How can we be confident about universal properties, or anything for that matter, in astrophysics when we can’t actually do experiments on stars, distant planets, etc. ?

Question

How can we be confident about universal properties, or anything for that matter, in astrophysics when we can’t actually do experiments on stars, distant planets, etc. ?

In: 63

Answer 1

“Confident” isn’t “certain.” Ultimately it’s predictive power that showd whether a theory has explanatory power.

As long as we can make enough correct predictions, we can assume for the time being that the theory generating the predictions is close enough to true. If we starting making wrong predictions, we adjust the theory.