medical practices, on the other hand, have been carefully shown to be utterly ineffective in one study after another — no additional information will suddenly contradict these results. When used like this, the "science was wrong before" trope is effectively like suggesting that our observations that gravity is an attractive force are wrong, because one day in the future we might just see something go floating up instead of falling down, and therefore homeopathy works.
So while it is true that several believed-to-be-true theories turned out to be wrong, that doesn't mean that theories that have already been proven wrong might suddenly turn out to be right, or that all theories with an overwhelming scientific consensus will necessarily turn out to be wrong.
Missing the point[edit]
https://rationalwiki.org/w/images/thumb/9/93/240724175_10227181076779139_8654300658544882283_n.jpg/300px-240724175_10227181076779139_8654300658544882283_n.jpgThis is pretty easy to understand.[note 1]
The logic behind this argument is fallacious in a number of ways. Primarily it misrepresents how science actually works by forcing it into a binary conception of "right" and "wrong". To describe outdated or discredited theories as "wrong" misses a major subtlety in science: discarded theories aren't really wrong, they just fail to explain new evidence, and more often than not the new theory to come along is almost the same as the old one, but with some extensions, caveats, or alternatives.[note 2] Often enough, these "new" theories are already in existence and just waiting in the wings, ready for new evidence to come along and differentiate them. This is well exemplified in Thomas Kuhn's writing on scientific revolutions, who's work has been co-opted by many cranks.
No, it's not meaningless, it's better to have it, but they can do science without it. Knock it off with the dishonest 
