Keep your opinions to yourself sir!

[d000hg]

When something occurs over a timescale too long to perform an experiment is tricky too. Evolution being a good example - you can't really make a hypothesis. And of course cosmology. You can't watch a star for 10 million years but you can find one that (as far as you can tell) is 10 million years older but otherwise identical. 'Proof' being a very specific thing as you know, but it gets tossed around "that isn't proven" to support whatever argument someone wants to make. Evolution isn't proven, neither is global warming or God so they are all equally valid from a scientific standpoint, yada yada.

[jamesbrown]

The chain is observation, theory, experimentation, hypothesis, demonstration, proof, fact.

This is how the "scientific method" is described at middle/high school as a caricature and, therefore, mostly how the general public understands it. It isn't how science actually works, not remotely. Science is a very messy process, regardless of discipline, and not linear at all in the way this caricature implies; also, "proofs" have very different meanings in different contexts (e.g., mathematical proofs in closed systems vs. statistical/sigma levels in open systems) and little meaning in many contexts where "proof" isn't even a relevant goal.

[NigelJK]

Managed to skip the bit where I pointed out the peer reviewed experiment that proved you lived longer on Fat alone than either Carbs or Proteins alone I notice.

I can see from that you failed to apply the most primitive of scientific reasoning to your argument. Remember it's Test, Results, Conclusion.

Contrary to the the biblical proverb: you can live on meat alone. You can not live on wheat alone.

[malvolio]

This is how the "scientific method" is described at middle/high school as a caricature and, therefore, mostly how the general public understands it. It isn't how science actually works, not remotely. Science is a very messy process, regardless of discipline, and not linear at all in the way this caricature implies; also, "proofs" have very different meanings in different contexts (e.g., mathematical proofs in closed systems vs. statistical/sigma levels in open systems) and little meaning in many contexts where "proof" isn't even a relevant goal.

Right. So my early career in applied microbiology and biomedical research was all wrong then and all my training was based on the wrong process. Fair enough. I'm well aware of the practical difficulties in research thanks, having observed many unexpected results in the various lab experiments.

But what makes you think I'm trying to make any kind of final statement. Perhaps I'm just highlighting the absurdities in the earlier posts.