All I know about this whole issue is how fuzzy knowledge really is.

When I was in undergraduate study, the books I read were full of
certainty, that this chemical reaction took place just as so. In
graduate studies, I learned that they did not take place just as so and
there were many other things happening or maybe not happening and the
author was as in the dark about it as was I.

Researchers do want to know, it is just that it is very hard to really
know.

Research is trying to get a little closer to the certainty, but with the
knowledge that there is no way we can know or control everything, so
let's try and make the approximation as close to reality as possible.

When we ask more of the researcher, we are asking them to know the mind
of God.

Which is my complaint with those gifted amateurs who see results but
have no idea why or if what they did was why they got to where they are-
but hypothesize freely that what they did is why they succeed. They come
out with no caveats and only assurance they they indeed have the grail.
Dogmatic pied pipers of pseudo-science. If they exhibited a little less
certainty, I would tend to believe more.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Me