What is scientific truth?
It is almost an inherent belief that science is based on observations that can be picked up by the senses and are not mere figments of human imagination and are certainly not tainted by personal prejudices. According to correspondence theory of truth, a statement is true if it can be supported with corresponding facts (Chalmers 1999: pg 225). These true statements are thought to represent the world around us and hence increase our understanding of our world. The question that one asks is that how do we get to the truth, is it a straightforward process or does it have questionable elements that may affect the reliability of so called truth and do these statements really represent the real world.
“According to induction, science starts with observation; builds up those observations into a significant body of data; and then goes about the business of deriving patterns, theories and laws”(Webster, 2009).It was Sir Francis Bacon that first formulated this scientific method also known as “Baconianism”, however, there are two widely debated problems with induction one is the sequence of events i.e., observation comes before theory and the other is its lack of certainty and the unsecure nature of scientific truth. If a scientist were to look for observations around him without a possible question in mind or a theory he could gather all sorts of irrelevant and pointless facts which may or may not be of any use in increasing scientific knowledge. However with a theory or rather a question in mind the scientist could make focused observations and gather relevant experimental results. N.R Hanson (1958) debated extensively about how two people seeing the same object may perceive it differently; he elaborated his point of view using various figures that could be perceived as two different objects. Kuhn disagreed that theories of science were representative of nature and science paints a picture of what really is out there. He also believed that...