T
Tao_Equus
Guest
I often feel in my interactions here that science is misunderstood by many. Some seem to see it as a theology in its own right. I strongly disagree. To me science is a methodology or a process.
To get a debate going I paste below statements from three scientists that give a brief description of what science means to them. I look forward to hearing what science means to you.
ON SCIENCE
CHOMSKY: Science talks about very simple things, and asks hard questions about them. As soon as things become too complex, science can’t deal with them. The reason why physics can achieve such depth is that it restricts itself to extremely simple things, abstracted from the complexity of the world. As soon as an atom gets too complicated, maybe helium, they hand it over to chemists. When problems become too complicated for chemists, they hand it over to biologists. Biologists often hand it over to the sociologists, and they hand it over to the historians, and so on. But it’s a complicated matter: Science studies what’s at the edge of understanding, and what’s at the edge of understanding is usually fairly simple. And it rarely reaches human affairs. Human affairs are way too complicated. In fact even understanding insects is an extremely complicated problem in the sciences. So the actual sciences tell us virtually nothing about human affairs.
KRAUSS: It is absolutely true that science relies on extreme simplifications in order to be effective. The more “basic” the science, the easier it is to isolate the key questions and investigate them. I have often said that I chose to be a physicist because biology was way too complicated.
As a result, as one moves from physics, to chemistry, to biology, to social science, the ability to isolate questions, and provide definitive answers becomes progressively more difficult. But I think I would say that science is based on being able to address difficult questions and find simple answers.
Moreover, I disagree that whenever one is at the edge of understanding, things appear far from simple. They are only simple after one understands them. It may be true understanding that human affairs may be yet far more complicated than, say, quantum gravity, but that doesn’t change the fact that the edge of understanding in science is always confusing until a good theory has been developed.
CARROLL: When Galileo first realized that he could understand motion by considering idealized situations without friction or air resistance, he set modern science in motion. The real world is a complicated, messy place, and there are many interesting questions about which contemporary science has little to say. However, anyone who has watched a television or gone to a hospital should know that science has nevertheless managed to have a substantial impact on our lives.
From: Science in the Dock, Discussion with Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Krauss & Sean M. Carroll
To get a debate going I paste below statements from three scientists that give a brief description of what science means to them. I look forward to hearing what science means to you.
ON SCIENCE
CHOMSKY: Science talks about very simple things, and asks hard questions about them. As soon as things become too complex, science can’t deal with them. The reason why physics can achieve such depth is that it restricts itself to extremely simple things, abstracted from the complexity of the world. As soon as an atom gets too complicated, maybe helium, they hand it over to chemists. When problems become too complicated for chemists, they hand it over to biologists. Biologists often hand it over to the sociologists, and they hand it over to the historians, and so on. But it’s a complicated matter: Science studies what’s at the edge of understanding, and what’s at the edge of understanding is usually fairly simple. And it rarely reaches human affairs. Human affairs are way too complicated. In fact even understanding insects is an extremely complicated problem in the sciences. So the actual sciences tell us virtually nothing about human affairs.
KRAUSS: It is absolutely true that science relies on extreme simplifications in order to be effective. The more “basic” the science, the easier it is to isolate the key questions and investigate them. I have often said that I chose to be a physicist because biology was way too complicated.
As a result, as one moves from physics, to chemistry, to biology, to social science, the ability to isolate questions, and provide definitive answers becomes progressively more difficult. But I think I would say that science is based on being able to address difficult questions and find simple answers.
Moreover, I disagree that whenever one is at the edge of understanding, things appear far from simple. They are only simple after one understands them. It may be true understanding that human affairs may be yet far more complicated than, say, quantum gravity, but that doesn’t change the fact that the edge of understanding in science is always confusing until a good theory has been developed.
CARROLL: When Galileo first realized that he could understand motion by considering idealized situations without friction or air resistance, he set modern science in motion. The real world is a complicated, messy place, and there are many interesting questions about which contemporary science has little to say. However, anyone who has watched a television or gone to a hospital should know that science has nevertheless managed to have a substantial impact on our lives.
From: Science in the Dock, Discussion with Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Krauss & Sean M. Carroll
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