Is Science provisional? Is it simply the best explanation of current?

Question

I watched Men In Black the other day, and a comment in that movie got me wondering: "500 years ago EVERYBODY KNEW the earth was flat ... imagine what we'll KNOW tommorrow". Although this comment is actually false as the flat earth thing is a myth of a somewhat pop culture history, e.g. the ancient greek's knew the earth was round, nevertheless it makes a good point and was enlightening in it's context.
Even Charles Darwin said his natural selection research was a theory, and he would be the first to 'bin' it if someone bettered it (but as it happens, no one has yet, in fact, people have done the opposite and advanced what he found further still)
So, should we really embrace 'scientific knowledge' all to close, or instead take it as 'ride' visiting each step stop by stop?

Answer 1

What we call science is only the current thinking. It is one way of describing the world around us, and it makes a great many, potentially false assumptions about things, which are regarded as "given", before it begins to "describe".
I find it comical that even things that I was taught as FACT in the early 70's have now been debunked.
I am certain that 500 or 1,000 years from now (assuming we still exist), the current think will be completely different, and people will laugh at how utterly naive we were, just as we laugh at flat earthers, and geocentric universers.

Answer 2

I think science is a pragmatic thing. A good theory/hypothesis/whatever is something that works. I honestly have no idea as to what we can actually learn about "reality" (if there is such a thing at all), and even less idea about how close we are to it at the moment - but I'm pretty damned sure that we are far from having learned everything we can (if there is a limit like that at all). In this sense, scienctific knowledge is /always/ provisional. There are always questions which the current knowledge can't answer, and that's where progress happens. Of course it might be that "progress" actually never brings us any closer to the real nature of things; we can't decide. Neither do we have the means to decide if science is the best way to find out about the world - other than the minor fact that it WORKS.

Then again, I guess gods and spirits worked pretty well as an explanation in the context ancient mythologies were born in. Only future can tell what comes after our great scientific mythos ;)

Answer 3

Yes, it is. The whole point of science is not to find the "truth", but to give explanations for observations and make predictions about future observations. As long as the predictions are correct, or at least reasonably close to what really happens, we consider the theory on which the predictions were based useful. When the predictions deviate from the observations, we try to improve the theory or come up with a new one altogether.

A well-known example is the Theory of Relativity: classical mechanics and classical electromagnetic were unable to explain why do we always observe the same speed of light, even if we move fast towards or away from the light source. Then came Einstein and explained it. Moreover, he predicted that the path of light will be curved if the rays passed near a heavy mass, like a star. This prediction was proved true some years after he published the theory, so we tend to "trust" it. If we one day encounter observations which the theory cannot explain, we'll need to look for a better one.

Answer 4

Yes, all of science should be considered subject to revision. That is why it is so successful!

Without the possibility of change, it could not improve. Unless you can guess the exact and complete nature of the Universe on the first go, you need to be able to improve your theory. The provisional nature of science ("it's just a theory") is sometimes cited as a weakness of science. In fact, it is one of science's greatest strengths!

You are right about the flat-Earth myth, it's a modern misconception. Mostly, new scientific theories are refinements. For example, for everyday use classical, Newtonian mechanics still works fine, even though our understanding of the underlying Universe has radically changed.

There are examples where theories are literally overturned, e.g. plate tectonics. Before this theory was proved, it was assumed that the continents were fixed, indeed the idea of wandering continents was considered crazy.

The second strength of science is to ensure that improvements are made in the right direction i.e. to theories that better match the Universe. How this is done requires a whole article, it involves a general set of principles rather than one specific thing. Let's be honest, sometimes science goes down a blind alley, and it has to backtrack before finding a better path.

Unfortunately, people tend to like certainties, rather than probabilities. This can make people uncomfortable with science that is "99%" certain. Personally I like it when scientists come up with surprising new discoveries, it shows that the scientific method is working!

Answer 5

By the very nature of the scientific method, any theory or law will always come under constant criticism. We must continually question what we know about the universe and except nothing as 'absolute truth'. If a better idea comes along, then we replace the old idea. Case in point: Newton's LAW of gravity has been enhanced/replaced by the THEORY of General Relativity. Even a law of nature must be subject to scrutiny and changed as new ideas and observations come to light. So, yes, I would say science is provisional.

I like what Stephen Hawking had to say about what science does. I am paraphrasing here and will probably butcher this statement, but it's along the lines of:

It does not matter whether or not a scientific theory is an accurate representation of the truth or of reality. What matters is that it explains observations and can predict future events. Is gravity 'really' just the curvature of space-time, as General Relativity assumes? Truly, it doesn't really matter. General relativity fits our observations and makes verifiable predictions that have been tested. It explains more phenomena above and beyond those explained by Newton's Law. So Relativity replaces Newton's Law. If a new theory comes along, with a totally different set of assumptions, but explains all currently understood phenomena plus some, then that theory will replace Relativity.

Science is the study of and explanation of observations in the natural world. Philosophy is the study of truth. Science can be provisional/temporary with no contradictions. Philosophy cannot.

Interesting question. Sorry it was inspired by MIB (just kidding). Hope this helps.

Answer 6

Science is the name we give to our observations on the natural world. We do not 'know' anything, we only have theories that are held to be true until a 'better fit' comes along to replace it, just like Newtonian physics was replaced by Einstein's Theory of Special/General Relativity.

Likewise, Darwin's theory on natural selection has been changed over the past hundred years, as we've come to terms with things like DNA.

However, just because it is the currently accepted theory we have to respect the other theories out there, no matter how wrong they may be.

Personally I think we've got evolution just about cracked so far and its all a matter of genetics now.

Answer 7

To say the Men in Black comment is wrong is to miss the point. The point was the scientists at the time really did believe, they KNEW, that the earth was flat. As with all science, what we consider we know now is not necessarily right. Consider infection. Science KNEW that it was caused by bad vapours. Atoms were only discovered reasonably recently and there was no room for them in what science KNEW, so a whole new field of science was created, quantum mechanics. Everyday science finds out something that changes our view. So it always will be.

It is facinating keeping up with the changes but to quote a scientific fact, I find it best to precede it with "as far as is known now", just in case in changes tomorrow.

Answer 8

As so far science has over the years contradicted itself over time, in the 70's we were told to expect an ice age and now it is global warming. I would say that while some scientific findings have been proved we should still expect changes to any new theory, thus any scientific theory or model of less than about 100 years is suspect and should be taken with a pinch of salt. I expect that just after all the land mass is covered with windmills the global warming theory will be disproved.

Answer 9

ok, look.

I am a scientist, but i know that the science have some paranormal sucess that cant explain at all.

But the scientific knowledge is based in the phylosophy, and the is based in observation, when you observed a sucess you can know how this sucess happend.

But the science always tray to explain all in the universe, with the scientific method, and is hard work to know all about of the universe only with the observation. Not always the best explanation is for the science, but 99.9% yes because is a fact that you can reproduce the same phenomenon if a really hard study have been realised with all the arms of the scientific method.

Answer 10

You make a good point.

Perhaps once we have more comprehensive DNA samples from the general population, and our historic ancestors we will understand more about our evolution.

I still don't understand why gravitational forces exists between two masses. Perhaps tomorrow I will.