Most scientists will tell you that the fashionable field of philosophy of science has failed spectacularly to influence how practicing scientists work or to provide any clues to the operation of any part of the universe. Nowhere has the clash been as obvious as on the battlegrounds of epistemology, which is concerned with the nature and possible extent of knowledge. Leading philosophers have taken, for lack of a better term, a philosophical stance that the true extent of knowledge can never be known; they remain skeptical that a scientific framework for integrating the physical laws of nature (especially those concerning quantum mechanics and relativity and gravitation) or for understanding consciousness in purely physical will ever be feasible. Regardless of what we think of individual theories, I think it is important to consider, in broadest possible terms, what exactly is the extent of knowledge:
Recently, in reading Nobel Prize-winner, theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg’s excellent book Dreams of a Final Theory, I came across the following passage:
Basically, what Weinberg is saying is that the laws of nature are independent of the mode of discovery and that there actual is such a thing as objective knowledge.
A few days later, I came across a diametrically-opposite viewpoint propounded by eminent philosopher, Nicholas Rescher, who has the view that there is no objective science. We only have “our science,” by which he means a human science, primarily lead by the Western scientific tradition. He further theorizes that any other science, and especially that of a possible intelligent civilization would be vastly different, because it would be “their” science.
So, who is correct?
For what it is worth, there is really no way to disprove Rescher’s idea which uses deductive reasoning or to prove to Weinberg’s idea which uses inductive reasoning. Rescher’s thesis that there is another science will always be feasible, because we will continue to be humans, and his underlying deductive principle that humans cannot know any other science will be valid. On the other hand, Weinberg won’t ever be able to prove that science is objective. Just because everything we know up to now seems to support our assertion of an objective truth, doesn’t mean that what we will learn later will necessarily support this theory. Note how Weinberg builds in a “fail-safe” to his argument: everything we know is part of current objective knowledge; however, as our own knowledge changes, there will be “tweaks” to our objectivity.
Of course, given the logical foundations of these two viewpoints, the jury might be out for a very long time on who is correct.
(OK, I’m not going to hedge my bet on this one, though that would be the safe and easy thing to do especially when the alternative involves contradicting a Nobel Prize winning physicist. But, you already know from my last blogpost that I prefer deductive reasoning to inductive reasoning.)
milkmiracle.net 