Much of what we are taught in school amounts to speculation. We're taught many "facts" that are established by "science"—what exactly does this mean?

A dive into the philosophy of science will introduce you to many issues such as the problem of induction as well as issues of epistemology, metaphysics, and ontology. In plain language, this means that we need a basis to say we know what we know. How do we know what exists? What constitutes an explanation? Pop science gives us some wild stories as "fact" taking for granted the existence of things like "dark matter" as you see the light and feel the heat of the sun.

Speculation

While it is true we can use mathematical equations to model many aspects of the physical world, theoretical constructs don't have the same reality as tangible things that we are familiar with. Indeed some basic algebra knowledge tells you that you can create any number of variables, constants, writing equivalent expressions.

What are the criteria for choosing between better and worse models of the world? Oftentimes people will appeal to ideas like "Occam's Razor" in discussions if pressed on this issue.

From my experience, what really is involved most of the time is conforming with the default prevailing worldview and trusting some experts who "stand on the shoulders of giants".

So, we return to a questio of trust. Whose speculations do we trust?

Fun and Freedom

The free mind doesn't get offended by the thought, "how do we know the earth is round?" or "did we really land on the moon?" This is because such questions are interesting in terms of epistemology, science, etc and really... I don't know. I just take the mainstream default account. Assuming astronauts aren't lying and NASA isn't photoshopping up thousands of space images with airbrush fun, then we have some compelling evidence for what we're told about the cosmos.

However, realizing that intelligence agencies and other parties are masters of psychological manipulation and deception, suddenly the ground of trust comes into in question.

Really, none of these questions have much direct bearing on our day-to-day lives; that is why I have classified this post under "fun"—these are fun things to think about for free minds. These questions become much more serious, however, when we use speculations to justify more important issues such as issues of anthropology (what does it mean to be human?) and theology.

Insofar as the dogmatism of scientism influences important issues such as "how should I treat other people?" and "what should I be doing with my time?", we move into a much more serious discussion.