The Nature of Scientific Knowledge

Assumptions

• There exists an objective Reality
  • or at least an intersubjective reality upon which independent observers can agree

• Reality is knowable

• Reality is governed by physical processes which can be described by a set of rules - the "Laws of Nature"

• The Laws of Nature are accessible to human knowledge through experimentation

• The Laws of Nature are universal
  • the rules do not change arbitrarily from place to place or from time to time -

  • God doesn't cheat