A good way I've found to explain this to lay people is that Science is a very high quality way of finding out what is almost certainly wrong. If Science says something is wrong and here is why, then it most probably is correct (relative to other methods of finding truth that is). Science is much worse at figuring out what is right because it's method of determining what is right is "Of all the possible hypotheses, we'll eliminate the wrong ones and choose the most probably of what exists". As a result, scientific knowledge is often over turned an... (read more)
Someone should write a Sherlock script, where someone uses Sherlock's principle: "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," against him, so that he decisively takes the wrong action.
A good way I've found to explain this to lay people is that Science is a very high quality way of finding out what is almost certainly wrong. If Science says something is wrong and here is why, then it most probably is correct (relative to other methods of finding truth that is). Science is much worse at figuring out what is right because it's method of determining what is right is "Of all the possible hypotheses, we'll eliminate the wrong ones and choose the most probably of what exists". As a result, scientific knowledge is often over turned an... (read more)