Fact and the Scientific Method

I view it a bit differently. I view facts as facts and the scientific method as facts until proven otherwise. Meaning, they may or may not be facts always. The reason I say that is science sometimes changes the things it believes so it has removed things from being facts that they once established to be facts.

Scientific methodology produces arguments in support of propositions, but the facts themselves are always elusive, existing only as an idealisation by which we assess the theoretical merits and demerits of particular scientific methodologies. That is, scientific methodologies are justified by appeal to their likelihood to uncover the facts as time progresses. Unfortunately, whether a scientific methodology is successful is rather difficult to prove. We can take some empirical evidence from its ability to uncover supposed truths which empower us technologically, and we can take some evidence from the coherence of its findings with other rational investigations. However, whether it works, or we have just been lucky time and time again in using it, is never something which we can establish to the level of fact.

This being said, I would say it is perfectly coherent to consider whether a scientific methodology works to be a question of fact, merely one which we, due to our finite nature, can never answer. Or, rather, to attack the coherence of this question necessitates an attack on the coherence of the concept of a fact itself.