Absolute truths

Wheland and Pauling (1959) tried to explain the inductive effect in terms of ar-electron theory by varying the ax and ySxY parameters for nearest-neighbour atoms, then for next-nearest-neighbour atoms and so on. But, as many authors have also pointed out, it is always easy to introduce yet more parameters into a simple model, obtain agreement with an experimental finding and then claim that the model represents some kind of absolute truth. 

Once the experiment has been conducted and data collected and analyzed, a conclusion can be drawn concerning the original hypothesis. The experiment does not establish absolute truth concerning the hypothesis. A researcher should resist the temptation to state that the hypothesis was proven or not proven. In science, absolute truth can never be established. Results of an experiment may either support or not support the hypothesis. Ambiguous results can cause the researcher to modify the hypothesis and redesign the experiment. Even when the results are not ambiguous, an experiment is often repeated. One of the benchmarks of science is reproducibility. When an experiment is conducted and certain conclusions reached, another researcher should be able to repeat the same experiment and obtain similar results. 

Nobody can ever rightfully claim to hold the absolute truth on survey data interpretation, or to possess the only path for future operational objectives and strategies. Nevertheless, the more experienced water treatment representative will tend to provide a more practical and cost-effective proposal than the new recruit, fresh from the vendor s training school. 

All in all, the relation between internal realism and relativism seems to be this. Internal realism does not imply relativism. It rules out certain forms of relativism, but does not refute all versions of the doctrine. One of the reasons why people may find relativism fascinating is that it seems to justify human freedom. They fear that the idea of absolute truth is linked to intellectual dictatorship. I think this fear is misplaced. Truth alone does not infringe on people s right to believe what they like. Only other people can do that. Since internal realism is committed to fallibilism, it gives us reasons for not constraining intellectual liberty in the name of truth. For we might not possess the truth. 

Totally convinced that they are in the sole possession of the absolute truth regarding the Holocaust, they simply refuse to even consider the possibility that they could be wrong, and that their actions could cause tremendous sufferings for innocent people. As soon as the Holocaust is involved in any court case, prosecutors and judges, media and politicians, en masse, simply ignore all exonerating evidence ... 

Science thus encourages abandonment of the search for absolute truth, and the substitution of what may be called "technical" truth, which belongs to any theory that can be successfully employed in inventions or in predicting the future. "Technical" truth is a matter of degree a theory from which more successful inventions and predictions spring is truer than one which gives rise to fewer. 

Truth. This is a word best avoided entirely in physics except when placed in quotes, or with careful qualification. Its colloquial use has so many shades of meaning from it seems to be correct to the absolute truths claimed by religion, that it s use causes nothing but misunderstanding. Someone once said Science seeks proximate (approximate) truths. Others... 

The quantities of these wastewaters as they come from various sources are varied and, sometimes, one portion of the literature would report a value for a quantity of a parameter that conflicts on information of the quantity of the same parameter reported in another portion of the literature. For example, many designers often assume that the amount of wastewater produced is equal to the amount of water consumed, including the allowance for infiltration-inflow, although one report indicates that 60 to 130% of the water consumed ends up as wastewater, and stiU another report indicates that 60 to 85% ends up as wastewater. For this reason, quantities provided below should not be used as absolute truths, but only as guides. For more accurate values, actual data should be used. 

An independent synthesis is devoid of these shortcomings. The structure confirmed by this route can be considered to be an absolute truth no less than if established by a trustworthy Supreme Court. 

Polish hard past presented in previous chapters. Criticism alone would be unfair and unpatriotic. To take a satisfied position and present only the positive aspects of what was done in recent years on policy of pharmaceutical affairs and the subject of drug registration while ignoring badly managed areas as was done so often in the previous era, would not be fair either. I shall try to present both since absolute truth is nonexistent and there is no one right way to deal with all problems. 

Henry has a private religion just as he has a private science and he regards each as corroborating absolute truth. He carries his religion like a tent, and where he pitches it is the sanctuary that shelters him and all others he can entreat to enter. 

For a long time tellurium was a puzzle to chemists because its atomic weight exceeded that of iodine, which was contrary to what was to be expected from MendeleefFs periodic table. Believing in the absolute truth of MendeleefFs system, many chemists made a study of the atomic weight of tellurium and probably methods of purification of no element have ever been so carefully studied as those of tellurium. The classical research of Baker and Bennett in 1907 appeared to confirm for all time that tellurium must be regarded as an exception to the Periodic Law. As a mean of 43 determinations obtained from various highly purified derivatives of the element a mean value of 127 605 (O = 16 000) was found — a value that is accepted to-day (1950) by the Committee on Atomic Weights of the International Union of Chemistry, in the form of 127 61. 

How closely does the arithmetical mean approximate to the absolute truth To illustrate, we may use the results of Crookes model research on the atomic weight of thallium (Phil. Trans., 163, 277, 1874). Crooke s determination of this constant gave 203-628 203 632 203 636 203 638 203 6391... 

In the course of time, theories and hypotheses will be replaced by empirical generalisations (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 281). At the same time, Vernadsky does not consider these indisputable scientific truths" to be absolute truths In science we do not deal with absolute truths but with unquestionably exact logical conclusions and with relative assertions whose correctness varies within definite limits. Within the limits, these assertions are equivalent to the logically unquestionable inferences of reason" (Vernadsky, 1991,p.ll6). 

Plato At each absolute truth at each law of nature that he discovers, doth not man raise this veil ... 

Sociologists tell us that there are three stages in socially constructed reality externalization, objectivation, and internalization [3]. Externalization is the initial stage, when a theory or opinion is accepted as tentatively being true. Objectivation is the next stage, when the theory or opinion is accepted as fact. Internalization is when the accepted facts are incorporated into a person s psyche as absolute truth. 

Eastern science is fact oriented. It tries to communicate with the truth not through generality and abstraction as Western science does, but through specificity and objectivity. A specific fact represents the absolute truth. Interpretations and hypotheses should be avoided because human discursive intellects conceal the reality. 

Every scientist in the West tries to estabhsh his ego. Each scientist has to put forward his own hypothesis to establish his raison d etre, even if he knows his hypothesis is not the absolute truth. Scientists have to advertise their hypotheses and their re-created world in a loud voice to be visible and to persuade other scientists. In the East, scientists have no big hypothesis to advertise. To advertise 1 and my something is quite bad manners in the East Scientists seek a highly specified fact. Once they have obtained such a fact, they do not have to speak because the fact speaks. In natural sciences, it is more natural and therefore better to let nature speak for itself than to let man speak scientists should keep silent. These are the aesthetics of the East. Similar aesthetics are found in various activities of Eastern people, such as the cooking I have referred to. 

The attached table is to summarize the merits and disadvantages of the five different schemes. Evidently, the statements contained in this table as well as some of the statements made below, do not represent absolute truths but hold only under the conditions which axe usually considered reasonable. They axe designed to serve for an orientation of the reader. 

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