Science and Philosophy

– A brief essay on the strengths and limitations of the scientific method as applied to religious thought, truth and general philosophy. –

Why does the human spirit yearn for truth, for understanding, for reliable answers to childlike existential questions?
Is it merely curiosity that sends us groping in the dark, searching restlessly for the answers to...  Just what?

Truth is eternal

Some things are true regardless of what we think, say or do, or what our perspective may be.  For example, in the pure counting numbers (disregarding symbolic representation); one plus one must always equal two.  Such truths were not created, but simply exist.  The influence of such truths on our minds is sometimes called the light of truth; since it may illuminate our understanding with insight from beyond the limits of our own faculties; or in other words, enlighten us with contributions to our understanding that we cannot attribute to any other source than truth itself.Photograph of solitary illuminated flower on forest floor at Danes Dyke, North Landing, East Yorkshire.

Truth's transcending power...

A shaft of light shines past the giants
     brightening one flower
 A symbol of the Truth's defiance
     and transcending power...

While walking in woodland near the East coast of England, a solitary flower on the forest floor caught my eye as it was illuminated by a single ray of sunshine penetrating the canopy of leaves.  This verse of poetry was almost immediately inspired by the very scene depicted in this photograph.

The investigation of truth: a noble human instinct

The pursuit of truth is an innate and noble characteristic of the human mind and heart; often motivated by dissatisfaction in lacking answers to important questions of life.  We may observe in the behaviour of young children that truth has an intrinsic value independent of cultural or religious persuasion.

The eternal nature of truth itself is inspiring.  We may honour ideas and obey principles we consider absolutely true, valuing the permanence and immutability of eternal truth above the temporary character of our lives on Earth.  This poignant comparison impresses us with a sense of inescapable natural justice transcending personal preferences or beliefs.  Many people have died for what they believed to be truth, considering their cause even more important than their own lives.  Some of the ugliest acts in human history were perpetrated by people who felt justified through their mistakenly perceived possession of some incontrovertible truth.  Conversely, a common understanding of actual truth may unify a people and help preserve peace by securing common consent, approval and collaborative effort for procedures that are painful but necessary for our common wellbeing; providing powerful motivation to ascertain truth and convince our fellow-men of the mutually beneficial truths in our possession.

The scientific method of approaching truth

The scientific method has brought many material benefits through the application of those theories most apt to withstand rigorous evidence-based cross-examination (those theories which therefore, we suppose, approach nearest to the truth.)

In the scientific method:

  1. The physical properties of the universe are observed.
  2. One or more hypotheses are formulated (within the scope of their originators imagination, training, prejudices and inspiration) which theories are perceived by their proponents as consistent with observed facts.  An alternative hypothesis is added to this collection of hypotheses, covering the case where none of the proposed hypotheses are correct.
  3. Unbiased experiments are designed to help determine which of the hypotheses is closest to being correct, most often by eliminating from consideration those hypotheses least likely to be correct.  In order to do this, the proponents and detractors of the various hypotheses reformulate these hypotheses as predictions of as-yet-unknown (but experimentally observable or otherwise provable/ disprovable) hypothetical data.
  4. The experiments are performed to eliminate the least likely hypotheses from consideration, and/or to strengthen evidence for the best hypotheses.  If all proposed hypotheses are disproven or found to be a poor explanation of experimental data, or if the results are inconclusive; the scientists return to a previous stage of this process.
  5. The surviving hypotheses are codified in a communicable format and more widely applied in making economically relevant predictions.  The most successful and accurate theories are used with confidence as part of a general scientific framework for generating new ideas and product designs.

Advantages of the scientific method

As a method of obtaining reliable data (in fields such as astronomy, physics, geology, metallurgy, engineering, chemistry, biology and medicine); the scientific method has significant and demonstrable advantages over known or traditional alternatives such as inexact observations propagated as folklore (as found in traditional herbology.)  The advantages of the scientific method are well documented and widely promoted in popular culture.

Limitations of the scientific method include:

Despite the progress of science, infinitely many truths may always be in some way outside the scope or observable range of any experimental data we may gather.  Because science is forever bound to the study of the countably finite, the frequent, the commonly observable and repeatable, the imaginable etc.; science may not even be aware of many questions relating to the infinite.  Scientists (as human beings) are (like the rest of us) inherently reliant on the ideas or inspiration that come to them in response to the stimuli they observe and decide to pursue...  How do scientists get their ideas in the first place?

Thomas Alva Edison said,

“Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration...  I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident.  They came by work.”

In his moments of inspiration, Edison might well have identified with Archimides in his famous exclamation of “Eureka!” – After Archimedes had made significant effort to prepare his mind, the idea was impressed upon his mind suddenly, without compulsion; as inspiration from above.  If Edison was right, that hard work constitutes 99% of the driving-force behind our creativity, we may not be surprised that certain scientists not fully attuned to recognizing inspiration may erroneously claim full credit for their invention; yet few scientists would presume to do this.  Acclaimed scientists have often credited the inspiration of predecessors, inspiration from God, or both.  Pragmatic effort is only part of the recipe that leads to scientific success.  Perhaps therefore it was not merely as a nod to the most popular opinions of the day, and not merely clever marketing; that Samuel Morse chose these words for his first telegraph message from the Supreme Court chamber in Washington D.C. on 24th May 1844 –
“What hath God wrought?” – So where exactly does this other part of “Genius” come from - this inspiration, to which Edison, Archimedes and Morse refer?  Should we fully credit a succession of eminent men with the cumulative genius of the human race, or could God have a guiding hand in our progression?

Prevalent myths regarding the scientific method

The following Venn diagram image is in SVG format.  The author recommends for you to look at this page using the Firefox browser if your browser cannot handle the SVG format that has been around as a well-published W3C standard for quite some time now.

If the preceding diagram was drawn to true scale, the areas representing “all true propositions” and “all false propositions” would be infinite in scale (with perhaps different infinities representing each.)  Please note, this diagram is a rough sketch only - there may be possibilities that are not covered by this diagram, for example, there may (as explained later in this article) be truths that are known to some yet are not provable by the scientific method.

The limits of human reasoning

Are all the truths we seek within the elucidating power of the human mind, or accessible to pure hard work?  Or is it only vanity that tempts us to consider the powers of the human mind to be unlimited?

According to Gödel's theorem, there will always be truths beyond the scope-of-comprehension of ANY finite model representing them.  (Gödel's theorem proves this for number theory, which is a subset of all truth.  It shows that any potential “all-encompassing number-theory” must be powerful enough to express basic arithmetic (whatever else it can express), and if so, the proposed theory cannot encompass all of number theory; regardless of the mutual consistency of all true propositions.  Therefore no finite theory can possibly encompass all numeric truths, let alone all truths.  The composition of multiple theories can only produce another theory that is also covered by Gödel's theorem.  Therefore, there will always be truths outside the scope of all the best finite theories combined.  Gödel's theorem is not a message of abject doom-and-gloom for the scientific community as it does not demonstrate that a particular fixed question may be formulated that will never be answered by Science.  However, since all scientific theories are finite, Gödel's theorem does show that regardless of how far the scientific community progresses in solving problems that were previously intractable, there will always be questions that have not yet been answered by science.)

The current popular “scientific” perception of the human being is as a biological / electronic machine with a intricate endocrine (chemical signalling) system.  This type of system is by its very nature imprecise...  A purely biological creature may perceive truths with relative certitude, however he may not directly discern absolute truth at all.  If the biological picture of the human being is complete then we may confidently state that human beings are incapable of reaching any absolute truth via the “scientific method” at all; since a purely biological creature may only approach absolute truth incrementally through experience and experimentation, and at the conclusion of his studies, may never be totally certain that his senses are not fooling him, and that inconsistencies in ones perspective have been overlooked.  Therefore paradoxically, if science was the only valid method of approaching truth and our current scientific understanding was complete, as biological creatures swimming in a sea of probabilistic quantum wavicles we could never know anything for certain and would be most ill-placed to assert something so sweeping and grand in scope as that the scientific method was the only method of approaching truth.  Therefore, anyone who posits the scientific method as the only valid way to approach absolute truth is misguided, since they would be claiming special and private knowledge of truths outside the realms of science and therefore contradicting themselves.

Due to the very nature of the biological human mind, with its imperfections and inexact mechanisms of calculation; we might well conclude that we cannot truly “know” anything at all; unless other methods of “knowing” are available, that are as yet unknown to physical/ empirical science.  Even when judiciously consulting respected forebears, we may never be completely certain to what degree we are influenced by the Zeitgeist, or the peer-pressure of our local cultural prejudices.

Cartoon about human viewpoints or inherited insight; drawn by Dušan Petricic.

Copyright Dušan Petricic.  Used by kind permission of the artist.
Art originally published in the Scientific American magazine.

Discontinuities in the progress of science

Living in the modern world with the improvements in material quality-of-life that we enjoy; we have become acclimatised to the idea of the constancy of progression.  In our limited viewpoint and with our fallible minds, as we keenly observe the present progress and forgetfully overlook the present retrogression; we comfortably presume that mankind has likewise been progressing in terms of culture, science and civilization at every locus in geography and history; and cheerfully predict that this observed progression will continue indefinitely into the future.  A brief examination of history will expose this self-deception, which is at once contradicted by observing that archaeology is considered “romantic” precisely because it comprises the rediscovery of ancient knowledge that has since been lost.

Examples of lost ancient knowledge/ expertise (rough list - would welcome additional points from readers, from their own fields of expertise):

“The scientists know everything”

Another false assumption often made by the population at large is that if they don't know something, at least the scientists know the answer, and you can always go on Google or Wikipedia to find it out...  Because scientists rarely promote fields of science in which they are not personally expert, and because unexplained data are rarely published in popular mass-media, many scientific “unknowns” are effectively hidden from the public consciousness.  The list of basic facts unknown to science includes some surprising entries.  At the time of writing, we do not know:

Experience has shown, and theory suggests, that even once scientists have defined or discovered the answers to all of these questions, we will become aware of other questions, greater in number and scale, to which we still do not know the answers.

As Stephen Hawking said recently,
“We understand enormous amounts, but when asked how did it all come to be, we don't have one single answer.  Yet.”

Certain questions may be firmly outside the scope of science

As C.S.Lewis explained in his book, “Miracles”; a miracle is precisely so called because it falls outside the scope of prior human experience; above the powers of human reasoning, beyond the powers of the human mind to explain it, or beyond the powers of human influence to repeat it...  Yet many miracles are facts attested by numerous witnesses.  What can Science say about such well-attested events as the resurrection of Christ?  (The cynic may point the finger and call the numerous ancient witnesses a smokescreen for the lack of extant “scientific” evidence; yet this pointed finger does not in any way mitigate the inadequacy of Science in dealing with such questions; it only points three fingers back at the cynic, and makes the statement an admission of a lack of willingness to exercise faith in a belief that is perfectly harmless and quite beneficial so long as it is not mixed up with any religious fanaticism or bigotry.)  As Science may be an inherently incomplete means of understanding the Universe, such questions regarding miraculous events (particularly where evidence is devoid of historical precedent or as-yet observable repetition) may be firmly outside the scope of science.  Therefore, certain religious propositions may rightly be described as being “unscientific”; not because they cannot be true, but because science is inadequate to discuss them, or in other words, because believing such propositions requires additional faith.

The objectiveness of science - a compromised Gold Standard?

Many promote the myth that the scientific method is completely dispassionate, methodical, objective and impartial.  Unfortunately this is rarely the case.  Since the scientific method requires effort, and since scientists (like all human beings) need money to buy food and live; we may often observe that “he who pays the piper gets to pick the tune.”  Usually, those scientific studies are commenced first for which there is most fear-of-the-unknown, and those are completed first for which there is most commercial interest.

Alex - Cartoon about priorities in the workplace - altruism vs. earnings.  Used by kind permission of the artists.

Copyright to the artists.  Used by kind permission of the artists, and The Daily Telegraph newspaper; where the Alex cartoon is published.

Unfortunately, not all that masquerades as “science” is actually written by qualified scientists, and even that portion written by qualified scientists is not all the result of rigorously applied scientific method (which is the very reason why true scientists are so strongly in favour of peer-review.)  The author knows personally of certain cases where scientifically unqualified businessmen motivated purely by profit-potential have boasted of writing “scientific white-papers” to surreptitiously give their products a competitive advantage in the marketplace, without ever doing any vaguely scientific research whatsoever into the efficacy of their claims; any more than is necessary to make their work look convincing.  In an age of spin-doctors and “public relations” staff who perceive it as their job to get advertising space without paying for it; we should hardly find it surprising that this happens.
The author also worked briefly in a supposedly well-respected “objective and independent” statistical analysis company, whose competitive edge in ensuring repeat-business consisted of doctoring their results to please whoever commissioned the study.  It is human nature that wherever a gold-standard exists, someone will seek to debase and exploit that standard - and the “scientific” standard is no exception to this rule.

Reconciling scientific knowledge with common sense

Always check your sources.  Far from being exempt from cross-examination; one of the greatest strengths of the scientific method is its proclaimed openness to peer-review and cross-examination.  We should apply to our rights and examine for ourselves the “scientific knowledge” presented to us, as with any other kind of knowledge.

The scientific method converts hard work into a closer approach to the truth.  A scientific experiment is a method of discerning the relative likelihood-of-truth of two or more physically testable hypotheses.  A scientific debate is a method of attempting to reach consensus on the relative truth or falsehood of mutually exclusive propositions or theories; where the opposing parties agree to draw only upon supporting arguments within the scope of physically or logically discernible truth.

The scientific method IS:
A method of converting hard work into a closer approach to the truth.  It is capable, in at least some cases, of convincingly demonstrating the superiority of one hypothesis over another, with respect to a system of physical or otherwise observable phenomena.  It is one tool in a toolbox of methods.  At best, it may help us to asymptotically “approach” absolute truth.
The scientific method is NOT:
A panacea, or the answer to all of humankind's problems, or the only valid method of making decisions.  It is not a method of understanding all truth because it is long-since proven that certain truths may be completely outside the scope of science.  Science is NOT a system of thought drawing religion, philosophy, personal counselling and everything else under its broad and expanding cloak (since although all truth must indeed be mutually consistent; “science” is not a synonym for truth.  Scientific knowledge is merely a subset of knowledge acquired through a range of methods.)  While the scientific method may provide evidence for or against certain aspects of these fields, it can never provide absolute knowledge about all absolute truth, and cannot be rightly said to be “approaching” such absolute knowledge (as the word “approaching” is popularly understood), since science will never reach that point of absolute knowledge.

As demonstrated daily by the weather forecast in my area, the scientific method is barely 75-80% accurate in predicting events in the very near future by applying certain principles that have been studied intensively by generations of scientists over many centuries (with personal experience of my location, I can do almost as well just by looking at the sky.)  Granted, this particular problem may be as much a problem of timely data-collection and processing as a fundamental problem with the method; however, as demonstrated in this article, the scientific method is fundamentally limited and its reach may never be extended to the outer limits of space, time or pure mathematics.  The gaps between the reach of Science and the ultimate limits of existence may only be accessible to general philosophy, religion or divine revelation.

We may want a crutch to sustain us, as human beings overawed by the universe (that vast environment amidst which we appear so obviously inadequate); but the scientific method alone cannot be adequate to sustain us in this our most obvious inadequacy; and neither can we be convincingly sustained through the imaginations of science-fiction.  As proven, we cannot afford to console ourselves in vain hopes of the complete mastery of science at any future date, through the application of scientific method alone.

The role of inspiration

What can plug the holes that may always exist in scientific knowledge?  What can save us from excessive reliance on our inherently limited and biased observations?  As Thomas Alva Edison said,

“Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration...  I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident.  They came by work.”

It is significant that Edison did not completely discredit the value of inspiration, but indeed, credited someone or something higher than himself for a portion of the “Genius” of his inventions. 

It is the author's personal conviction that the gentle guiding hand of divine influence cumulatively steers mankind away from self-destruction and towards salvation, without interfering in the individual free-will of man; and that for the most part, God allows us the privilege and pleasure to discover knowledge for ourselves through our own hard work.

Oh Say, What Is Truth?

- by John Jaques (1827-1900)

Oh say, what is truth?   'Tis the fairest gem
   that the riches of worlds can produce,
And priceless the value of truth will be when
   the proud monarch's costliest diadem
   is counted but dross and refuse.

Yes, say, what is truth?  'Tis the brightest prize
   to which mortals or Gods can aspire.
Go search in the depths where it glittering lies,
   or ascend in pursuit to the loftiest skies:
   'Tis an aim for the noblest desire.

The sceptre may fall from the despot's grasp
   when with winds of stern justice he copes.
But the pillar of truth will endure to the last,
   and its firm-rooted bulwarks outstand the rude blast
   and the wreck of the fell tyrant's hopes.

Then say, what is truth?  'Tis the last and the first,
   for the limits of time it steps o'er.
Though the heavens depart and the earth's fountains burst,
Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst,
Eternal, unchanged, evermore.

Further reading


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We understand enormous amounts, but when asked how did it all come to be, we don't have one single answer. Yet.
- Stephen Hawking, physicist.
© 2004-2010 Matthew Slyman