A criticism of science I have recently come across, although I was aware of it's existence before this, was it's inability to answer questions such as "why does everything exist?" I suppose other similar questions could be "what happened before the big bang" etc, essentially questions that science can't answer because there is no way to "test" for the answer.
I had a conversation with someone about it on facebook a few hours ago and am going to post it tomorrow (with changed names) to see what people think. (when more people will see it. no one reads TL blogs at 2am).
But this is a good starter topic I think. How would you respond to this criticism to science? Is it a valid criticism? Does it matter in the context of what we use science for? Does it mean we shouldn't "trust" science?
btw, I like the wikipedia definition of science, for reference:
Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. In an older and closely related meaning (found, for example, in Aristotle), "science" refers to the body of reliable knowledge itself, of the type that can be logically and rationally explained
Science has never promised to answer these questions, and never will. You can't test that kind of shit, can you? This is the cornerstone of why Religion and Science can co-exist peacefully if people would just try. Religion asks "Why" and Science asks everything else.
This reminds me of a link I got from a friend a few weeks ago. Apparently Evolution was dead because upwards of 30 "papers" were submitted saying that DNA was intelligently coded. Sad thing I had to tell him was that no scientists would in their right minds submit such a thing. How do you test for and prove that DNA was intelligently coded? There is no independent "If we follow these 10 steps...then do this..." process to finally be able to say at the end of it "Ahah! God did it all!"
If you seriously think Science is handicapped because it can't answer "Why," then you've missed the point. Science never sought to ask "Why." A lot of the earliest scientists were deists/religious guys anyway. They wouldn't have thought twice about the fact that God did it, they're just looking at how he did. Science is here to tell us about the Uncertainty Principle, Religion is here to tell us that God set it up.
Science doesn't answer the "why?". It answers the "how?". Religion (or non-religious worldviews) are there to answer the "why?". This is also the reason science and religion aren't directly competing with eachother as they address different matters. The problem occurs with religions that try to encroach upon the territory of science by making claims that are in direct contradiction with the observations.
Saying that sience cannot answer unscientific questions is not criticizing, it is just decribing what science does and what it doesn't do. The only other way of gaining valuable knowledge is personal experience and to a lesser extend experience from people you trust or believe in. But even then you probably wont allways trust an experience because you know the about the limits of perception, so you will start to ask more questions, try to recreate that experience, examine your mind and perception, trying it to be as objective as you can. Then after you have that experience time and time again and understand it's limits and possibilities, you would call it knowledge. In the end that is what sience is all about.
You also need to consider "lack of knowledge/tools".
In the future we might be able to answer questions "What happened before the big bang", we just dont know enough atm. We couldnt answer a ton of questions before we knew about atoms, or bacteria, or gravitation. Once we knew about them we were able to test it and explain "how" (as Rannasha already mentioned) certain things happen. Depending on what we learn we might even be able to answer a "why" question in the very far future.
On October 10 2012 18:18 Carbonyl wrote: Does it mean we shouldn't "trust" science?
Yes, we should trust science. We shouldnt trust results we get from science. We could be wrong. But as long as no better theory explains something - science has proven to be a robust method of helping "us". At least it's better than just making stuff up & taking guesses.
I suppose other similar questions could be "what happened before the big bang"
Science can't answer this question because it's a nonsensical question. It's like asking what's south of the south pole (to paraphrase Stephan Hawking. Time is a feature of space.
Most of these problems people have with "science" is often actually just them understanding science.
On October 10 2012 18:18 Carbonyl wrote: A criticism of science I have recently come across, although I was aware of it's existence before this, was it's inability to answer questions such as "why does everything exist?" I suppose other similar questions could be "what happened before the big bang" etc, essentially questions that science can't answer because there is no way to "test" for the answer.
I had a conversation with someone about it on facebook a few hours ago and am going to post it tomorrow (with changed names) to see what people think. (when more people will see it. no one reads TL blogs at 2am).
But this is a good starter topic I think. How would you respond to this criticism to science? Is it a valid criticism? Does it matter in the context of what we use science for? Does it mean we shouldn't "trust" science?
btw, I like the wikipedia definition of science, for reference:
Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. In an older and closely related meaning (found, for example, in Aristotle), "science" refers to the body of reliable knowledge itself, of the type that can be logically and rationally explained
Watch it. It's an hour-long fascinating talk about the nature of the universe, even if it's hard to wrap your head around at times. This is just an example of a recent theory which begins to fill in our knowledge gaps. As to other questions science can't answer, consider the God of the Gaps fallacy. In regards to questions science can probably never answer (God), it's not a criticism of science, it's just not a sphere of its influence.
Other arguments have already been leveled at you by other people in the thread.
Edits: Watching TaeJa vs Life; sorry for being so brief.
0.1/10. I adore your interest in those matters though. I recommend reading books, not the scientifically imperialistic ones, but actually philosophy books - written by reputable philosophers, not militant atheists or scientists - because the issue at hand is a philosophical one.
I think the closest we will ever come to understanding why the Big Bang happened is to come up with a verified physical law that indicates it's impossible for us to know why the big bang happened and simultaneously exist.
On October 10 2012 22:48 Sauwelios wrote: 0.1/10. I adore your interest in those matters though. I recommend reading books, not the scientifically imperialistic ones, but actually philosophy books - written by reputable philosophers, not militant atheists or scientists - because the issue at hand is a philosophical one.
If only that post presented coherent arguments instead of resorting to a barrage of ad hominems against Krauss, and if only the main criticism against his lecture didn't come from a philosopher over the use of the word "nothing", and if only you didn't throw science books under a bus to advocate your views, you might have presented your case in a more compelling manner. Instead, you just drove me away.
Sorry. It's hard not to be snarky when a physicist is berated by philosophers on matters of physics, especially when the criticism is in regards to the interpretation of a fucking word.
Consider me a lost cause, and don't bother. I'll get my philosophy fix elsewhere.
First of all, if there's a "How" question that we haven't been able to answer yet, it doesn't mean it will never be answered. How do you know we won't figure out what happened before the big bang? Because we don't know right now?
Secondly, the older I get, the more I'm irritated by the phrase "Why are we here?" It seems like a phrase detached from reality, therefore impossible to "answer." It would be like asking a scientist to answer "Why am I asking you this question?"
The "why" you're looking for isn't in science. That is, your "why" prescribes to the infamous "truthiness" stated by Stephen Colbert, where you're not looking for a more and more logical structure/system so much as "is there a nice, kind justification as to why I'm slaving away at a 9-5 job?"
In the most general sense (e.g.: Prothero/Huston defn), Religion is the only thing that can ever provide a personal answer to such a personal question.
On October 11 2012 01:52 ymir233 wrote: The "why" you're looking for isn't in science. That is, your "why" prescribes to the infamous "truthiness" stated by Stephen Colbert, where you're not looking for a more and more logical structure/system so much as "is there a nice, kind justification as to why I'm slaving away at a 9-5 job?"
In the most general sense (e.g.: Prothero/Huston defn), Religion is the only thing that can ever provide a personal answer to such a personal question.
I agree. Science is there, in my opinion, to fill in the gaps that Religion or any other type of personal source of answers (for example Philosophy) has. Science is, like stated in your Wikipedia quote, a system of prediction based on some form of structure. Prediction is not explanation necessarily. I think it's much easier to go forward (predicting) than backward (explaining), for Science and any other type of school of thought. Anyhow, everything has limits, including Science. That does not in any mean that Science is faulty.
Time itself was created at the big bang, according to general relativity. So to ask what happened before is meaningless since time didn't exist. Many people may imagine time and space to be extrinsic to the universe and reality but they are very much physical things that can expand and collapse. However, a quantum theory of gravity may involve a time before the big bang by avoiding a singularity. It's certainly not a question beyond the realm of science.
Skepticism is the foundation of science. If you don't trust the conclusions of the general scientific community then you can look at the evidence yourself and see if it's correct or not. It's not an arbitrary set of facts that you choose to believe in or not, but a method of discovering truth.
This feels like treating science as a kind of religion, which it's not. It's just observation and prediction based on logic. You and every human being on the planet uses science every day. The more data the more reliable. The more admittance of gaps in data, the more practical. I've eaten an apple and it tasted good. I've eaten many more apples and they tasted good too. Therefore apples should continue to taste good into the future. That's actually scientific reasoning, believe it or not, and a four year old can do it.
The "Scientific Community" is more just a group of people that do much more rigorous testing than is normal for day to day life. They tell us that certain things found in apples are good for our bodies, like vitamin C, and they discover this through controlled tests.
The question "can science tell us how we came to exist?" is just so incredibly misguided it doesn't deserve recognition. We have to observe things to make predictions. We can do our best to observe creation, but observing the beginning of matter or however you want to think of it is just not within our current abilities. The Big Bang theory is not so much a theory of the creation of the universe as it is a theory for explaining the way celestial bodies move relative to each other. "IF this is true, then all these other things about galaxies start to make more sense."
On the other hand, you could just make stuff up. You don't even need organized religion for that. Believe the universe is just your own hallucination if you want, and that you're the only being who exists. That's plausible. You're still gonna have to live your life, since it doesn't seem very easy to end that hallucination. Or you can believe in God, because someone else said God exists. The possibilities are endless and meaningless. In this way you can see that science is not another form of religion at all. It should not be compared in ways like "science vs religion" because no human being lives without science. Anyone who says "science isn't for me" just doesn't know what science is or how often they rely upon it.
Although it is fiction a lot of the ideas in it are based on very sound scientific ideas. The guy who writes it is a genius and is a formally trained man of science. The book is about an atheist, scientist who sort of has a crisis of faith when an alien lands on earth and in particular goes to him for first contact and subsequent sharing of knowledge. The alien reveals to the main character that God does in fact exist and his existence can be proven scientifically.
As far as I know the author is an atheist himself and obviously has a strong belief in science, but the ideas in the book are intriguing and definitely worth exploring if it's something you have a particular interest in. His other books also touch on the issue but most of them with a leaning heavily towards the atheist theory and the creation of the universe being proven scientifically.
I myself am an atheist and believe that everything can be explained scientifically. If we can't right now its just because we haven't figured it out yet, but will in the future when science reaches that point. Science never starts off knowing everything, it starts off with a theory and then tests that theory. The fact that it can't explain everything is not something strange, nothing and no one can explain everything without bullshitting out their teeth.
Anyways, read the book, and anything else you can get your hands on by the author. His name is Robert J. Sawyer.
EPT
