We need to exercise caution here. The man is a philosophy doctor I believe. His definition of proof deals with premesis and disjunctive syllogisms. Formal logic.
This is not the way most common people use “proof” and it’s definitely not the way scientists use “proof” which if they do, is anecdotal or colloquial language. As @mitchellmckain pointed out, this is how science works:
I might even change his most to all. Just as a theory to a scientist is not a guess like it is to the public, a proof to a philosopher is different than the general public’s idea of it.
Philosophical skepticism has made it impossible in my mind to prove a bunch of stuff. The suthor of the paper even commented we can’t disprove an ancient advanced alien civilization planted dinosaur bones and is maybe studying us like lab rats. Regardless of how fanciful it is, it can’t be disproven. There isn’t a shred of evidence for it but it can’t be disproven. Our anthropocentric cosmology won’t allow it but certainly not because we have logical proof. We have observations. Proof and what’s most reasonable to believe are two different things. As we should have learned from Descartes, Hume, Russell, the Matrix and countless others, the latter is all we have. We can’t even justify the legitimacy of cause and effect logically. We can only assume this constancy for arguments sake.
What makes science special is its repeatability and that it’s models make predictions that can be tested and further refined. Science is far greater than philosophical word games that can’t even legitimise cause and effect. Unfortunately, science itself has limitations to what it can explain. It cannot tell us ultimately how we ought to behave or how now shall we live. It also part of our Matrix.
Vinnie