The problem with Science

I am not against science. It interests me as much as it does the next guy; in fact, I consider myself a bit of a Physics and Mathematics enthusiast. Things like Quantum physics, probability theory or game theory always fascinate me to no end. I also believe that scientific breakthroughs have saved many lives and made many more easier.

So I’m not one of those people who insist that God created all beings and Darwin’s theory of evolution is completely rubbish. But I agree with Dr. Freeman Dyson when he says that science is just yet another window for us to look out at the sky, and not the sky itself. I believe everyone, and scientists especially, must have a great respect and appreciation for the unknown.

But it seems there are people who apparently deem themselves scientists of higher caliber than Freeman Dyson himself, who insist that science explains everything, and anything non-scientific is ‘voodoo’ or ‘uncivilized’. I’m writing now about those people.

What is science, really? How do scientific theories come to be? There are two ways: deduced from previously accepted theories, or being the best explanation to a certain observed phenomenon. Obviously, if the latter method is faulty, then by induction the former is also unreliable at best. Now, we focus on showing that the ‘best explanation method’ is faulty.

It is quite easy to see, really. For simplicity, and without loss of generality, we ignore the case where there is an argument between two or more schools of thought that cannot settle on a theory, and look at the most basic process of creating a theory. When a phenomenon is observed, scientists try to derive explanations for how it happens, of course with arguments to support it, and then agree on one that is satisfactory to all, or at least the majority. Such an explanation then come to be known as a theory, and further scientific arguments and/ or theories can cite it as an accepted fact.

Something is wrong here. All we have at the end of the process is a "best explanation", the best attempt at understanding the nature of a happening. Ignoring the obvious argument on what constitutes as "the best" and how it is decided, we focus on the fundamental flaw in such a reasoning. A best attempt implies that within our collective pool of knowledge, we find something that is closest to explaining the matter at hand.

So in other words, because our limited knowledge at its best can only allow us to explain the phenomenon in a certain way, it is therefore the truth?

To understand it more intuitively, imagine the following conversation between myself and a science extremist, regarding one of the most fundamentally accepted scientific theory of all, Gravity.

- Me: If I throw this apple up, will it fall down?

- SE: Yes, of course.

- Me: Why?

- SE: Because of gravity.

- Me: And how do you know gravity exists?

- SE: Because otherwise, why do things fall? Do you have a better explanation?

- Me: Yes. Things fall because naughty little children ghosts pull them down.

- SE: That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. 

- Me: Really, why?

- SE: Okay, can you prove what you just said?

- Me: No, not even a little. But can you prove gravity exists?

And that leads to my central point. You cannot prove gravity exists. In fact, science cannot prove anything.

It can provide you with an overwhelmingly convincing explanation, and most of the times great additional perspectives to look at things, sure, but it cannot prove. Anyone who has written a mathematical proof knows what it means to be proven. "Beyond the shadow of a doubt" is not prove. In a proof, every statement has to follow directly, logically and inevitably from some previous statement, and even then, every result you get is only true within the scope of your assumptions. 

Take mathematics, for example. Though widely regarded as the symbol of logic, it is still only true under its own scope of assumptions; in other words, it is self-consistent, and nothing more. There are axioms of mathematics that mathematicians agree to assume true, in order to build a system of further theorems. In fact, if no axioms are assumed, there is no mathematics, plain and simple.

If you have any knowledge of basic symbol logic, consider the following example:

Given the two statements:

It rains.

If it rains, then every young man is a frog.

We can derive:

Every young man is a frog.

The result is stone-cold true and irrevocable. However, it is only true within the assumption scope of the two given statements. Well, hopefully that is; otherwise we have more things to worry about.
 

 In conclusion, there exists no such thing as being "scientifically proven". Such a statement is fundamentally incorrect, since science itself cannot prove anything to start with, it can only give us the most convincing theory that our very limited collective pool of knowledge enables us to derive. And even if it could prove something to be true, it would still be meaningless as far as logic goes, because the result is only true within the scope of assumptions.

 So stay open and humble; stay aware that there are more possibilities than our mind can comprehend. Learn by hearts the words of the wise Socrates: "All I know is that I know nothing".
 

I am fascinated by science, but bothered by those who worship it. So the next time some science snoot tries to take you on and claims something he says is "scientifically proven", tell him: "All you are saying is, because you do not know any better, therefore this must be true. That is logically ridiculous. Also, you, young man, are a frog".

-K