This is why I think science is flawed. Can anyone show me where I might have gone wrong?

Question

The Inadequacies of Science


I feel compelled to show the inadequacies of science, I will render it into a belief system as well.
I take this position because all of science is inductive. Conversely, if you think of a deductive argument you’ll see that the argument is valid because the conclusions are contained implicitly in the premises. Such as the argument;

Premise 1: Socrates is a man,
Premise 2: All men are mortal,
Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Validity is assured because there is not anything in the conclusion that is not already contained in the premises. But when one considers scientific (inductive) arguments, such as an argument to prove our premise that “all men are mortal”, it seems we do not have this type of validity. For in the case of inductive arguments we go from evidence to hypothesis as opposed to going from premise to conclusion. This means that there is more information in the hypothesis than what the evidence can warrant, whereas, in deductive arguments the information in the conclusion is less than or equal to that of the premises. Therefore, the evidence of mortality of a few individuals misleadingly establishes or supports the hypothesis that all men are mortal. Another example may be for one to say that all Hispanics speak Spanish. For that to be true that someone will have to witness every Hispanic that has lived, does live and will live to verify that statement. Yet, many believe that all Hispanics speak Spanish on the basis of the millions that do speak Spanish. However, I do not speak Spanish. Similarly the mortality of men is assumed in this same way. However, there could be someone out there right now who was born 2,000 years ago and has not yet died. Or the next baby born in Japan may never die.
Of course it could be argued that scientists do not proceed from evidence to hypothesis in an arbitrary manner. They “of course, can justify the move from observation (which is the evidence) on the basis of rules, so as to form the hypothesis by generalizing the observations made. Therefore, the move from evidence to hypothesis is justified on the basis of some kind of principle rules, say the scientific method. However, what are the justifications for using these rules?
The rules that are used are justified by assuming a uniformity of nature. This uniformity of nature can be stated in multiple ways. Unobserved instances will resemble observed ones. The future will resemble the past. Every event has a cause and like causes yield like effects. Thus the uniformity of nature is guaranteed by assuming the principle of causality and causation as depicted by David Hume (where Hume claims that causality and causation are not provable, and are not analytic truths, but are instead synthetic empirical truths of which cannot be verified empirically because these principles of causality and causation is what it is meant by a uniformity of nature).
Now here’s the crucial point. There is no ground for the belief in the uniformity of nature, because any such belief would have to be grounded in induction, of which in turn is grounded in the uniformity of nature. Thus any attempt to ground the belief that there is a uniformity of nature is circular. Supposing that there is no uniformity of nature, then I doubt that there even can be rules to use any way.
However, there are some that will say that science is not necessarily inductive. For example, Karl Popper rejected induction when developing his methodology of science. Popper argued that as long as such hypotheses are falsifiable, in the sense that there are possible observations that would disprove them, then the objectivity of science is assured. However, Popper’s falsificationism offers no account of our entitlement to believe in the truth of scientific theories, rather, they only warrant us to believe in their falsity, and so fail to solve the problem of induction. Popper himself stated that it is impossible to verify or even to confirm a universal scientific theory with any positive degree of probability. What we can do though is to disprove a universal theory. That is why we do not believe in the truth of a scientific theory, but their falsity instead. Is it true that scientists always reject their theories when faced with counter-evidence, as Popper says they should? And if the most we can ever do in science is to disprove theories, how do we know which theories to believe and act on? Popper says that we ought to act on those theories that survive severe testing, yet testing involves observing nature of which is the problem in question. Therefore, he fails to solve the problem of induction, thus induction remains the problem.
Another response to the problem of induction is offered by Bayesian confirmation theory. Bayesians argue that our beliefs come in degrees, and that such degrees of belief, when “rational, conform to the probability calculus”. They then argue that Baye’s theorem implies a rational strategy for updating our degrees of belief in response to new evidence. SADLY, in relation to the problem of induction, this strategy implies that our degree of belief in a scientific theory should be increased by observations which are probable, given the theory, but probable nonetheless because it is based on induction. It also leaves one asking when updating these degrees of belief, to what are they conforming to? They say they are getting closer and closer to the truth, but how do they know that they are getting closer to the truth when the truth is not known? So what are they getting closer to?
I also want to wager that most scientist and people for that matter are not familiar with the concept of idealism. Philosophical idealism is not the same as an attitude to be observed in life. It is rather a metaphysical theory about nature of reality and thus presupposes a distinction between appearance and reality, drawn in an other than common sense way. In general, it maintains that what is real is in someway confined to or at least related to the contents of our own minds (of which in turn is loaded with assumptions). What are the reasons; therefore, for thinking that reality is confined to the contents of our minds/ideas? It is because where the perceptions of qualities of things, such as color, taste, warmth, light, is circumstance dependent (i.e. relative to the context in which perception takes place, e.g. the illumination for the eyes) those qualities cannot be real properties of things. It is argued that this is applied to all perception. Since perception is a matter of having sensations or ideas, and since to be is to be perceived, only sensations or ideas can properly be said to be or to be real. The theory of perception, therefore, remains a part of the apparatus of empiricist thought, and is implied in David Hume’s doctrine.
Immanuel Kant held, however, that a mere subjective, idealism would not do in that it did not make it possible to distinguish properly what is objective from what is subjective. Kant thought that idealism must be transcendental, which he tried to define by saying that appearances are to be regarded as being on and all, representations only, not things in themselves, and that time and space are therefore only sensible forms of our intuition, not determinations given as existing by themselves, nor conditions of objects viewed as things in themselves (Critique of Pure Reason).
At any rate, all these forms of idealism have in common the view that there is no access to reality apart from what the mind provides us with, and further that the mind can provide and reveal to us ONLY its own contents (implying that the contents of the mind may or may not represent an external reality). Therefore, science must assume that an external reality exists, and that this reality actually corresponds to what the contents of our minds reveal to us.
Do you know what the funny thing is? It’s funny how science makes theories based on observations, and generalizes these observations to come to a universal theory, like all men die. So it seems that we should infer from pessimistic meta-induction that since all scientific theories have been wrong from Ptolemy to Steve Hawkins, that all current and future scientific theories are ‘probably’ going to be false too. Now I understand that there are those scientific buffs who understand that science is not the end all say all, but for those of you that keep ramming science down

Answer 1

Induction is a load of rubbish. Science isn't. Read Karl Popper. Science doesn't really proceed by inductive methods anyway. Science is about explaining the universe.

Beside the scientific method is not composed merely of logical constructions like the one used. That's philosophy and logic, not science. Science should involve a testable hypothesis.

Science is the most precious thing mankind has. I'm sorry you're not understand that. Your 'example' wasn't from real science, was it?

I think you've been reading too much postmodernism.

Answer 2

You've confused science with philosophy. Philosophy worries about things like Hume cared about.

Science is about making *the best practical model of the work as we actually percieve it". The first models of atoms were "very tiny hard spheres". Some experiments showed that wasn't right, so we got the electron/proton/neutron model. That explained things better - till somebody discovered positrons, which eventually lead to the Standard Model of a whole zoo of subatomic particles, which explains all the things we've measured even better.

Similarly, "all men are mortal" is a *really* good approximation of reality - 6 billion people on the plant, and not one confirmed immortal in the bunch. Yeah, a few have *claimed* to be immortal descendants of deities - but you notice that all of them tend to disappear after at most a hundred years, never to be seen again?

When we come up with a *verified* immortal, we'll go back and look at that "all men are immortal" idea again. Till then, there's *other* more interesting things to do real science about...

Answer 3

After reading all your paragraphs, it still wasn't clear to me what you meant by your initial words, "flawed" and "inadequate."

If the "flaw" in science is that it cannot guarantee that its description of reality is "correct," then this is certainly not disputed. Indeed, it is a _central_tenet_ of scientific thought that "anything I believe, may be wrong." Ironically, this is exactly what makes science "work."

Science recognizes that even the smartest, most careful and best-intentioned among us, may draw incorrect conclusions. Science, as a philosophy, simply says that it is proper to progressively rid oneself of one's incorrect conclusions by testing them against reality. That's the PRIMARY principle of science.

(As an aside: You can "test against reality" in spite of not knowing what reality "is." This is easy. If you hypothesize that you can walk through a wall, you need only start walking and see what happens when you reach the wall. That doesn't require any special knowledge about what the essence of the wall is.)

The SECONDARY principle is that the universe follows comprehensible rules. In pure science, this principle is not an a priori conclusion, but is rather based on the observation (after applying the _primary_ principle over and over), that the same sorts of things seem to keep happening in the same ways; i.e. that nature seems to follow patterns. The laws of nature thus induced, may be regarded as heuristic rules of thumb rather than as universal truths; but it turns out that they are _extremely_successful_ rules of thumb (in the sense that they accurately predict the outcome of experiments). The fact that they _are_ extremely successful, is powerful evidence that the universe follows _some_ kind of rules, even if our descriptions of them are not universally applicable.

When, after increasingly detailed observations, those rules of thumb are seen not to apply (or at least not to apply universally), science says they ought to be adjusted.

And this is why science is completely justified (I believe) in making the claim that the scientific method progresses toward "the truth." The idea is simple: As time goes by, more information is gathered. A description of reality that is based on more information, is more likely to be accurate (i.e., "the truth") than a description based on less information. A jigsaw puzzle with 1000 pieces filled in looks more like "the real picture" than a jigsaw puzzle with 50 pieces filled in. We can agree on that even if we never actually complete the puzzle, and never actually see what "the real picture" is.

Of course, this assumes that "the information" we gather is itself accurate and unambiguous. And that is why there are rules in science about how information is to be gathered and recorded, precisely with the aim of reducing the influence of the gatherer's personal biases and philosophy. But that's a whole other topic.

About the laws of nature that science has come up with, the best you can say about them is that they "seem to work," and I think that's how any honest scientist would characterize them. You may consider science to be "flawed" or "inadequate" because it does not guarantee perfect knowledge; however, it is not the purpose or aim of science to guarantee perfect knowledge. I think you can only call something "flawed" or "inadequate" if it fails in its purpose or aim.

Answer 4

And you're typing this message on a computer - which was also created by science, the science of electronics, materials science (for the actual real construction of the reap components of the computer), optical science (for the monitor), logic (for the fundamental operation of the computer chips).

Or do you think the computer and the electricity that powers it fell from the sky?

Answer 5

You have just flunked philosophy, rational thinking, english grammar and physics. Your only success is in proving that you cannot reach a logical deduction from a point of bias, especially if you are a bit dense.

Answer 6

You took up a lot of space proving that you know nothing.

Answer 7

heres another on:
no study = fail - (1)
study = no fail - (2)
adding eq 1 and eq 2
=> no study = fail
+ study = no fail
------------------------------------
no study + study = no fail = fail

taking out study and fail common
=> study(no + 1) = fail(no + 1)
(no + 1) get canceled on both sides
=> study = fail
hence proved that if you study you fail.

Answer 8

posted in SCIENCE

philosophy or OTHER might have invoked more responce
than in here