The power of Science
Knowledge can be gained through Intuition, Authority, Rationalism, Empiricism (observation, experience, experiment) and the Scientific Method which can make use of all of these.
By this means, the collective knowledge of humanity itself increases through the generations, more accurate and far ranging models can be discovered. We can find out more about the expanses of space, about the nature of sub-atomic particles and about the way our brains work.
One thing is certain, there is always more to find out. We cannot see the limits of existence. Indeed, we cannot even see the limits of the physical Universe. There never can be a Theory of Everything which is able to explain all that there is, both seen and unseen. To believe otherwise is to place humanity in the place of God and is totally unrealistic.
As I continued through school and then to University, I was introduced to what is called the Scientific Method which is a more rigorous and systematic way of prodding things to see what happens and coming up with explanations of how.
As well as making observations and trying experiments of our own, we learn from the observations, experiments and mistakes of others. Life is too short to do it all for ourselves and this sharing of knowledge greatly increases what we are able to know.
In other words, we rely on trusted authority and testimony, whether from teachers, peers or the writings of others. Our search expands from purely the direct investigation of what we see to also discerning which authorities can be trusted and why.
In comparatively recent times and particularly since the Enlightenment (17th century), this method has been spectacularly successful in accelerating the process of making models of (reverse engineering) the Universe.
The method consists of 6 steps:
- Ask a question
- See if others have already found an answer
- If not then think of a possible answer which fits what we see.
- Do some more experiments (prodding) and see if the result fits our possible answer
- If it does, then take the explanation as true until any other observations indicate otherwise.
If it doesn’t then have another go. Go back to step 2 or even step 1. - Share with others by publishing the results.
How far can this process take us?
The results of science and our ability to control Nature are all around us and it is tempting to think that, given time, we will eventually be able to find out absolutely all there is about Life, the Universe and Everything.
The reality is, however, that there are severe limits on what science can tell us. Regardless of the sophistication of the experiments or the amount of equipment used, the scientific method does not find out anything about the nature of reality, only what happens under certain conditions.
As with the curiosity of a child, scientific investigation starts from where we are and moves inwards and outwards, forwards and backwards from there. Our starting point is given to us. The scope of our investigation widens but we can never reach the end. There are always more questions to be answered.
Abraham Kaplan wrote:
“Nowhere in science do we start from scratch. There is only one place where we can start…that is from where we are…Science is no miraculous creation out of nothing, no spontaneous generation of knowledge from ignorance. ”
The philosopher Susan Haack [Susan Haack 2007] compares science to solving a crossword puzzle, in which vertical and horizontal answers intersect and strengthen one another. Naturally, if you want to solve such a puzzle, you have to start somewhere. That doesn’t mean your first answer will be the “foundation” of all the others. In fact, you can start anywhere but as we move outwards from our starting point we find we never find an outer boundary.
Scientific exploration can be compared with exploring the Earth. We have to start from where we are and move outwards. The difference is that in the case of the Earth, given enough time, we could explore it all, when it comes to reality as a whole, there is always something new beyond.