The real issue with science

[PaulSacramento]

Setting out to prove something is the worst kind of science.

And yet...
Wright brothers, Madame Curie, Einstein, Newton, etc, etc...
All set out to prove something and used science to do it.

I think you mean:
Setting out to prove a hypothesis and ignoring the evidence against it during the process, is the worse kind of science.

Remember, while many discoveries are accidents, the vast majority are done when people set out to prove or find something.

[PaulSacramento]

No true Scotsman.......

Yes, well...

The realist is that over the last few years, perhaps last decade or more even, science has been hampered by "scientisim" and instead of dealing with that issue, what some scientists have done is redefine what sceince is.
That is where you get comments like "science doesn't prove things" ( tell that to Newton).
This is science:
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

or
a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences. 2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

scientific method:

a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.

a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

[Audie]

Setting out to prove something is the worst kind of science.

And yet...
Wright brothers, Madame Curie, Einstein, Newton, etc, etc...
All set out to prove something and used science to do it.

I think you mean:
Setting out to prove a hypothesis and ignoring the evidence against it during the process, is the worse kind of science.

Remember, while many discoveries are accidents, the vast majority are done when people set out to prove or find something.

I think we agree on the concepts if not the words.

[PaulSacramento]

Preconceived notions are bad, yes?

[Audie]

Preconceived notions are bad, yes?

I'd not say that, and in any case I smell a snare

[PaulSacramento]

Preconceived notions are bad, yes?

I'd not say that, and in any case I smell a snare

Nope no snare and IMO, preconceived notions are bad in science.
You can go int thinking and hypothesizing things like "men can fly" ( Wright brothers), "there is a reason why everything that goes up, comes down" ( Newton), etc, BUT you should NOT have a preconceived notion was to WHY.