Limitations of Science

Physical Science 410James Mackey

Having some understanding of the Characteristics of Science, it is now important to recognize

that science while a truly magnificent activity still has its

limitations

We will discuss the Limitations of Science in the following areas:

• Science is…• 1. Human Enterprise• 2. NOT the ONLY Way to Knowledge• 3. Based on Repeatable Events• 4. Cannot Deal with Teleological Questions• 5. Pragmatic• 6. Incomplete• 7. Partially Relative

• 8. Statistical

1. Human Enterprise - Based on Natural Categories

• The human viewpoint can never be completely removed from science

• All science is built upon human presuppositions that are always made - but almost never stated

“There are no bare uninterpreted data in science. Expectations influence perceptions, both in everyday life and in science....… The process of measurement, and the very language in which the results are reported, are influenced by prior theories.........

....The predicates we use in describing the world, and the categories with which we classify events, depend upon the kind of regularities we anticipate. The presuppositions the scientist brings to his inquiry influences the way he formulates a problem, the kind of apparatus he builds, and the type of concept he considers promising.”

Barbour

Ian Barbour, the Winifred and Atherton Bean Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology and Society at Carleton College, won the 1999 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. A physicist and theologian, Barbour is credited with launching a new era in the interdisciplinary dialogue between science and religion and is one of the world's most forceful advocates for ethics in technology. He has written at least 6 books on Science and Religion, including Issues in Science and Religion(1966), credited with creating the field of science and religion studies

A quotation from Giancoli’s The Ideas of Physics makes this viewpoint very clear

“Science is a human endeavor. The practice of science is built on the unprovable assumption that a real physical world exists independently of man. The existence of a real physical world is taken for granted by most scientists, artists, and for that matter most everyone else.........

....Yet for centuries philosophers have debated whether the physical world actually exists or if it is only an illusion of our minds. But why should we doubt the existence of a world we can see with our own eyes? The 20th century philosopher-scientist Arthur Eddington put it simply when he said, ‘the mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, and all else is remote inference.’”

Continuing on, Giancoli later writes:

The simple view that scientists painstakingly work through the steps of the ‘scientific method’ is a fiction. So is the view that scientists deal only with ‘facts’, facts that are just waiting to be discovered with the implication that these facts are absolute and are not subject to interpretation or judgement. Science builds not on facts but on observations. And these observations are open to interpretation and do require judgement.” Giancoli

How do presuppositions influence our science?

Assume: All explanations must be naturalistic

p1 Humanity exists

p2 We got here somehow...

concl. The explanation of our origin must be naturalistic

Is this a valid argument?

YES

Another example is the conclusion drawn by Carl Sagan in the popular book Cosmos:

the physical universe is...”all there is or ever was or ever will be.”

Which is true IF one accepts Sagan’s unstated presupposition that only the natural world exists.

While good science strives to minimize the number of preconceptions, real science

cannot exist without them

If you had no preconceptions at all......

what problem would you attack

what would you measure

how would you measure it

how would you gauge ‘good’ data

“Pure objectivity in real science is a myth....it is the aim of science to eliminate intrusion of this subjective element, but it is also true that this subjective element must constantly be reckoned with.....

....Observations and measurements in science are made by men. Scientific theories are constructed by men. Experimental programs are designed by men. Data are interpreted by men. All of these activities are done by individuals with a particular cultural, academic, and scientific orientation”

Richard H Bube, emeritus professor of Materials Science and former chair at Stanford University. Former President of ASA and editor of JASA. Author of 6 books incl. The Human Quest (1971)

There is a faith component in science, these usually, unstated presuppositions that are assumed to be true....

Some obvious examples are:

the laws of physics are the same everywhere

the laws of physics are the same everywhen

nature is rational

nature is comprehensible

Albert Einstein once wrote..

“The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is

comprehensible!”

Physicist Alan Goodman, who lectures for the Union of Concerned Scientists, observed that..

“It was faith in the dependability of the laws of conservation - that space is homogeneous and isotropic, and that time is homogeneous - that lead Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 to predict the existence of neutrinos, for example, though we couldn’t observe them until 1953.”

Yoeman

A wonderful quote from Cryogenic Physicist Leon Cooper

“The foremost supposition is the belief that the world outside ourselves, outside our own minds, exists. This belief is so primitive that it is very likely shared by all, except animals lowest on the evolutionary scale and some philosophers (whose position on the evolutionary scale I cannot guess)”

(1930) is an American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate (1972), who with John Bardeen and John Robert Schrieffer, developed the BCS theory of superconductivity. He is Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Professor of Science at Brown University, and Director of the Institute for Brain and Neural Systems.

continuing on, he writes....

“But this belief (the universe is ordered) - daring, naive, and, considering the almost endless variety of our experience, not at all obvious - that order can be found, has moved scientists from Thales to Kepler to authors in the latest issues of Physical Review Letters to create science. For what we call modern science is as much an attitude of mind - a belief in the possibility of a certain kind of understanding - as a set of principles or methods” Cooper

Why should this be so that

“the universe is ordered”

Recall that Einstein wrote “The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible!”

Is this really incomprehensible?

A rational God making an appropriate place for his creations to live & exercise

their intelligence

Based on this we might ask…

In general physicists believe that there are fundamental principles governing nature.

The universe seems to be law-abiding and not capricious.

In broad patterns, there seems to be regularity and order. Even the small scale disorder and unpredictability associated with atomic scale objects seems to be defined within comprehensible limits........

“Another aspect of physics, not yet mentioned, is a fundamental article of

faith.

...The physicist counts on nature to ‘play fair’, and not change the rules in the middle of the game. The fun of the game, the intrigue of the plot, the excitement of the chase arise from the realization that, given any particular set of ‘facts’ or objective observations, there are many possible hypotheses or theories which can be framed to accommodate them.

Further testing must be done to determine which of several alternate theories is most acceptable in terms of simplicity, agreement with what is known (or perceived), what is suggested by way of further theory or experiments, and (it must be admitted) a subjective judgement of the ‘niceness’ of the theory.”

If a new experiment brings up evidence contrary to the theory, most scientists will challenge the validity of the evidence rather than abandon the theory - only the most persistent and persuasive evidence results in significant modifications of established theory.”

Read

“...Once a theory is well established, and widely accepted, it is difficult to

disturb it.

2. Science is not the Only Way to Knowledge

• Knowledge can be acquired at least 3 ways– scientific knowledge– experiential knowledge– revealed knowledge

The philosophy of Scientism holds that only scientifically obtained knowledge is meaningful

(recall the quotation from the philosopher Mehlberg)Such an idea denies the possibility of any real knowledge being presented or discovered in any human art - which would deny the relevance of the philosophy of scientism since philosophy is not a scientific activity

Refer back to Bube’s statement about science as a way of knowing based on sensory data

In a wonderful little book called You Are Extraordinary, biochemist Roger Williams writes“In attempting to do this (examine the facets of God), we use our minds the same as when we think of anything else. Some regard religious thinking and faith as belonging in a separate compartment from scientific thinking…….

Roger John Williams (1893 – 1988), was an American biochemist who named folic acid and discovered pantothenic acid, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and President of the American Chemical Society.

Pictured here in 1974 with Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling (on left)

…but I see no basic difference. In science we make by intuition, hypotheses and theories in which we have some faith - sometimes too much. In religious thinking we make or consider hypotheses in which we have some faith - also sometimes too much. The difference is in the subject matter of our thinking...

In science we make hypotheses and theories about things that can

be verified by scientific experiment;…...

..in the religious realm our hypotheses and theories concern matters where experimentation, in the scientific sense, may be impotent….”

Williams

Experiential knowledge

Clearly there are some things that a person may know because of direct experience. While this is generally subjective - it is none the less real:

individual consciousness

personality

Revealed knowledge

While God’s general nature (divinity & power) can be known by all, (Rom. 1), only through scripture do we learn of his loving and caring nature, his plan for restitution of man, and guidelines for living in a fallen world.

There are many things, esp. in the religious realm that one could not know without some revealed source.

3. Science is Based on Repeatable Events

• The strongest scientific knowledge and understanding is based on events that can be replicated at will by different observers at different times

• Single-time events can only peripherally be dealt with in a scientific sense – all that can be required is that any

speculations be consistent with data that can be reproduced

When single-time, non repeatable events (i.e. creation of the universe) is treated “scientifically”, a careful scientist will be cautious about the final conclusions being drawn from whatever data existsWatch for the differences between the ‘popular’

writings of scientists and their ‘peer-reviewed articles’

Thus science is in a sense self-correcting, for the scientist trusts

only those ‘facts’ that are the same in different laboratories for different observers, and on different days of

the week.” Booth

“If an experiment reveals unexpected and perhaps startling results, the most

important questions asked of the experimenter is; Are your

results repeatable?

Wed

4. Science cannot Answer Teleological Questions

• Science deals with the interactions between and the relationships among natural phenomena and conseq. cannot deal with any ‘final’ or ‘ultimate’ whys

“The last thing in the world that a scientist can answer is a question about the ultimate constitution of matter (except where he talks as an ordinary man)….

…He may think he can; but this question is beyond investigation. The scientist cannot answer any questions about existence. All questions about existence

- the modes of being, - the grades of being, - the essential distinctions among beings

lie outside the competence of the scientist...

He cannot answer by his method, the three great questions that Kant said were the great philosophical questions:

the immortality of the soul,

the freedom of the will, and

the existence of God….

…The scientist cannot answer any questions about the nature of knowledge. What knowledge is, is itself a question not open to (scientific) investigation. It is not a scientific question. These are all intelligible questions, but science cannot answer them. Moreover, my position here is not just that science cannot answer them now, but that science cannot answer them ever.”

Adler

“The goals of nature is an idea foreign to science, and

although the scientists in unguarded moments

frequently enough uses the word ‘cause,’ he will, if

pressed, say that he does not seek the causes of effects but

only relationships among phenomena…...

“A good theory is not one that gives an ultimate cause

of events, but merely one that relates many different

events through a few simple ideas and equations.” Ford

..Explanation in science is reduced to relationships; one thing is

‘explained’ by being related to something else.

“In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience.”Niels Bohr, “Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature: Four essays with an Introductory Survey” Macmillan, NY (1934), p18

Niels Bohr (1885 – 1962) was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in Copenhagen. He was part of a team of physicists working on the Manhattan Project. One of his sons, Aage Bohr, grew up to be an important physicist who in 1975 also received the Nobel prize. Bohr has been described as one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century

5. Science is Pragmatic

• In science, whatever works and can be independently verified is accepted as so!

• Absolute truths and Scientific truths are different– absolute truths are unchanging– scientific truths are always evolving

According to Isaac Newton..

“…analysis consists in making experiments and observations, and in drawing general conclusions from them by induction, and admitting no objections against the conclusions, but such as are taken from experiments or other certain truths…..

...And although arguing from experiments and observations by induction be no demonstration of general conclusions, yet it is the best way of arguing which the nature of things admits of, ...

A good scientific description is one that works, i.e. conforms to experiment, while a bad scientific description is one that doesn’t work, i.e. does not conform to experiment.

caution!

Since a pragmatically good description conforms to experiment (by definition!), it is often wrongly concluded that experimental measurements (i.e. the way things seem to be) prescribes how things ought to be.

6. Science is Incomplete

• A careful scientist does not claim a complete and final description of anything.

• To do so would require knowing everything about everything

• Dynamic nature of science illustrates the flaw of viewing science as complete

“Science is inherently open-ended and exploratory, and makes mistakes every day. Indeed that will always be its fate, according to the bare-bones logic of Kurt Godel’s

Second Incompleteness Theorem. Godel’s theorem

establishes that the full validity of any system, including a scientific one, cannot be demonstrated within that

system itself.

…In other words, the comprehensibility of a theory cannot be established unless there is something outside the frame against which to test it - something beyond the boundary defined by a thermodynamics equation, or by the collapse of the quantum wave function, or by any other theory or law. And if there is such a wider reference frame, then the theory by definition does not explain everything.

In short, there is not and never will be a complete and comprehensive scientific account of the universe that can be proven valid.”

Ferris

Ian Barbour, in Science and Secularity writes..

“The scientist is interested in regularities among phenomena; he selects not according to the importance of the problem, but according to its tractability to his methods. Therefore he cannot claim to give a complete account. Think of Eddington’s (Sir Arthur Eddington, a famous English scientist) parable about the Zoologist studying deep sea life…..”

Ian Barbour, a Carleton College professor emeritus, received 1999 Templeton Prize . Ian Barbour's Issues in Science and Religion, published in 1965, has been credited with literally creating the contemporary field of science and religion.

This phenomena is known as a “selection effect” Great care must be taken to avoid erroneous conclusions based on such data.

“…if a rat catcher tells you that all rats are no more than six inches long because he has never caught any that are shorter, you should check the size of his traps before drawing any far-reaching conclusions about the length of rats.

Even though you are most likely to see an elephant in a zoo, does not mean that all elephants are in zoos, or even that most elephants are in zoos.” Frank Tipler John barrow

John Barrow & Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, a great reference on design in the universe, once you dismiss Barrow’s discussion of the WAP (weak anthropic principle)

Any event usually has a complex series of explanations on different levels of understanding

Temporary Diversion

I LOVE YOUThis can be analyzed on a number of different levels

• 1. alphabet or letters• 2. phonetics (interaction of letters give rise to

phonetic meanings)• 3. individual words and their meanings (each

word has its own unique lists of possible meanings)

• 4. grammatically (the way in which the words interact influences their meaning...e.g. You love I

• 5. context (the words I LOVE YOU on a ppt. slide is vastly different than the words I LOVE YOU said to another individual)

• 6. ultimate context (what is the ultimate meaning of really loving some one)

Conclusion

• 1. a thing may be described on many levels

• 2. in principle, an exhaustive description is possible on

each level, especially lower ones

• 3. an exhaustive description on one level does not

influence the significance or necessity for an

exhaustive description on another level

• 4. a total or complete description of a topic would

require an exhaustive description on every level

7. Scientific Understanding is Partially Relative

• Scientific understanding is always relative to the existing world-view of practicing scientists

• Our perceptions of nature are strongly influenced by our world view

• All science is based on units of measures and standards that are determined solely by consensus agreement - not absolute standards

“There are no bare uninterpreted data in science - Expectation influences perceptions, both in everyday life and in science. The process of measurement, and the very language in which results are reported, are influenced by prior theories….

…The predicates we use in describing the world, and the categories with which we classify events, depend on the kinds of regularities we anticipate….

The presuppositions which the scientist brings to his inquiry influence the way he formulates a problem, the kind of apparatus he builds, and the type of concept he considers promising.” Barbour

How would you begin to do an experiment on something you know absolutely nothing about?

The existing world-view of science may force the rejection of ideas ultimately proven correct

1944 Oswald Avery discovers DNA was the hereditary substance

1950 Symposium “Genetics in the 20th Century” - only one negative reference

1914-16 Michael Polanyi and theory of adsorption of gases on solids

Soundly rejected

Avery was one of the first molecular biologists and a pioneer in immunochemistry, but he is best known for the experiment (published in 1944 with his co-workers Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty) that isolated DNA as the material of which genes and chromosomes are made

Years later Polanyi wrote about this:

“This miscarriage of the scientific method could not have been avoided…There must be at all times a predominantly accepted scientific view of the nature of things, in the light of which research is jointly conducted by members of the community of scientists. A strong presumption that any evidence which contradicts this view is invalid must prevail. Such evidence has to be disregarded, even if it cannot be accounted for, in the hope that it will eventually turn out false or irrelevant.”

Polanyi

8. Science is Statistical

• All measurements, except counting (unless one counts wrong) are approximate and have errors

“Every regularity in nature, be it summarized in a law, principle, or theory is discovered through observations or is based on individual observations that have some uncertainty attached to them. Therefore every scientific statement involves some uncertainty. Its corollary is that nothing is absolutely certain in science” Barbour

“The competent scientist never speaks of ‘proving’ a theory but only of obtaining a sufficient degree of confidence in it. He may speak of a theory as being acceptable, valid or invalid, but never of it being true or false. For one thing, what is truth in the context used here? Is truth absolute?..certainly it is not in the scientific sense…In science there is no such thing as absolute certainty; there is at best only a high degree of probability.”

Barbour

Remember

• Science acts to try to falsify or disprove a given model rather than try to prove a model is true

Some parts of science are inherently probabilisticDecay of a single atom...

Electron probability distribution function

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

“Physical laws rest on atomic statistics and are therefore only approximate.”

Erwin Schroedinger

To see one way a christian mechanist deals with this….

“The processes of the world seem to depend for their fruitfulness upon an interplay between chance and necessity. A random event (an aggregation of atoms, a genetic mutation) produces a new possibility which is then given a perpetuating stability by the regularity of the laws of nature. Without contingent chance, new things would not happen. Without lawful necessity to preserve them…they would soon vanish away…..

….The universe is full of the clatter of monkeys playing with typewriters, but once they have hit on the first line of Hamlet it seems that they are marvelously constrained to continue to the end of at least some sort of play.”

Notice the appeal to some “unknown” factor to explain existence – rather than the possibility of intelligence …

John Polkinghorne KBE FRS (born October 16, 1930, in Weston-Super-Mare, England) is a British particle physicist and theologian. He has written extensively on matters concerning science and faith, and was awarded the Templeton Prize in 2002. He was instrumental in the discovery of the Quark

A proper understanding of science in no way indicates that belief in a creator is a

reflection of ignorance or wishful thinking, nor does it imply that the believer already

has the answer to everything and therefore no reason to study.To the contrary, science functions on

foundations that mechanistically have absolutely no reason to exist

Many of the problems stem from scientific ignorance of religion and religious

ignorance of science!

Do not contribute to this problem!

Terminate!