"The gods did not reveal, from the beginning, all things to us; but
in the course of time, through seeking, men find that which is better.
But as for certain truth, no man has known it, nor will he know it;
neither of the gods, nor yet of all things of which I speak. And even
if by chance he were to utter the final Truth, he would himself not
know it; for all is but a woven web of guesses."
"The essence of science is that it is self-correcting."
"The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his own education"
Do we really need to know what happened when the universe was only a trillionth of a second old?
Why spend billions of dollars on space exploration and massive accelerators to find out what matter does under conditions similar to the first stages of the universe when we have so many urgent earthly problems?
At least one-fourth of the U. S. population and three-fourths of the world population live without their basic needs being met. Our environment is dangerously polluted and we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over. Should not our more immediate concerns be primarily social, economic, and political?
The answer to these questions are very long. In fact, this entire reading (and this course, to an extent) is an attempt to answer these questions.
Although we are most interested in philosophical considerations, we can here briefly discuss a few preliminary points. First of all, there is a well-known technological spin-off from adopting a science-oriented perspective. Studies have shown that for every dollar we spend on exploring space, fifteen dollars are returned to the economy in terms of revolutionary products and economic development.
To name only a few, the space program has given us Velcro, integrated circuits, computer chips the size of a thumbnail, advanced microprocessors, direct broadcasting satellites, solar energy, revolutionary medical technology, and soon, manufacturing and industrial parks in orbit around the Earth. Among other things that could be made more efficiently because of microgravity and the superior vacuums attainable in space, these industrial parks will manufacture medicines that would cost millions of dollars per pound if manufactured on the Earth; amounts that would take 30 years to produce on Earth would take only 30 days in space. Remote satellite sensing of the Earth's surface to map mineral deposits, vegetation patterns, and land use is predicted to generate billions of dollars in annual revenues by the year 2000.
The ancient Greeks believed that all knowledge was interrelated and valuable. Some people are often cynically amused upon reading that someone has just received a PhD degree for studying what happens to drops of water when they strike the surface of a pool. Those with the appropriate scientific background know, however, that such research has applications for the design and analysis of turbines, cooling towers, steam generators in nuclear reactors, and many chemical processes.
The exploration of space has also given us what might be called an Earth environment spin-off. The more we have studied out astronomical neighbors, the more we have learned about our Earth. By studying Venus we have been alerted to the climactic danger of a runaway greenhouse effect. Because of the dense atmosphere of that planet, radio mapping was developed to "see" the surface. This technology is now applied to finding mineral resources on Earth and ocean mapping for a better understanding of continental drift. Studying Mars has led to a better understanding of volcanism, weathering, and chemistry. The Voyager flights past Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune have taught us about electromagnetic fields and different types of weather, and by studying the moons of these planets, we have learned more about the varieties of planetary geology.
Most important for the focus of this reading, however, is what might be called a philosophical and psychological spin-off. That human beings have a ccomplished much materially is not doubted by even the most cynical critics of science and technology. What is doubted is whether our understanding has made us better as individuals and as a society. Do new technological feats benefit the poor or only the rich?
Have human beings made significant moral progress, or have the tools of manipulation, exploitation, and control just become more sophisticated? Is our potential for awareness, for "figuring things out," an asset, or is it an evolutionary mistake, a dead end? Does knowledge make life simpler or more complicated?
A study of biological evolution is a sobering and humbling experience, revealing no direction or purpose. Life evolves not with a design in mind or lofty plans for the development of a ruling creature but by offering variety, spinning the wheel of chance with every birth, gesturing with each unique creature for acceptance from the environment. In the process it produces a messy equality, a tree of successful branches with no branch any more fit than another.
Human beings do some things well, but insects also do some things well, and they have been here much longer and are much more likely to survive a nuclear holocaust. As humans, we boast and celebrate that we alone possess "intelligence," but even if this is true, there is no guarantee from nature that this characteristic is any better than the body structure of a mosquito; it is just another experiment, another gesture for acceptance, perhaps only an evolutionary afterthought. All we can honestly say is that both the characteristics possessed by human beings and mosquitoes have served each well, so far.
Scientists have presented some very bold claims lately. We claim to know some amazing things and that this knowledge has a bearing on our values, our problems, and the actions we choose to solve these problems. How do we know the universe is so big? How do we know our physical Earth and the life on it are the result of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution? How do we know these ideas are true? How do we know that the ideas accepted by scientists have any more validity than those in the following examples?
In 1981 the news media descended upon Tucson, Arizona, to interview a small religious sect that was waiting for Jesus Christ to take them to heaven. Bill Maupin, the leader of the Lighthouse Gospel Tract Foundation, had predicted that on June 28th the world would end, and all those who were to be saved by God would be "spirited aloft like helium balloons." About 50 people had gathered to experience the realization of their leader's vision--a vision, according to Maupin, resulting from 16 years of careful Biblical study and meditative prayer. Present were Maupin, who owned an ornamental fireworks business, a doctor, a surgical technician, a painting contractor, and other members of suburbia who had quit their jobs, sold their homes and Porsches, all waiting for the fulfillment of what they called "rapture day."
On the 28th, except for an electrical storm, nothing happened. The news media left, but a few months later a follow-up story appeared. Maupin admitted that obviously he had got the date wrong. However, he wanted to make it clear that God was not to blame, their faith in Jesus was still strong, and "someday" they were "going up." All of the members agreed: It was their mistake, not God's.
A few years later a news item gave another account of a vision, this time involving a bold religious fund-raising appeal by evangelist Oral Roberts. Roberts said Jesus had appeared to him and told him that he had been chosen to find a cure for cancer. This "supernatural breakthrough" would involve asking thousands of "prayer partners" to send $240 each, so that Roberts' Tower of Faith Research Center could be completed. Cures could then be found for cancer, and "other dread diseases," which are the "work of the devil."
One of the major points of this reading is to show that a major difference exists between the astonishing, sometimes uncomfortable, beliefs we hold as scientists and these "visions," but the difference is not necessarily one of truth. That is, we cannot claim categorically to know that the predictions of Maupin and Roberts are false. Since no one can see the future, it is possible that tomorrow Maupin's group will experience their rapture day and Roberts will find a cure for cancer.
The difference is also not necessarily in the level of strangeness or the degree to which such ideas violate common sense. In science we find ideas much more incredible than most religious ideas. A survey of modern science reveals ideas such as black holes, where astrophysicists tell us time and space disappear and the end of time occurs in an instant; the concept of a singularity where, in the case of the origin of the universe, all matter, space, and time explode from a single point with no physical dimensions; quantum spaces and vacuums, where nothingness consists of virtual, potential existence; the implications of Einstein's relativity theory, in which a mother can take a long space voyage and become younger than her son; and perhaps the most bizarre of all, quantum objects, where the mathematical description of the energy of a single electron reveals that it can be in more than one place at a time and even "tunnel" through reality, popping in and out of existence.
The distinguishing characteristic is what is called "epistemological status," a difference in the way science and religion make their respective claims of knowledge. Ironically, what separates scientific theories from nonscientific ones is how vulnerable the ideas are allowed to be.
The problem with ideas such as Maupin's and Roberts' is that they are logically irrefutable; they have been made invulnerable to disproof. They could be true, but no matter what happens, they cannot be proved false. A way out always exists--an explanation to show that an inconsistency is only an apparent inconsistency. If a fact appears to contradict an irrefutable belief, we can always show that it is only an apparent contradiction and even turn this apparent inconsistency into a confirmation, a positive instance in favor of the belief.
If a predicted date for a trip to heaven does not materialize, obviously there was human error in calculation. After all, there was an electrical storm. Is this not a sign that we are on the right track? If we build a Tower of Faith Research Center to cure cancer and people continue to get cancer, then obviously the collective faith of the human race is still weak and cannot completely fend off the work of the devil. We need more contributions from prayer partners to take our message to the world. And so on.
Psychologically, irrefutable beliefs are very compelling. Everything is explained: There is a finality to our views, a secure feeling that allows us to face life's contingencies and uncertainties. Whatever happens can always be viewed as part of the plan. But when one irrefutable belief contradicts another, there is then no decisive way for a choice between them. With an irrefutable belief, all that we are left with is a "maybe-belief" that may make us feel good.
But a scientific theory must be refutable in principle; a circumstance or a set of circumstances must potentially exist such that if observed it would logically prove the theory wrong. Although there is much more to scientific discovery and justification than this, logicians and philosophers of science refer to a logic in discussing scientific reasoning, although it is seldom followed as rigorously in practice as it is in theory. This logic is often given an impressive name, known as the hypothetical-deductive method.
A simplified version of the logic of scientific method can be summarized as follows. Scientists begin the encounter with nature by making observations. Somehow through a kind of creativity mill, a hypothesis is generated about how some process of nature works. On the basis of this hypothesis, a test or experiment is logically deduced that will result in a set of particular observations that should occur, under particular conditions, if the hypothesis is true. For instance, if the hypothesis states that all physically abused children grow up to be abusive parents, then it follows that a particular abused girl should be observed in the future to be an abusive mother. If the predicted observation occurs, then the hypothesis is confirmed. If the predicted observation does not take place, then the hypothesis is disconfirmed.
This skeletal essence of science may involve a logical process, but the actual process often involves a great deal of insight and creativity. How would child abuse be observed in a family without affecting the result? How would abuse be measured? If we observe an abused child to grow up and not become an abusive parent, do we know our hypothesis is wrong, or were we wrong about the child being truly abused? The need for creative insight and interpretation is an essential part of actual scientific practice, whether it involves a complex social situation or a relatively simple calculation of the Earth's circumference. At some point we will need to address the question of whether scientific theories can also be made invulnerable to disproof through this interpretive process.
Suppose a social scientist reads the following letter in a newspaper:
What for this person is "proof" that there is a causal connection between sex education in schools and a recent rise in venereal disease and teenage pregnancy is only an observation of a possible correlation. Suppose our scientist is intrigued enough to do a little research and finds that the observation is accurate. There has been a significant rise in venereal disease and pregnancies among teenagers simultaneous with the introduction of sex education courses in public schools. Also, he is surprised to find out that the possible causal connection between these correlated events has never been tested scientifically.
It is important to note that what for most people is the conclusion of an investigation is only the beginning of an investigation for a scientist. Many other factors could cause the rise of teenage VD and pregnancies. A rise in the population of teenagers is possible, causing every activity related to teenagers to go up: automobile accidents or purchasing particular types of clothing and albums, for example. Few would claim that teaching sex education in schools has been the cause of increased purchases of acne lotion.
There could be an increase in the population of particular types of teenagers, those in an area of the country where sex education is not taught or where early sexual experimentation is encouraged by various social or family pressures. Correlation does not prove causation. A correlation between sex eduction and teen sex problems does not prove a causal connection, and, by itself, it does not give us a clear indication in which direction there may be a connection. For all we know at this point, an increase in teen sex problems has led to an increase in sex education classes!
However, even though this belief is far from proved, it at least can be given the status of a scientific conjecture. Unlike the alleged visions discussed earlier, this claim is refutable. It is testable. We can imagine a set of possible observable circumstances that would prove this belief false.
Suppose our scientist applies for a government grant to study this. Suppose the time is right. The country is in a conservative mood; a very popular conservative president is in the White House, and he has been championing the notion that government intrusion into what is purely a personal or family matter can bring nothing but harm.
The political and cultural environment are important as a backdrop to scientific "objectivity." Perhaps the social science community has been too liberal to recognize the possible connection between sex education and teenage sex problems. Similarly, it is probably our letter writer's bias against sex education that allowed him to make this possible connection in the first place. Ideas do not emerge from a vacuum or a purely unbiased state of mind or purely from objective observations as portrayed in our brief description of the hypothetical-deductive method. Ideas often must be popular or controversial before they are studied.
In the history of science, ideas frequently have been accepted as true before crucial evidence for them has been found. This has caused many a cynic to wonder how many "truths" are out there that are not popular yet, or never will be, and to claim that scientific objectivity is a myth. Insofar as science is an activity carried out by human beings, such human factors as cultural and political influence can never be eliminated. However, such human factors are often unexpectedly helpful to scientific discovery, that they give the logic of science life and direction. Initial biases are not necessarily bad as is often supposed. Biases can help us see things that we otherwise may have missed. For the moment though, let's leave this issue and return to our study.
The scientist receives his grant and begins his study. What he needs is a controlled study. As noted, there could be many other causes of the increase in teen pregnancies and VD. The possible causes are called variables. The goal of a controlled study is to control as many of these variables as possible, so that given two populations of teenagers all the possible variables are the same overall except one--only one population will have had sex education in school. In this way, if there is a significant difference in the percentages of pregnancies and VD in the group that had sex education, then will will have a reasonable basis for claiming a causal connection between sex education classes in public schools and subsequent teen sex problems. On the other hand, if we find no significant difference between the two groups, it would be reasonable to conclude that a population increase or some other causal factor is involved.
Even though our scientist may receive a large grant from the government, he cannot possibly survey every teenager in the country. He must be content with a sample, one that matches in characteristics the total population of teenagers. Such a sample is called a representative sample. Techniques exist for creating such a sample. Political pollsters are able to interview between 1,000 and 1,500 carefully chosen people and, on this basis, predict the overall voting habits of over 50 million people.
Suppose then that after a great deal of reseach two representative groups of 1,000 teenagers each are identified. Each group has characteristics evenly distributed. There are as many boys as girls; poor, middle-class, and wealthy; rural, urban, and suburban. The only significant difference known between the two groups is that the teenagers in one group have had a sex education class in either the fifth or sixth grade, and the teenagers of the other group have never had a sex education class. If there is a much larger percentage of problems in the sex education group, the original hypothesis will be confirmed. If there is no significant difference in the percentages, the hypothesis will be disconfirmed. What if there is a larger percentage of social problems in the group without the sex education? The government sponsors would probably be very unhappy, but many social scientists would likely view this result as evidence for the hypothesis that sex education classes are helping prevent teenage sex problems and that the increase must be due to other factors.
Scientists seldom consider one study conclusive. The results of a single study are only suggestive. A single study is analyzed carefully by other members of the scientific community; they critique it, and on the basis of this critique, conduct other independent studies. The new studies will often have tighter controls, addressing weaknesses overlooked in the initial study. In other words, scientific studies must be replicated. They must be repeated many times by different investigators using different approaches before the scientific community arrives at a consensus. As noted earlier, what for many people is the conclusion of an investigation is but the beginning of a patient, methodical investigation for the scientific community.
The intial study on sex education could have many possible results. Our scientist might observe a higher incidence of VD for the sex education group, but a lower incidence of pregnancy, possibly implying promiscuity and the use of nonprophylactic contraception or only that teenagers having had sex education are more likely to report VD. Or we might find that there is a percentage difference in the two groups in the hypothesized direction, but that the difference is small. Would this confirm the hypothesis or not? How should we interpret the possible result of teenagers in the group without sex education having a higher incidence of pregnancies but a lower VD rate? What if there is a slight difference in the percentages, but in the opposite direction of the original hypothesis?
Although most scientists believe that the world is governed by simple truths, on the surface it is a complicated place, and any experiment or test of a hypothesis is actually a test of a complex web or set of hypotheses. In our example, our scientist focused on whether sex education causes teen sex problems, but much more than this is being tested. We are also testing the result of when students have sex education, and how they have it. Having a sex education class in the fifth grade may be very different from in the sixth or seventh grade.
The type of sex education class could also be important. Was it taught by a woman or a man? Did the teacher make use of visual aids and movies? Not only must we breathe some life into the logic of scientific method before it works but also we must do more than simply state that if our hypothesis is true, then such and such circumstances should be observed under controlled conditions. The logic of a scientific study is complicated. If the results do not occur as predicted, all we can conclude logically is that something is wrong somewhere in the total set of hypotheses and assumptions we used to deduce what should happen.
Furthermore, facts are seldom just facts. Observations must be interpreted. For instance, if two teenagers are found to have produced a baby within a few years after having a sex education class, does this necessarily count as an instance supporting the hypothesis that sex education classes cause teen sex problems? Suppose upon examining this particular case carefully, we find that both teenagers are intelligent, are at the top of their class academically, and are in love, and because of their perceived understanding of the world situation and the amount of nuclear weapons, they made a conscious decision to have a baby before it is too late (in their opinion) to experience the joy of parenthood. Should this count as an observation of a teen sex problem?
For reasons such as these, the results of many scientific experiments and studies are inconclusive. Scientists have learned that nature does not reveal its secrets easily. Through countless experiences of having their ideas rejected by nature, they have learned to be very cautious in proclaiming what we know. The game of science requires great patience. Like many fishermen on a shoreline, we throw out our net into the limitless sea of nature hoping to catch a few of nature's secrets. Most of the time we pull in empty nets, and it requires a whole community of fishermen, cooperating and communicating, constantly critiquing and evaluating each other's fishing technique, to accumulate anything substantial.
As another example, let's look at studies linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer. Have we proven that cigarette smoking is the principle cause of lung cancer? For logically technical reasons, we have not. In fact, there is no such thing as a scientific proof, if proof means something that is known with absolute logical certainty. A controlled study can never be completely controlled. The number of ways people can differ, the number of possible variables, is infinite. In all the studies on cigarette smoking, it is possible that some obscure alternate factor was the real culprit. All of the people who had lung cancer could possibly have had some subtle factor in common that went unrecognized in every study.
Perhaps the real cause was that all of the people who had lung cancer were given a piece of bubble gum on their fifth birthday, and it just so happened there was a chemical in the gum that reacted with their bodies in such a way that it activated a virus later in their lives, which then led to lung cancer. A more likely and interesting possibility is the role of radioactive radon gas prevalent in many homes. Radon gas is believed to also cause lung cancer and as of this writing has not been controlled for in studies linking smoking and lung cancer. This and millions of other "off the wall" possibilities have never been tested.
The link between smoking and lung cancer cannot be known in the sense of "known beyond any logical or conceivable doubt." The point is, however, can we say that we know that cigarette smoking is a principal cause of lung cancer beyond a "reasonable doubt"? Is it rational if we claim to know something even if we are not absolutely sure that we know something? Can we distinguish between what is "conceivably" true and what is "reasonably" true?
Small amounts of evidence need not always be weak. A biologist, for instance, might be willing on the basis of this one apple to wager that all of the apples are likely to be rotten, if other information were known or provided. Given the general knowledge of the existence of bacteria and their ability to spread rapidly, if it were known what temperature the apples were stored, and for how long, a conclusion that all the apples are rotten might not be unreasonable. Often in science, a few observations are made to do a lot of hypothetical work, especially when they are placed within a framework of a general consensus of belief of how the world works.
This general consensus is sometimes referred to as the world view, "standard model" or paradigm of the time. With just a very few facts, from say a picture of colliding subatomic particles from an accelerator in Switzerland, theoreticians can follow long, extremely excurciating mathematical trails until they arrive at statements about the first microseconds of the Universe!
But without anything else to go on, concluding that all the apples are rotten from a single positive case is a very weak inductive inference. To make the inductive inference stronger, more apples need to be sampled. If I pulled out four more, for a total of five, and all of them were just like the first one, we would now have a better basis for concluding that all the apples are rotten. In general, the more positive cases in favor of a hypothesis, the stronger the hypothesis.
Yet if all five were simply pulled off the top, it is still possible that the apples on the bottom are not rotten. Thus, a stronger case could be made by choosing a representative sample, by selecting one from the top, one from the very bottom, one from each side of the barrel, and one from the middle. If all five are rotten, this would strengthen the hypothesis considerably. As noted previously, political pollsters know that we are much more likely to know the likelihood of the voting behavior of 50 million voters by examining a representative sample of 1,200 voters distributed throughout the country rather than 100,000 people living in New York. A small representative sample is much stronger logically than is a large unrepresentative one. Five representative apples are better than just 20 off the top.
Suppose we continued to sample the apples by pulling out 45 more. If all 50 sampled were rotten, then it would be much more likely that all the apples are rotten. But would you bet your life savings on the proposition that all the apples remaining are rotten? Probably not, because we know that it is still possible that some, even many, of the remaining apples are not rotten. Suppose we pulled out 49 more. Suppose that all 99 samples are rotten. Do we know that the last remaining apple is rotten? Many people probably would bet their life savings at this point, but they would still have considerable anxiety as the last apple was pulled from the barrel, because it is still possible that this last apple is not rotten.
Much about the logic of science can be summarized with reference to this little example. Earlier we mentioned that science uses a hypothetical-deductive method. It is given this name because starting with a hypothesis, a prediction is deduced about what should be observed under particular conditions if the hypothesis is true. If the hypothesis is that all the apples in the barrel are rotten, then one selected from the middle should be rotten. The entire method is based on induction, however, because if an apple is pulled from the middle of the barrel and observed to be rotten, this confirms the hypothesis but does not logically prove it. Understand that it is possible to deduce true conclusions (the apple will be rotten in the middle of the barrel) premises that may be false (all the apples are rotten).
Critics of science will often attempt to use this logical window to repudiate many scientific conclusions. One of the main arguments offered by creationists against the theory of evolution amounts to no more than saying the theory is based on induction, arguing that because it cannot be known to be true, it must be based on a leap of faith. Critics of, say, the theory of evolution often commit the logical fallacy of appealing to ignorance, arguing that because the theory cannot be proved absolutely true, it must be false. But absence of evidence for absolute proof is not evidence of absence of truth. Critics of science fail to recognize the positive aspect of this logical doubt. Without room for doubt, there would be no room for self-correction, and we would be left with a cluttered clash of irrefutable beliefs.
We cannot analyze the evidence for every scientific claim made in this reading or an entire course of science, but keep in mind, as we survey the worldview of modern science that this patient, critical attitude lies behind all the scientific explanations discussed, no matter how strange. Science does not claim to know all the answers. It does, however, claim to provide us with a method of test and interaction by which we can become more and more intimate with the universe.
Because scientists are human beings, many aspects of our humanity also play a role in scientific discovery: artistic creation and imagination, political manipulation and personal exploitation, wishful thinking, bias, egocentricity, critical review, and premature skeptical rejection. At its best, however, there is only one absolute truth: that there are no absolute truths.
Science then involves a logical process that is fallible, and it involves much more than just a logical process. Every scientist and the science of a time are subject to the forces of human nature and culture. Scientists are forced to make many assumptions; some are conscious and some are not. The job of the philosopher of science is to reveal these assumptions, so that they can be publicly discussed and critically evaluated.
Have we not all wondered at some time or another where the human race has gotten all its ideas? As we have seen, creative ideas are the result of a complex web of influences, often called "human bias" and regarded as unscientific. Yet when such creative ideas are fruitful in making connections, they form the basis of commonly accepted scientific theory. Just as often, though, our creativity and bias can lead us astray.
The famous sixteenth-century astronomer Tycho Brahe was the best observational astronomer of his time. The data he recorded on the motion of the planets were crucial to our modern understanding of the solar system. Mathematically, he knew that one of the implications of his data was that the Sun was the center of the motion of all the planets, which further implied that the universe was very large and that all the stars were an immense distance away. He could not bring himself to accept this radical conclusion, however, and accepted instead a more traditional view for his time. Why? Because it was inconceivable that God would "waste" this much space!
Johannes Kepler, who with Tycho's data finally solved the problem of planetary motion, was motivated by his certain belief that the Sun was the most appropriate object to be placed in the center of the universe because of was the material home of the manifestation of God. Galileo, in spite of his brilliant astronomical observations and terrestrial experiments, failed to see that importance of Kepler's solution of planetary motion because it did not involve using perfect circles for the motion of the planets.
Although scientists at any given time may be caught within a web of many assumptions, science at its best does not rely on many assumptions. Science also assumes, as did the ancient Greeks, that the more we think critically about our beliefs, the more likely we are to know the truth. There are cynics, however, who believe that critical thinking is not a marvelous human characteristic at all. Critical thinking, they argue, makes life more complicated, uncovers distracting details, and makes it less likely that human beings will discover the simple solutions to life's problems. There are also nihilists who argue that our so-called intelligence and our ability to be aware of the details of the universe are an evolutionary dead end, that far from producing the good life, our awareness and rationality are the cause of our craziness.
Defenders of science will often argue that even if some assumptions are necessary in the application of scientific method, these assumptions are validated by the record of success. However, there is a major logical problem with this justification. It simply raises the problem of induction again. It is circular reasoning to attempt to vindicate inductive reasoning by asserting that so far inductive reasoning has worked, because this vindication itself is an inductive argument. The history of science shows many beliefs that have been "successful" for a time, only later to fail. No matter how much evidence there is for an inductive conclusion, it is always logically possible for the conclusion to be false. Thus, it is logically possible for the scientific method to completely fail tomorrow even if it is true that it has been successful for centuries. And if it could fail tomorrow, the question remains of whether it is reasonable to continue to believe in the scientific method as helpful for our future.
Has science been successful? No other creature in the universe that we know of is potentially as violent as the human race. At any moment our Earth could be destroyed by nuclear holocaust. No matter what one believes is responsible for this situation, it is indisputable that the scientific method has made the means of this destruction possible.
Although the critical process of science involves many patient, disciplinary techniques that promote objectivity (such as controlled studies, statistical analysis, standards of replication and corroboration), our interaction with nature involves creativity and a complex web of ideas, assumptions, perspectives, influences, interpretations, and paradigms or world views. Ultimately, all scientific explanations are based on inductive reasoning; no matter how successful an explanation is in making predictions, it is always possible for true predictions to be deduced from false theories, so no scientific explanation can be known to be true absolutely. But the essence of science is self-correction and the obtainment of beliefs that have a reasonable chance of being true, not absolute truth.
If the results of science are based on inductive reasoning, and hence can never be certain, then the question arises as to whether science can be self-corrective. That an idea works by being tested many times is no guarantee that it will work in the future. Furthermore, correction implies that something is better. Can one idea be said to be better than another if it cannot be shown to be absolutely true? The philosophical question and many others often discussed in relation to science in turn have a bearing on the great questions of who we are, where we have come from, and what may be in store for us.