I got an interesting comment the other day on my entry which explained why I have begun writing in this blog again after over a year of being away from it. I decided it would be a good idea to, not just respond to the commenter, create a post out of the comment for the benefit of my readers to sort of dive into some interesting ideas that the comment touched base on. The below writings were originally a comment on my entry: What Brought Scott Out of Slumber?

Missi of MissisMusings.com writes:

Hi Scott…just started reading your blog today. Love the way you write and your article on Pavlina. You have a lot of great points in this post but I wanted to point out that science, while very useful, can’t PROVE anything. It serves only to disprove. We can’t know anything for certain. There have been many failures of the scientific method which I won’t go into here, but consider that even though a scientific theory may have several experiments to back it up, it takes only ONE counter example to disprove a theory. The BCS theory of superconductivity was confirmed over and over again for 25 years, but in 1986, just one experiment disproved that theory. Looking forward to reading more.

Missi,

In regard to your point about the scientific method and how one counterexample can disprove an entire theory – I’d argue that in many cases that is correct. That is what is so great about science, in addition to the fact that many times it will also take hundreds of different slight variations to confirm or disprove any theory and one of those slight variations may be the thing that finally breaks it. This is part of the beauty of science and one of the things that I will probably argue a lot throughout this blog in the coming weeks is that society is just not paying enough attention to scientific theory or to the idea of skepticism.

I would love for you to go into the “many failures” of the scientific method because as far as I can tell there are only a few. For example, there is no way that the scientific method can fully account for subjective experience. Other times we might lack instrumentation or instrumentation that is valid and reliable for measuring some particular item or thing. Of course, the scientific method is also responsible for every single technology and set of concepts that has allowed us to advance and progress in our quality of living throughout history. We would not have electric lights, cars, refrigerators, ergonomic chairs and keyboards, indoor plumbing, water heaters, 99.9% effective antibacterial soaps, and loads of other handy accessories in our daily lives if it were not for the scientific method.

Now, obviously if we are going to get into the deepest, simplest, most direct point of the philosophy of sorts behind empiricism we would come to the conclusion that when it comes down to it – we really cannot know anything for certain, as you said. But if I understand you correctly, I assume that what you mean by that statement is that ultimately we cannot know anything, only that we are perceiving our reality and even our perception of that reality may not exist as we know it, or even exist at all. But I think that by taking this approach and leaving that as your final conclusion for the extent to which science can benefit humanity we would probably end up robbing ourselves blind – as we did not consider the better alternative of applying a bit of rationalism to this whole idea.

So what if we cannot know anything for certain in its ultimate, end all finality? Who cares? The point is that we can come to conclusions which can help us determine if we are headed in the right direction with different things by using logical, rational, and even empirical arguments. Perhaps one of the most beneficial fields of science might be biology and the discovery of genetics from people like Gregor Mendel or Elizabeth Blackburn and her discovery of the telomere. If we can understand the very stuff from which we are made, this mysterious stuff that is now not so mysterious known as: deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and how to ensure that we can take care of this fantastic body of ours by catering to the enzymes, proteins, cells, and various other components that run it then perhaps we could live to see another few decades, or, as some are even trying to claim now: another ten decades.

Science is the beginning of possibilities and not only is it a place from which we can draw our inspiration it is also a place through which we can mold and sculpt new dreams. More importantly: science, to me, is a way in which we can actually find practical solutions to make some of those incredibly fantastic dreams come true. Finally, I must say that I would have to disagree that science cannot “prove” anything or that it can only “disprove” things. In fact, it proves through every experiment conducted that when an experiment is performed in a particular way certain events happen. If the experiment can be replicated over and over again with the exact same results then we can usually conclude that it is reasonable to assume that if those same events were to repeat themselves in the same fashion in the future we will be able to predict what will happen! Perhaps you meant something different by proof, maybe relating to theoretical or conceptual constructs.

Thank you so much for writing, Missi! Remember that many of these ideas I may have expanded upon in a bit more detail than might be personally necessary for you – this was to ensure that my readers also got a lucid description of what it was I was actually talking about!

Thanks,
Scott