Bohm said-
And ordinary people unable to look at the chart or hear a statement like "a human has 23 chromosomes" and understand what its trying to accomplish?
it's NOT talking about variations which exist within a single species, eg abnormality of chromosomal defects in humans, which is a HUGE TOPIC in itself,
no ofcourse not. Like if i said: "a human has two arms" I would not be talking about the variation in the number of arms found in humans. I would be conveying an ordinary fact about human anatomy and both laypersons and scientists would easily be able to understand there are humans with more or less arms than 2. Imagine how painful it would be to read an article on comparative anatomy and every number or feature would need to be prefixed with: "the mode of the number of tails on pigs is 1".
That goes back to my point about needing to consider the context in which the information is presented, since anyone who's had any experience with looking at charts/graphs knows to first determine what the information is attempting to represent.
...which is my point. when someone is saying: " a human has 23 chromosomes" consider the context and dont say "yah but if the context was abnormalities and chromosomal defects THEN....".
So you agree at the end that some facts ARE relative, depending on context, and an answer marked as 'correct/true' would depend upon what that context was/is.
Now, compare to Cofty's use of the term 'fact' in this thread, which he improperly assumed as a synonym for 'reality', with facts being unchangeable.
In a thread discussing a recent Palentology scientific find (Homo erectus), Cofty used a non-scientific definition of the word 'fact'. SBF rightly and correctly pointed out his misunderstanding (as SBF and myself have done in many other threads, to make the same point), but Cofty refused to even CONSIDER the issue, since he dogmatically KNOWS his use is correct, and everyone else's is WRONG, even Dr Eugenie Scott! That's just more dogmatism, but simply a scientific flavor of dogma (by refusing to accept the accepted use in science, since he's misunderstoof the term for what, almost four years?).
I dared to confirmed that Cofty was WRONG on his useage of the word in a scientific context (I've known about the discrepancy between laypeople and scientists for what, 40 years now?), but I'm not holding my breath, waiting for Cofty apologize to others perpetuating the misunderstanding.
(Ishmael (MadGiant) had the intellectual integrity to admit that his prior understanding of the term was incorrect, a few pages ago. Saying "I was wrong" is a sign of STRENGTH, not WEAKNESS, which is something many posters here SHOULD learn, as there's been far-more egregious examples of dogmatism in a few other threads.)
In the meantime, SBF has apparently stormed off to rejoin the ranks of the loving arms of the JWs, since they apparently offer the false sense of certainty in the form of dogmatism that is all-too-often found outside of the JWs, too (just a different flavor of dogmatism). Fact is, people CAN see TTATT and IGNORE ALL OF IT, just to play the JW game. It happens more often than some here would like to admit, as it means they too can back-slide, the proverbial dog returning to its own vomit.
But YES, science does use standards and consensus opinion, but the difference is it's USUALLY not dogmatic; the ideal is that if someone can present evidence for a REASON to use method, then lay it on us, but be prepared to make a case that others will accept. But the FACT of the matter is that science works better than religious faith, warts and all.
Adam