MightyBobX Quotage

haha, oh jesus. a sample midterm question from my chem20 class: "All samples of pure water boil at 100 degrees c. How can this scientific law be proved?" and the answer is "it can only be shown to predict reality; science cannot be proved". this is the professor who thinks induction is not a valid means of gaining knowledge and that modern science has abandoned the traditional scientific method (observation->hypothesis->experimentation) in favor of a new conjectural method (conjecture->attempts at refutation->acceptance). this is so dumb it's hardly worth commenting on, but i'll do it anyway. where does he think these conjectures come from? they pull them out of their asses? no, they start with observations from experiments or other scientific laws. his "attempts at refutation" are precisely what experimentation is for; it either agrees with or refutes a hypothesis. finally, he someone differentiates the "acceptance of a conjecture" from "the making of a scientific law", which means he hasn't bothered to think about either of those in the slightest. as to this midterm question, it's ridiculous; what, like there's a difference between "proving a scientific theory" and showing that a theory works in reality?