This was not supposed to be a stream-of-conciousness rant

When I decided to make a new post here, I did actually have a thesis in mind. However, while planning it I thought of several side-topics that I felt were just as important. So I gave up and just started typing. So, beware of wildly unpredictable topic shifts. Also, this is going to be an "As I understand things/My opinion" rant, so I probably (probably) won't be looking up formal definitions of things.

Anyway:
I recently read a statement along the lines of "The Scientific Method is the only way to really know anything." I've seen this sort of thing before and have a couple of issues with it.

One: I don't think the scientific method is deserving of capitalization as if it's some kind of special "thing" in it's own right (Ha! quotations for emphasis!) It's just a process that is important to critical thinking.

Two: The statement isn't actually true. There is really only one way to know something with 100% certainty: valid mathematical or logical proof ("valid" here includes that the initial axioms are true, which should lead to a chain of proofs all the way back to first principles AND that the proof has been verified/error-checked). Everything else is about how confident you can be that what you believe is correct.
Note: "Confidence" here is not about personal confidence. For example: you may be 100% confident that there are thousands of spiders crawling all over you, but there is always the possibility that you are hallucinating.
Also note: "I am not hallucinating" is an unspoken axiom for basically all observations and may not be true, which is why independent verification/duplication of results is necessary.
The other thing about the statement is that it is an over-simplification. There's more to it. Specifically: the accuracy of your measurements. The quote "Messen is wissen [to measure is to know]" is attributed to Georg Ohm; other people (including Lord Kelvin of absoulte zero temperature fame) have said very similar things. And it is mostly true. If you can't measure a thing, you can't know anything about it (not even that it really exists). But that knowledge only extends as far as the accuracy of the measurements. Which is why people bringing up statements from many (sometimes hundreds of) years ago bugs the shit out of me. I am an instrumentation tech. I will always ask "How much error is in that measurement?"

On to a related topic:
I also often see the statement "You can't prove a negative" (usually from people explaining why something's existence is astronomically unlikely. People who are defending that thing's existance usually phrase it "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence").
Both are oversimplified. "It is not currently raining here." is a pretty obvious falsification of the first (with the "not hallucinating" caveat. Come on, be reasonable). "When I look in front of me, I do not see a person standing there. Therefore, there is not a person standing in front of me." is a good falsification of the second (again, be reasonable).
This may seem like nitpicking. Of course both are referring to a thing that can't be observed/measured. But those statements almost never specify that, and are presented as absolute truths. The actual statement should be "If you can't measure a thing, you can't say anything about its existance." If you say "There is wifi here." I can't say you are right or wrong if I don't have a smartphone (or some other wifi capable device or a signal strength meter) because I can't measure the signal without one. But keep in mind that indirect measurements can also be made. Things that exist have consequences on things around them. Making predictions (we're back on the scientific method) about things that can't directly be observed is asking "If this hypothesis is true, what would that mean for or do to the things around it?" If the answer is "nothing" then that thing might as well not exist.

Which brings up atheism vs theism

If you insist on a whimsical entity that hides all evidence of its own existence, then I'm going to ask you to disprove the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Russell's Teapot, and Last Thursdayism. If you are specifically xian, I'm going to ask you: What changed? What happened to "as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be"?

You know what? I'm not gonna go off on this again. All I'm going to say about religion is this: They can't all be right. But they certainly can all be wrong.

Later,