Philosophy is kicking my butt. It's FUN, but does it ever talk in circles.

So we are currently looking at the questions of "what is knowledge?" and "what is science?". The question of "What is knowledge?" seems to be the basis of much philosophy. It is a question that (ooh, I HATE this word, but I'm gonna use it anyway) underpins research, and the different individuals responses to this question underpins different styles of research.

Therefore, trying to understand knowledge leads to how we perform scientific research, and what truly makes a science.

I grew up the daughter of a physicist and a public defender. I ALWAYS knew (there's that word again) that physics was a science. In fact, to me, it was the mother of all sciences... because it was the basis of what is in the world around us.

Now in philosophy we're being asked to question this presupposition. Because some of the assumptions of physics aren't empirically testable. In fact, in some ways it's more like a religion. We're asked to believe on faith that submicroscopic particles exist and make up aspects of the universe.

This leads to the fact that the law fits into the role of science as well, which was NEVER something I believed. I was never asked to. And yet, the hypothesis of an event is being tested, and a jury has to look at the evidence available and must REJECT the hypothesis if there is a reasonable doubt that such event occurred. This fits far better into the mold of the scientific method of creating a null hypothesis and trying to disprove it than does much of the testing done in physics.

My core is absolutely rocked.

My mom is the scientist, and my dad more of a parascientist - or to go further, a minister?

I must go lie in the fetal position and suck my thumb for a while before I write my paper on Descartes and non-pharmaceutical pain management.