Can you agree that science as it was meant to be is dead?

Question

The Death of Science

"We have reached the end of the Age of Science - what will come after, I don't know, but I don't think that we'll ever again have a time when Science is enshrined as some sort of god-like arbiter of right and wrong. The question now: what killed science?

A lot of different factors - but the main thing was that science could only thrive as it did from about 1650 until 1850 when everyone agreed on the rules. The prime rule of science was truth - everyone involved in science had to tell the truth to the best of their ability, and always be willing to correct one's views when new evidence called in to question previously held beliefs. What killed science was when its strongest advocate stopped telling the truth."

It makes sense to me after reading this...because how manay times have i heard contradictary statements from studies that have been done...one study says something is good...another study says the same thing is bad...it seems science is for hire...

Answer 1

You may have a point. I do think that many of the so-called "studies" we hear reported today come with an agenda.

But there are other factors to consider. One is the speed in which information is gotten out to the masses. A study comes out in some obscure journal and the next day the world knows about. In medicine, we quickly learn to hold off on changing any standard of care until more than one study replicates a finding.

Imagine what it would have been like when Pasteur was working on penicillin or Edison working on the light bulb if the internet and 24-hour news coverage existed then. We would have heard about every speculation, failure or false start they encountered before the real discoveries were made.

Answer 2

The statement is very poorly researched. It is certainly not the case that there was a golden age between 1650 and 1850. Indeed over that period the very understanding of what science is underwent dramatic change. And the prime players in science early in the period - like Newton and Hooke - were constantly at each others throats.

The reasons there are so many contradicting papers these days are twofold. First, there are many more people practicing science. There are many more scientists alive today than over all the years from 1650 to 1850 combined.

Secondly, science has become vastly more complex. Many papers are fine detail (maybe even irrelevant) but others are investigating complex issues that have at best ambiguous answers.

I think science today has more rigour and peer scrutiny than ever it did in 1650, when what mattered most was who you were.

Answer 3

I don't necessarily agree with your statement. Science has raised many different ideas and theories that may contradict each other, but this is what fuels research.
I don't know when there was a time when science was the end-all to anything or claimed to have "all the answers". I think the fact of the matter is there has been so much advancement of science in the last century, that there are bound to be some holes in theories, or some contradictory research.
Hopefully, science is not dead, nor will ever die.

Answer 4

I absolutely disagree.

I don't know where you read that (source?), but it has a completely wrong understanding of what science is, let alone what it was "meant to be."

First, that phrase "arbiter of right and wrong." ... if this means a *moral* right and wrong (a prescription of right and wrong *behavior*), that is not "science as it was meant to be." Any interpretation in that direction is, and always was, a terrible mistake ... usually one made by non-scientists, but occasional 18th and 19th-century scientists made the same mistake as well. For example, taking Darwin's theory on how biological species arose from earlier species, and applying some warped "survival of the fittest" language to justify racism or genocide or cruelty to each other or to animals, is just a twisted misinterpretation of science ... and Darwin is not to be blamed for that.

Second, your author has this view that science has somehow "failed" because it is no longer on the pedestal it once was. My point is that it was not scientists who put it on that pedestal. So science should not be considered to be "dead" because it is actually doing what it was meant to do.

But the biggest problem is that sentence: "What killed science was when its strongest advocate stopped telling the truth." I can't tell you how wrong that statement is. If anything, science is *far* better than it was in the 1800's at dogged, stubborn, *relentless* error checking. They sometimes make mistakes, but they *never* stop trying to tell the truth as they see it.

And that is precisely what you are noticing when you think science is making "contradictory statements." What you are getting a glimpse of is precisely SCIENCE AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE. Mainstream press does a lousy job of explaining this ... but you are getting glimpses of the debates over the DETAILS. One scientist does a study that indicates that (say) triglycerides are bad for certain types of people and certain diets, etc. ... and another scientist does a different study that shows that they are good for different types of people with different diets, etc. ... but the mainstream press boils it down "bad" vs. "good". The scientists are doing their job ... relentlessly questioning each others methods and findings.

Yes, there are isolated cases of scientific fraud ... but again, it is always scientists who expose it, and the perpetrators are handed a one-way ticket to the dustbin of science. Such frauds never ... and I mean NEVER ... rise to a level of an conspiracy involving all the scientists in a given field, much less conspiracy involving the entire world community of scientists. By their very nature of loving to uncover secrets, scientists make *lousy* conspirators ... and they are *terrible* liars.

And yes, some scientists are vulnerable to political agendas. If two scientists disagree on the details of causes or speed of global warming, their scientific disagreement will be amplified into a shouting match by opposing political parties who use the two scientists as "spokespeople." But if you listen closely you will hear that they agree on the fact that global warming is occurring, and they just disagree on the causes or speed of the phenomenon. In the *long* run, scientists will come to a consensus as a purely *scientific* matter. Whether this comes in time to allow us to halt a global catastrophe is not a question of pure science, but of public policy (hence the word "politics").

But where scientists *agree* is on the big things. For example, you may see two geologists disagree strongly on whether the earth is 4.4 billion years old or 4.6 billion. But just about 100% of geologists will agree that the earth is laughably older than 6,000 years old.

So do not take "contradictory" statements about recent studies of some specific detail as evidence that science is "dead." Precisely the opposite. It is evidence that science is alive and vibrant, and that scientists are questioning each other and doing their jobs.

Answer 5

You are mistaken. Science is a dynamic entity. There are 'scientists willing to sell themselves, but science itself is alive and thriving. It doesn't determine right or wrong. It determines facts which then become arsenal in the world of conjecture.

Answer 6

Science is better than it has ever been. We have a space station. Men have walked on the moon. We are discovering new and exciting things every day. Bad and good are not science, that is religion. Science is learning new things to survive in the world every day. Science is not "My religion is better than your religion", maybe :"My theory is better than yours" though... (SMILE).

Answer 7

Science is not dead, it has grown into the major force of our world.
It is Faith that is dying and the culprit is science.

Answer 8

yes