Nick Josh Karean: I have no fault to find with those who teach legitimate science. Science is the only method which has not produced sects and denominations. Science is founded on analysis and on synthesis and on the calculus; it does not occupy itself with probable truths and delusional truths; moreover it has the same method of identifying authenticity or the real truth in every nation and in every country.
I wrote this in elaboration of the original quote from the King of Prussia, Frederick the Great (1712 –1786) which sounded like this: "I have no fault with those who teach geometry. That science is the only one which has not produced sects; it is founded on analysis, and on synthesis and on the calculus; it does not occupy itself with probable truths; moreover it has the same method in every country."
James Robert Foster II: "it does not occupy itself with probable truths" All inductive arguments (which includes all scientific arguments) can only establish probable truth.
Nick Josh Karean: Indeed. But the 'probable' truth for the religious does not carry the same definition of the 'probable' truth in science.
James Robert Foster II: The term is ambiguous. But, that does not mean that science does not occupy itself with probable truths. It does. This is all that I can establish. On the other hand, religious 'truth' is largely based off of metaphysical assumptions, and if those assumptions were false, the system and its truths would be false. Science has falsified a lot of the 'truths' that were reached through reasoning based on different metaphysical assumptions, and other assumptions, but unfortunately the metaphysical assumptions that religions rely on are not falsifiable, and persist, despite the progress of science.
Scientific 'truth', or, more accurately, scientific theory gives a best estimate explanation of the real world that is based on reasoning from empirical standards, rather than metaphysical assumptions.
The quote you altered was accurate because mathematics doesn't employ induction at all. It's purely deductive and it's truth's are logically sound, but the truths aren't informative. Saying 2+2 is the same as saying 4, so 2+2 = 4 is about as informative as saying a dog is a dog. Scientific arguments can never have that solid logical soundness, but they can be very informative. Actually, it's this information it provides that causes the conclusions to lose their logical certainty.
The methods really are two separate approaches to the same end—‘truth', with metaphysics taking a "top-down" approach, starting with grand general assumptions, and natural science taking a "bottom-up" approach, starting with small local observations. A lot of people, myself included, attempt to extrapolate from science to metaphysics, and vice versa.
A lot of people also make (or have made) metaphysical assumptions comparable to belief in God, like choosing free-will or determinism, idealism or realism, physicalism or dualism of mind, and about the nature of existence and the nature of space and time.
I don't think science per se is, or can be concerned with falsifying metaphysical assertions. And if the metaphysical assertion(s) in question have real effects in physical/empirical reality, science can only test those effects, and not the assertions themselves. What can't be falsified isn't a problem, anyway. The real problems are the 'truths' about reality inferred from metaphysical assumptions; they beg the question and aren't grounded on verifiable (or falsifiable) principles or observations.
A lot of religious people try to apply a similar criticism to scientific theory, but they ignore that scientific theories are empirical and not metaphysical systems.
An interesting, ironic, and dangerous insight here is how the statement "it does not occupy itself with probable truths", hearkens back to Plato's rejection of the observable world in favor of the supposedly perfect world of 'forms', where the forms of things were perfect, and the observed things simply imperfect copies. Pythagoras, Plato, and those who followed in their footsteps respected the realm of ideas (of deductive logic) far more than the realm of sense experience, observation, and experimentation (and induction).
This trend of thought, in its many mutations, has been a major fundamental opponent of a scientific/physicalist/positivist world-view, which relies heavily on induction.
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