The Boundaries of Science

[_Gorman]

Science has certain natural boundaries. Inside these boundaries, science can be trusted to a large extent. These boundaries can and should be crossed, because if they are never crossed, then new information would never be found. Although, as theories extend further and further from the boundary, less and less trust should be given to that theory. Many fundamental religious “truths” (i.e. ‘God exists’, or ‘consciousness exists after death’) appear well outside of this boundary. It would be interesting to discuss this boundary, and where different people would place it. It would also be interesting to discuss different religious ‘truths’, and which are possibly closest to scientific scrutiny.

I general, I think that when science is talking merely about outcomes of experiments, it is well inside its boundary. When it is trying to explain why something happens, it is near or has crossed the boundary. I would personally place the boundary as follows.

I have a reasonably large amount of confidence in science when it discusses…

1. things larger than an ant and smaller than a mountain.

2. things a couple hundred feet below the surface of the Earth, and a couple miles above.

3. things dealing with relatively short time spans (on the order of a man’ life).

4. things a couple hundred years into the past, and nothing into the future (well, not much).

5. things that are simple like billiard balls, not complex like life or social interactions.

6. things moving relatively slowly.

7. things that are testable (this probably should have been at the top of the list, because if things are not testable, it should probably not even be classified as science).


I would probably add more to this list if I had the time, but this gives the general idea. Again, I still trust science outside of these boundaries, but the further away, the less trust I give.

P.S. I will be gone for a couple of days, so I won’t be able to respond right away.

[_The Dude]

PhysicsGuy:

This could be an interesting discussion, but for starters I think all of your boundaries are several orders of magnitude too narrow. Maybe a hundred years ago you would have been right to play it so safe, but in this century, how can you so limit your confidence on "size" when we have electron microscopes?

I guess if you get all your science through the filter of mass media, you would start to have these ideas about science; in my experience the media distorts the magnitude of everything in order to grab your attention, and this gives the impression that theories are being overturned almost every day. Over time, this actually lowers peoples' confidence in the whole enterprise.

I have great confidence in experimental science: physics, chemistry, and much of biology. At the other end are things like anthropology and psychology, and here I have much less confidence. A hard limit for science is meaning. Like you said, science is not the right tool for answering "why" questions.

As for religious truths that science may soon be able to crack, I think anything dealing with the brain is going to be fair game within the next deacade, and we are already making inroads. This could mean things like mystical experiences, which form the foundation of LDS epistemology, will be explainable as interactions between certain neurons and the chemicals that excite them. OTOH, I don't think life-after-death will ever be explained, since science can only begin to test things that actually exist -- something that doesn't really exist will forever escape our tools (by definition).

[_grayskull]

It's true that there are limitations to science. We can extend those boundries a little by adding considered philosophical speculations. But beyond that, what'doya do?

Sometimes "I don't know" might not be a bad answer. I think we're pretty lucky to be able to know what we do know living at this time in the universe, but unfortunately, we'll all probably die without the "ultimate" answers.

There are some major hurdles I believe for getting information from any sources once we go too far beyond the "boundry".

1. The difficulty of language to carry the infinitely-far-off and the resulting problem of anthropomorphism and psychologizing the universe. Since language is sort of bound to current human advancements, it's difficult to see how ultimate answers could be communicated in a way that can actually be comprehended and appreciated on their proper terms. I can only scratch the surface in comprehending some of the advanced theories well within the bounds. Yet go far enough outside them, and the universe is revealed in terms of basic human needs or struggles. The meaning of it all gets aped into cosmic family feuds, galactic political struggles, or the reflection of mundane tasks like churning butter or harvesting crops.

2. My first consideration results in revelation being all too unsatisfying. Painted in terms compatible well within current human achievement, something it can't escape anyway, religious answers aren't anymore interesting than stories or speculation that imaginative writers and filmakers can come up with - and usually less so. So the funny thing is, the intelligent, high-functioning, and considered religious folks typically don't stray too far beyond the boundry. Ok, there's a God, we should be nice to each other, we respect the beliefs of others and we'll see what else happens once we get there! So it's either, minimal beliefs in something greater that barely puts religion on the map as something idle speculations couldn't tell us anyway, or Xenu.

3. To the extent we just want to go for it and say it doesn't matter if the story sounds a little corny, what matters is that if it's true, because if one of those stories are true, then we'd need to know. Great, it could be the case. But I don't see how the real possibility of guessing the right story. And a cosmic hoax, even if true, still isn't very interesting.

[_silentkid]

1. things larger than an ant and smaller than a mountain.

This pretty much negates all of microbiology, molecular biology, cell biology, organic chemistry, and genetics. It also indicates that you don't have confidence in the germ theory of disease or atomic theory. I agree with The Dude here. You might want to reconsider this scale.

[_grayskull]

..p.s. if PhysicsGuy really is a "physics guy" and I'm to give him the benefit of the doubt, I would guess by his list that he probably meant to give examples that are obvious enough within our common-sense everyday experience that we have more or less complete certainty, and though we don't have reason to doubt a Chemistry textbook, there is a slight additional level of abstraction involved and in the way of personal verification, we might have slightly more certainty with billiard balls. I'm going to refrain from commenting on that right now but I can see why he made his point the way he did.

[_silentkid]

..p.s. if PhysicsGuy really is a "physics guy" and I'm to give him the benefit of the doubt, I would guess by his list that he probably meant to give examples that are obvious enough within our common-sense everyday experience that we have more or less complete certainty, and though we don't have reason to doubt a Chemistry textbook, there is a slight additional level of abstraction involved and in the way of personal verification, we might have slightly more certainty with billiard balls. I'm going to refrain from commenting on that right now but I can see why he made his point the way he did.

I work for a biotech company. We are researching the effects of specific genes on crop production. My work entails isolating RNA and DNA, designing primers to amplify (via PCR) specific genes, and sequencing those genes. I often have to vector clone specific PCR products to determine the number of copies of a given gene. The scope of my work is obviously in the molecular realm. The data I obtain are real. They have real-world results and impact. They are part of my everyday experience. I think I understand the point he is trying to make...I just don't agree with it.

[_grayskull]

I don't agree either but I made enough points for now so I wanted to hold out on that one. But it would be easy to attack him without understanding where he's coming from on that, that's all. :)

[_Analytics]

I have a reasonably large amount of confidence in science when it discusses…

...

6. things moving relatively slowly.

...

Could you clarify this one? It sounds like you don't have much confidence in relativity.

[_Ren]

First off, hi all. Been lurking for a while, but this thread caught my interest particularly, so I thought I'd take the plunge :)

Hey PhysicsGuy!

I general, I think that when science is talking merely about outcomes of experiments, it is well inside its boundary. When it is trying to explain why something happens, it is near or has crossed the boundary.

The above makes total sense to me, and to a large extent your right.
Although I think it's worth making clear that not all 'why' questions are 'equivalent'.

For example, asking the question 'Why do all objects tend to fall towards the earth' is perhaps a different why question to 'Why does anything exist'?
But assuming I understand your underlying point OK, I totally agree.

I have a reasonably large amount of confidence in science when it discusses…

1. things larger than an ant and smaller than a mountain.

2. things a couple hundred feet below the surface of the Earth, and a couple miles above.

3. things dealing with relatively short time spans (on the order of a man’ life).

4. things a couple hundred years into the past, and nothing into the future (well, not much).

5. things that are simple like billiard balls, not complex like life or social interactions.

6. things moving relatively slowly.

7. things that are testable (this probably should have been at the top of the list, because if things are not testable, it should probably not even be classified as science).


I would probably add more to this list if I had the time, but this gives the general idea. Again, I still trust science outside of these boundaries, but the further away, the less trust I give.

This is where I would have to disagree. I personally think you are drawing the 'borders' of science innaccurately.
In fact, I would argue that saying you trust science more in areas that are more 'directly accessible' to you physically (in terms of location, senses etc.) is really missing the deep meaning of some of the most basic philosophies of science. Our senses give us a 'biased' view of the world. And while it's hard to imagine us truly escaping them, we have to try and 'tame' them. And not be slaves to them.

Saying that you trust science when it talks about things 'larger than an ant and smaller than a mountain' implies to me that you 'need' direct confirmation from your own senses in some way for any given scientific principle to be 'truly' confirmed for you. I can understand the notion behind that. But if it is accepted that our own senses provide their own inherent bias (our senses have been developed in order to surivive - not to uncover the 'deep mysteries of the universe'), then the problem in holding that emphasis should be clear.

Of course - as I mentioned earlier - we cannot escape our senses. Even when we are looking into a microscope, or looking at a numerical reading on a device - we are still using our eyes to do that. But I think there is an inherent difference between the two following senarios:

1. Two people looking at a voltage reading and agreeing that the device - that is seperate from both of them, and is a 'neutral obvserver of the world, that doesn't rely on human senses' - tells both of them that the voltage reading is 2.45V (to an accuracy of 2 decimal places - of course the literal figure of 2.45V wouldn't be the real, whole truth, in ANY hypothetical senario...)

2. Two people looking at a random mountain, and trying to determine how 'tall' it is.

The second example would seem to fall within your 'scope' of what you would trust 'science' more with. After all, who has ever 'seen' an electrical current? I certainly haven't. An electrical current is something that happens on a very small scale - you can't 'see' it. You can only see the (so-called) 'effects' of it.
But I would trust the voltage reading far more than whatever figure was estimated by the two men, who were trying to determine the height of the mountain just by 'looking at it'.
I would trust their opinion far more if they were using a 'scientific method', rather than just looking at it and saying 'Well, it looks about THIS high...'. And of course we have established such methods. But once we have established that method, then does it matter how tall the mountain is? Are our readings from the method any more or less accurate simply because of the size of the mountain? I would argue not - the method either gives us a reading for the height of all mountains (within a given, accepted error range), or the method itself is flawed - regardles of their height.

In the same manner, when inspecting celestial objects - does it matter whether the objects happen to be local (e.g. the moon), or whether they are millions upon millions of light years away? Again -I would argue not. The distance from the point in the universe we happen to inhabit is irrelavent. The 'methods' give consistent results at any distance - so there is no reason to beleive that they are any less 'reliable' at long distances.


You appear to have drawn borders around where we happen to be. Where humans happen to live, and the senses we happen to have developed.
However, I see the borders of science as whatever is encapsulated in a valid scientific theory, that can be potentially falsified .via inpsection but which HAS NOT been. THAT is my boundry for science. It doesn't make one bit of difference whether the scientific theory deals with things rediculously small (from my biased human point of view), rediculously big (from my biased human point of view), or rediculously far away (from my biased point of view). These are all irrelavent catagorisations. Both to truth, and to science.

But as always PhysicsGuy, a good subject for a thread. And I know we'll get a good discussion out of this, if nothing else. Always a pleasure talking through scientific issues with you...

[_silentkid]

I don't agree either but I made enough points for now so I wanted to hold out on that one. But it would be easy to attack him without understanding where he's coming from on that, that's all. :)

I understand this. I hope my posts did not come across as an attack. It's difficult for me to try to make a point in this type of format without it sounding confrontational. I'm working on that. I specifically asked Physics Guy to start a thread like this so I could better understand his position on certain matters. I agree with a lot of his ideas. I just chose one that I didn't agree with first.

His 7th point, that science deals with things that are testable, is an important one. I think this is the point that separates experimental science from the observational and historical sciences. Testable hypotheses and repeatable experiments make experimental science the strongest tool we have to explain natural phenomena. Evolution, which is largely a historical science, may still have some uncertainty because not all aspects of the theory can be tested in an experimental way. Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection based on empirical observations, not direct experimentation. Yet, I completely accept evolutionary theory. I accept it based its explanatory power and the convergence of evidence supporting it from other scientific disciplines like molecular biology, genetics, geology, paleontology, zoology, etc.