Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
I shudder when I hear that phrase, "right thinking people". Right by whose standards? Your's? Mine? bin Laden's?

Anyone can claim anything to be a "scientific fact" whenever they wish. But the true test of science is when those "facts" are corroborated by other scientists and found to be accurate. Over and over again. And even then, a true scientist will rarely come out and say that something is the absolute truth. At best, we can only say that there is currently no evidence to refute the data (or confirm them).
That's a bit of a nihilistic view that anyone can claim anything to be a scientific fact. While that's true on the internet, maybe, the system of testing and peer review tends to correct for spurious claims in actual practice.

You're right in the strict sense of testing the null hypothesis that there is simply no evidence to refute the hypothesis (not the data, since the data often form the evidence but I think you probably meant to say that). You don't ever truly close the door to further testing, even of established ideas. However, there is also the principle that you sample to redundancy, then can be confident of the results. We are still learning about genetics in many ways but I'm confident we can jettison outdated concepts based on the available evidence.

In any case, don't want to jack the thread with philosophy of science talk so I'll leave it there.