Its just a little something that has been on my mind for some time, and giving the general populous here seems to be educated, intelligent and diverse in opinion I feel its a positive place to inquire about such.

I have giving much thought on how to word this as to make such evident in what I am asking about, but i still have to do a bit of writing to make it come across. Basically, what is fact, are there aspects to fact, or different dimensions of it?

I had a long discussion with a person that supported intelligent design, I on the other hand keep my options open, only going from fact. To me, fact is something empirical, or stemming from that but still being directly related. He went on about how math can show that such is possible, or that math can allow for that truth to exist. I basically countered with stating that math as a form of description of the truth is only as good is our ability to use it. Basically an example of what I am talking about is sometimes we cannot just use math alone in relation to understanding the natural world. Its not just some concrete math formula going over and over again that produces natural phenomena, we don’t even have that in computers for those that work in the field, and its a computer

I feel this is evident again if you tried to put math into describing tidal movement down to tiny volumes of liquid water. I think such also implies to trying to calculate the weather, or being able to monitor real time mutations within organisms. Basically my point is why math does describe to a degree, or that within math the fact that intelligent design is currently possible, we do not have any real fact to back it up.

Furthermore, I feel this argument compiles into something gigantic in relation to homo sapien cognition of reality. You take something like the death penalty. Its a institution created by human hands correct, then you have all the subsequent data that is the offspring of such. How accurate is this data in relation to understanding, or is it something Plato may have laughed at. Would A statistic showing a drop in criminal behavior for one year in a certain aspect of crime that is punishable by such be viable as data for support of such or the opposite, then you have to do the math on the people doing the study, how many for how long and so forth. Before long, I feel you come to a large gap in credibility in understanding many aspects of a society in regards to fact.

I feel this is why many of the pioneers in anthropology made statements the field only being able to go so far in terms of understanding, and such again could be compiled into many other aspects of social science. You have so many people that claim to have facts on issues, but if you delve to the core of such, philosophical underpinnings come to complete disregard in relation to other base arguments.

A simple example is my perception of things, I do not think chemistry or biology should be separate from physics, and that such should really just be called natural science, being reality is physical, but you can find a great amount of people that would disagree. Now to me, its fact that all three fields really just attempt to understand the natural or physical aspects of reality, or matter and energy, and reactions or environments of the two.

Again, this would be the product of history, and the evolution of homo sapien cultures and of course thought, which is then producing "facts", and that maybe such is one of the prime components of the liberal and conservative duality in a culture.

So in regards to such I will produce my questions.

1) What counts as fact truly and why?

2) Should the scientific method be the only option to obtaining fact and trusting such?

1. Let's define a few categories of "facts."

A. "Facts" that are true by definition. For example, "1 + 1 = 2" is a "fact" only because of the definitions we have given to "1" and "2" and "+" and "=." This can sometimes apply to philosophical statements. For example, "Murder is wrong" can be translated as "Wrongful killing is wrong." This is certainly true, but it isn't very useful. Other definitional facts, which are often useful, are things like "London is the capital of the United Kingdom."

B. Facts that are true by strong evidence. For example, the fact that the planet Earth is billions of years old is true because there is a huge amount of evidence for it. (I deliberately choose a fact which many people deny.) If you back me up into a corner, I have to admit that there is some tiny possibility, miniscule beyond imagination, that this fact is not correct. To operate in the real world, we have to act as if such facts are as unquestionable as definition facts.

Beyond these two categories, we have only probabilities, possibilities, and opinions.

It is possible to hold an opinion very strongly which is not in the same category as a provable fact. For example, I very strongly believe that same-sex relationships are morally equivalent to opposite-sex relationships. This isn't something that can proved or disproved, although I am likely to say that I "know" that this is "true." Another example might be something like "London is a beautiful city."

2. The scientific method (in the broadest sense of the term) is the only method that can be used as a basis for facts of type B. This doesn't mean we have to go through the entire method -- observation, hypothesis, experimentation, revision -- every time we seek out a fact. Sometimes it's enough to go to a reliable source. If I read something in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, I can have a high degree of confidence that it is true.

For other beliefs which are not truly facts, we have to use other methods.