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Given that scientific theories are created and survive precisely because they are practically applicable, yes, it is quite rational to use them in solving practical problems. Science is a great tool for describing the reality around us and making rational decisions.
Another thing is that you need to understand not only the possibilities, but also the boundaries of scientific knowledge. In fact, scientific theories provide us with a “map” that we can use to navigate the world, but they do not describe ” reality itself.” In other words, we have no guarantee that the actual reality corresponds to our theories – that's why we call them theories.
Many of the scientific theories, including those in modern science, are created in order to “save facts”, that is, to adjust observations to the existing description of the world. A vivid example of this in modern science is the concepts of dark energy and dark matter, which, in my opinion, suspiciously resemble epicycles in Ptolemy's astronomy.
It is quite possible that reality itself is radically different from our perception. As X wrote: Martinson in the science fiction poem “Aniara”:
We understand, it seems that space,
The world we're in is not the same,
what did our word “space” mean?,
born of the earth's imagination.
We felt the depth of the depths,
where Aniara got lost.
It was very naive, based on
from the properties of the human brain,
decide that the puzzle has a structure.
We understood: glass transparency,
which covered Aniara,
there is a spirit, an incomprehensible eternal spirit,
and we make our way through the sea of spirit.
Stanislav quite correctly noted the important property of a qualitative scientific theory to describe well the empirically observable properties of the world. Therefore, it can and should be used at this level of cognition, because the other is not yet given.
As for the future, one of the features of the scientific approach is that new scientific theories usually do not refute the old theories that work in practice, but “include” them, i.e. a new law under certain conditions (usually in extreme cases) passes into previously known laws. Thus, the laws of relativistic mechanics at low velocities pass into the laws of classical mechanics, and the laws of electrodynamics for stationary fields pass into the laws of electrostatics.
Of course, in the future, the content of scientific theory may change significantly, and with it our understanding of the world, but mathematical laws (which, by the way, is why they are called laws, not theories) are likely to remain as a special case of new, more general laws. Therefore, it is quite justified to use the current laws.
P.S. All that I have written concerns primarily natural science disciplines. In my opinion, the situation in the social sciences is much more complicated, since I do not know any “iron” laws there. Even the “law of demand” doesn't always work.
I'll try it with an example. Newtonian mechanics is refuted. The rule of adding velocities according to Galileo is not true , it is refuted. That is, if 2 trains are traveling towards each other at speeds of 50 km/h , then the speed of the second relative to the first will not be exactly 100 km / h. The assumption of a flat Earth is also refuted, we know that the Earth is round.
But nevertheless, we calculate the area of the field by multiplying its length by its width, without taking into account the sphericity of the earth, we continue to use Newtonian mechanics, and add up the speeds of trains rushing towards each other to find out the speed of the second in the reference frame of the first. The difference is that we know the conditions for the applicability of these laws , and we will not measure the path from Moscow to Sydney “directly”, and we will not apply Newtonian physics in particle accelerators. So it is here – when our usual theories are refuted, they will most likely continue to be used, within the framework of their conditions of applicability.