The Limits of the Scientific Method: Is Human Inquisition Bound by Physical Realization?
Claiming that science is “dying” due to a lack of earth-shattering discoveries seems like a rather naive and short-sighted way of thinking. In 1897, Lord Kelvin famously proclaimed that “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” I am sure that we can all see how wrong he was in this regard. Science has the misfortune–or fortune, some would argue–of being highly deceitful in that there is the potential for infinite levels of abstraction beyond anything we could hope to comprehend, and so to view this unimaginably complex, infinite-dimensional universe through our narrow, human lens and assert that we have found the most fundamental truth would be pure folly.
It is absurd to claim that science is at an end of discovery, but, for argument’s sake, let us suppose this is true and we have exhausted all our possible paradigm shifts and generalizations–what then? Patrick Collison and Michael Neilsen address this scenario in the Atlantic article titled “Is Science Getting Less Bang for its Buck?” Here, they draw inspiration from computer scientists and claim that physicists can still build new, emergent theories on top of the theory of everything, and thus we would have an inexhaustible source of scientific phenomena to toy with.
While I agree that this is one possible trajectory of scientific progress, another likely outcome is the fusion of science into other more abstract disciplines such as mathematics. This is already happening today: string theory is an immensely popular field attempting to unify gravity with the standard model and it is viewed as far more mathematical in nature than other traditional theories. If, for some reason, science is to abandon the traditional course of physical discovery, perhaps we can expect to see more of this type of inquiry into deeper mathematical ideas, and the very foundation of the scientific method may be reformulated to reflect this newfound attention towards abstraction.
Many critics argue that this pursuit of abstract, mathematical theories is a pointless endeavor and betrays what science fundamentally is, but this is a vacuous complaint; while a large part of science is certainly concerned with being physically testifiable, what truly underlies the scientific method is the urge to understand the universe. Akin to how we study pure mathematics in order to expand our ability to think and grapple with complex ideas, the reason we conduct science isn’t just so we can catalog physical phenomena, but so we can develop new ways and paradigms of interpreting our existence–the question of physical realization can almost be viewed as an afterthought within this interpretation. These are some audacious philosophical claims, but I find them apt. Humans tend to be very clever, and so to assert this crude mentality of discarding everything except cold, calculated data hardly seems appropriate for the type of inquisitive beings we are.
Lastly, there are also concerns that scientists have become more corrupt in recent times. Specifically, in her article titled “Science isn’t Broken,” Christie Aschwanden outlines the influence of “p-hacking” and other human biases on statistical data. However, she clearly addresses these concerns and explains how science has always been a messy game of probability reduction and is inherently self-correcting. Bureaucracy and politics will always seep their way into every facet of society, but, ultimately, who really cares? The vast majority of science is conducted in good faith, so this small minority of opportunists hardly seems to matter, much less being indicative of a decline in science.
It is absurd to claim that science is at an end of discovery, but, for argument’s sake, let us suppose this is true and we have exhausted all our possible paradigm shifts and generalizations–what then? Patrick Collison and Michael Neilsen address this scenario in the Atlantic article titled “Is Science Getting Less Bang for its Buck?” Here, they draw inspiration from computer scientists and claim that physicists can still build new, emergent theories on top of the theory of everything, and thus we would have an inexhaustible source of scientific phenomena to toy with.
While I agree that this is one possible trajectory of scientific progress, another likely outcome is the fusion of science into other more abstract disciplines such as mathematics. This is already happening today: string theory is an immensely popular field attempting to unify gravity with the standard model and it is viewed as far more mathematical in nature than other traditional theories. If, for some reason, science is to abandon the traditional course of physical discovery, perhaps we can expect to see more of this type of inquiry into deeper mathematical ideas, and the very foundation of the scientific method may be reformulated to reflect this newfound attention towards abstraction.
Many critics argue that this pursuit of abstract, mathematical theories is a pointless endeavor and betrays what science fundamentally is, but this is a vacuous complaint; while a large part of science is certainly concerned with being physically testifiable, what truly underlies the scientific method is the urge to understand the universe. Akin to how we study pure mathematics in order to expand our ability to think and grapple with complex ideas, the reason we conduct science isn’t just so we can catalog physical phenomena, but so we can develop new ways and paradigms of interpreting our existence–the question of physical realization can almost be viewed as an afterthought within this interpretation. These are some audacious philosophical claims, but I find them apt. Humans tend to be very clever, and so to assert this crude mentality of discarding everything except cold, calculated data hardly seems appropriate for the type of inquisitive beings we are.
Lastly, there are also concerns that scientists have become more corrupt in recent times. Specifically, in her article titled “Science isn’t Broken,” Christie Aschwanden outlines the influence of “p-hacking” and other human biases on statistical data. However, she clearly addresses these concerns and explains how science has always been a messy game of probability reduction and is inherently self-correcting. Bureaucracy and politics will always seep their way into every facet of society, but, ultimately, who really cares? The vast majority of science is conducted in good faith, so this small minority of opportunists hardly seems to matter, much less being indicative of a decline in science.
As I mentioned in the beginning, it is not logically plausible for science to truly die out. We may need to reformulate the antiquated mode of scientific discovery to fit modern science, but the fundamental driving force behind the scientific method--the will to obtain a fuller understanding of the universe--is insatiable.
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