Wait, where did God come into the picture? and why would the rules have "had to emerge from God"?
Guijarro was, I believe, referring to the (historically popular/canonical) idea that ultimate order comes from God, given that God created the universe, so all principles should eventually be resolved to follow from Godly laws. No one in this thread has supported that, though. He was arguing against it and that therefore
any of that type is also incorrect.
Personally I feel that if we replace "God" with "mathematics" (or something else) roughly that idea can apply-- there is something governing the properties of the universe and we can as scientists seek to understand it.
(In the end, it doesn't really matter what that is-- call it God, mathematics, random chance, whatever-- it'll still have the same external properties-- that is, the scientific data we collect and analyze.)
Also, this turn in the discussion reminds me of the relativity of wrong by Isaac Asimov, which views theories as not "right" or "wrong" but simply more or less wrong, or more or less complete.
Make it gradient or probabilistic if you'd like. I'm fine with that. But it's still roughly the same as (i the same family as) "right or wrong" as opposed to "we just don't know" or "it doesn't matter" or "it depends".
Edit: a very interesting article. I just skimmed the beginning-- I'll see if I have time to look through the rest later. It may address some of the controversial points earlier in this thread.
It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong.
I agree!
But this necessarily implies that it would be possible to (in some way or other, with perhaps infinite knowledge) know the truth.
Science is likely the unending struggle to know partial truths-- to always be wrong, but strive to be less wrong. That's fine.
But what would very much bother me would be a situation in which we're
not even wrong! That's what Guijarro seems to be suggesting.
I'm uncomfortable not being right or wrong. If I'm wrong, then I can seek to understand more and approach being right (even if I never reach it). But if I am simply not right or wrong, I don't know what to do next; truly, to me, I'm no longer aware of the point of science.
If (to borrow an example from the article) believing that the earth is flat and believing that the earth is round are equally wrong, then surely I am in the wrong field. I should instead be a sailor enjoying the sun, not worrying about these questions, for they have no answers, regardless of whether I, as just one scientist, could hope to discover them.
So in short:
I desperately hope that I am wrong.I know that I am not (yet) right. And if I'm not wrong, then what is left?