Scientific method and it's limitations

 Scientific method and it's limitations

- Subboor Ahmed (Taken from his Sapience Institute’s course on Darwinism)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a98TaQoLL-o

 We need to understand the actual science and what is the function of the scientific method so the first thing we all need to get to grips with is what is science? Science is a beautiful method, it's the application of reason to the natural world. There's actually a lot of discussion about what is science? what is the method of science? what are the various ways that science can actually function?

I don't want to get into deep philosophical discussions about the different ways that philosophers can actually define science. Sufficient is for us to understand the generally accepted idea of Science and how darwinian evolution is a product of that scientific method and so we will be able to understand the limitations and the beauty of science itself.

What is science? Well, the generally accepted method of science that we all learn at school is the following: you ask a question, you do the background research, you construct a hypothesis, you test that hypothesis as an experiment, you analyze the results if the hypothesis is true or if the hypothesis is false, you will have to report the results and either try again or you will come up with a theory. That is the basic method of science that we all learn and that is sufficient for us to understand what is going on when it comes to any particular scientific theory.

Now one important note to keep in mind here is that this basic method of science is being used all across the world but apart from this scientific method there are presuppositions and limitations to science which are seldom discussed and that is what we're going to be getting into next.

1. The first thing to note is that Science is based upon Induction. Induction is the process by which we make generalizations based upon past experience. Think of the following example: there is a scientist in Wales who wants to find out what color swans are. So the scientist goes out and observes 10 swans by the lake. He notes that these swans are white. Over the coming weeks and months he notes more and more that all of the swans that he has seen are white. Say after 10 years he's seen maybe 10,000 swans. So based upon the fact that he's seen 10,000 swans, he makes the generalization that all swans are white or the next swan that I will see is going to be white. This is induction.

Now obviously there is a problem with this process and this problem was highlighted by David Hume and others and that is you can always have a new observation that can challenge your previous conclusion. For example, you can always observe a Black Swan or a red Swan and that means your previous conclusion, your previous theory, your previous hypothesis is wrong. So this general problem of induction is something which is inescapable. It means no scientific conclusion is graven in stone, all scientific conclusions can be revised.

Now this limitation is beautiful because it means that future scientists can actually come up with theories radically different to the theories we currently hold. So this is the first limitation of science and it's known as the problem of induction.

2. The second problem or limitation with science is known as Underdetermination. Now, underdetermination is a very interesting concept. In essence what it says is the following: the observations are not enough for someone to warrant an inference which is going to be conclusive. let me give you a very basic example to drive this point home. Imagine you are given $5 and you know that you can go to the market and buy an orange or an apple for $1 each. So you're given $5 and you are told to go to the market and buy apples and oranges. So you have to buy both apples and oranges and you have to spend the entire $5. When you are sent, the only information that you are given is what's been mentioned which is you have to spend the $5 and you have to buy oranges and apples and they both cost $1 each. Now when you come back with the bag, someone has to guess what you have in the bag. Now they can assume that you bought one orange and four apples or two oranges and three apples or three oranges and two apples and so on.

Therefore we have the problem of underdetermination, we simply cannot determine what is in the bag for sure.

There are obviously some inferences which are possible, the ones which I outlined, but we don't know for sure. So the data is not sufficient for us to warrant a conclusion which is going to be certain. That is the problem of underdetermination, we cannot be sure that this conclusion is certain because other things are possible.

Another way to think about it is a scattergraph. So you have a y- axis and an x- axis and you have dots. Someone can ask you can you please draw a line to infer the rest of the data. Now you can draw something linear, you can draw something exponential, you can draw something inverse. The way the data is scattered, many different types of inferences are possible many different graphs can be drawn. So again, the data is not enough to warrant one conclusion. So this is the problem of underdetermination and the consequence of this problem is that whenever there is a scientific theory which explains the data it doesn't mean that that theory is necessarily true because it is possible that many other interpretations, many other theories can explain the data just as well. Other scientific theories can explain the data just as well as the previous theory can. So this is the problem of underdetermination. We cannot be sure that the theory that we currently hold is the right one.

3. The Third limitation or problem with the scientific method is the problem of Unconceived Alternatives. This is a very interesting issue. What it simply states is the following: there may be solutions or theories that we can infer from the data but those have not been inferred because they are unconceived, meaning, they haven't been thought of. A classical example of this is the shift between Newtonian mechanics and the Einsteinian worldview. There were clear problems with the Newtonian model and these problems were explained away by ad hoc rationalizations. But these problems could have been explained by general relativity, the idea that Einstein pushed in the future. So general relativity could have explained those anomalies but nobody thought of it until Einstein did. So, general relativity as a theory was unconceived.

Therefore what we learn from this is there are always possibilities out there that we simply have not thought of or we simply do not have the tools to actually uncover them. So the problem of unconceived Alternatives means the same thing as the problem of underdetermination and the problem of induction which is we cannot be sure that the theory that we currently hold is the right one.

4. The fourth problem or limitation with the scientific method is Theory ladenness. What this basically means is the following: you cannot go out there as a scientist and collect data without a theory in mind. Now, that doesn't sound like a bad thing. But there are some issues with this. If you already have a theory in mind, that theory is going to color the data, it's going to color what data you believe to be relevant and what you believe to be irrelevant. So there is a confirmation bias and it's incredibly difficult to come out of that theory ladenness.

Again going back to the massive shift between Newtonian mechanics and Einsteinian worldview, what we found is that the people who were looking at the world from a Newtonian point of view would look at certain things as relevant and certain things as which were anomalous they could explain those away through ad-hoc rationalizations. So theory ladenness is a real issue and you have to have a theory in mind in order to look at data. The way Darwin explained this is if you don't have a theory then you might as well go to the Quarry and count Pebbles.

The issue here is the following: if you have a theory in mind, that theory is going to continuously confirm itself by telling you what is out there. So you're never looking at the world purely objectively, you are always colored by the theory and that means that your theory that you generate is always the victim of confirmation bias.

5. The fifth problem or limitation with the scientific method is methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism simply means that when scientists are studying scientific phenomena they can only refer to matter and natural processes they cannot refer to anything Supernatural, they cannot refer to anything which is immaterial, they cannot refer to the mind, they cannot refer to God, they cannot refer to anything beyond the material world, beyond naturalism.

Now, as an assumption in the scientific domain this is something that has recently been introduced. A way of thinking about this is the following example: imagine you are invited to walk into a room and when you are invited you see on the front door it says the color red is not allowed that means if you're wearing something red you have to take it off. So everybody that enters that room is not wearing anything red and the room itself has been stripped away of anything that resembles the color red. Now when you are in the room and you're sitting amongst a group of people someone says the color red doesn't exist as I can't see it anywhere. Now there's a problem with this. Obviously the color red does exist but at the front door there was a sign saying you cannot come in with the color red - so you cannot make a rule to rule out the color red and later on conclude the color red is not there. This is the problem with methodological naturalism leading to philosophical naturalism.

Methodological naturalism is telling you at the front door of the scientific lab you cannot refer to God and when you're inside you're referring to everything naturally and then a scientist may turn around and say therefore there is no God because God is is not amongst our discussion. The problem with that is the same problem with the example of the color red - you cannot conclude there is no God you cannot conclude philosophical naturalism by the assumption of methodological naturalism and this is something that often happens.

This fallacy of linking methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism is something we see happening in the scientific discourse and it leads to a lot of issues and something we have to keep in mind is methodological naturalism limits the answers that are possible to a scientific theory. So in this case if we come across something in the biological

domain which looks designed, which looks like it couldn't have come about by natural random processes then apriori meaning before we even have the evidence, because of methodological naturalism, is the rule that ‘God has to be ruled out and there has to be a naturalistic explanation’. So this is the fifth problem or limitation with the scientific method and this is the problem of methodological naturalism.

To summarize, there are five distinct problems or limitations with the scientific method. The first is the problem of induction, the second is the problem of underdetermination, the third is the problem of unconceived alternatives, the fourth is a problem of theory ladenness and the fifth is the problem of methodological naturalism.

Keep these in mind because any scientific theory regardless of how successful it is, it is still limited by these five problems. So if we were to counter the darwinian challenge, if there was a darwinist who said: Darwinism is true, therefore there is no God, Darwinism is true therefore what your religious book says about Adam and Eve is false or Darwinism is true therefore a purpose to our lives is false; we can simply point out to the philosophy of science and to these five limitations and say how can you use a theory to challenge anything when this scientific theory has these limitations and so it's not set in stone, it's not something absolute?  This is the quickest way to dismantle the darwinian claims against theism and religion in general.

It's important to note here that someone may ask what about direct observations? Direct observations obviously don't change. We can see a fossil. We can see that water is H2O. How are these things going to be affected by the five issues that I pointed out. Here I want to point that this contention is misplaced. A direct observation in itself is simply a direct observation. It is not science. It is not something that's gone through the scientific method. It is simply a direct observation and a direct observation is not giving you a theory. A fossil is not giving you the theory of Darwinism. It's something that you can use to infer Darwinism or infer neo-Lamarchism or something else. But in and of itself the observation is not science. So this contention that because observations are certain therefore science is certain is actually a fallacy of equivocation.

The reason why we love science is because it does phenomenal things but like I mentioned there are limitations and there are problems. Which is why no scientific theory, regardless of how successful it is, can be said to be true. Just because the theory is successful doesn't mean it's true. Now this is counterintuitive but this is true. We know that science cannot lead to certainty because of the philosophy of science, because of the issues I mentioned. But in the history of science we actually have very good examples to show that a theory may be extremely successful but it doesn't mean it's true.

A classic example of a theory that was successful but was not true is the Newtonian model of the universe. Newton's theory was immensely successful and was used for a long time and it was making predictions which were confirmed time and time again. If you were to use Newton's Theory to make a prediction for where a planet is going to be 6 months from now and you went out after 6 months to look at the planet you would have found it precisely where the theory predicts. So this theory not only helped us understand the world it actually made the world a better place and many inventions were based upon this theory. This theory has helped Humanity immensely but it doesn't mean this theory is true because Einstein came about and he showed a complete paradigm shift. He moved us away from the Newtonian model to general relativity.

So what was the major shifts when it comes to the Newtonian model moving towards the Einsteinian model - gravity is a pushing force, the definition of mass changed, time and space was assumed to be fixed according

to Newton and according to Einstein time and space is flexible like fabric. So there is a huge difference between the Newtonian model and the Einsteinian model, yet the Newtonian model worked well for a long time. This is perhaps the best example in the history of science to show that scientific theory can be immensely successful but it can fundamentally be based on assumptions which turn out to be false and the theory itself can be superseded by a radically different theory.

Scientific theories work even when they are wrong. Another good example of this is the theory of phlogiston turned out to be false however it helped us discover nitrogen. Likewise, the Newtonian Theory turned out to be wrong but we can technically go to the Moon based upon Newton's Theory. So it doesn't matter even if a theory turns out to be false it can give us information and lead to results which are true.

Now here's another interesting point, theories work even when they contradict each other. Like I mentioned, general relativity is successful, it replaced the Newtonian model, yet quantum mechanics fundamentally contradicts general relativity. However, quantum mechanics is immensely successful and general relativity is immensely successful. So they both cannot be true, they both cannot be true descriptions of the world, yet are scientifically successful. What does that teach you? It teaches you something I've been saying quite a few times now -  success, scientific success, doesn't mean it's true. Scientific success simply means you have a good model. So if this is the case then even if darwinian evolution is

immensely successful it doesn't mean it's true.

What I'm saying about the history and the philosophy of science is not controversial. This is well known. There is a huge difference between the popular understanding of science and the academic understanding - and the academic understanding is that science doesn't lead to certainty. An excellent book to understand this is Thomas Kuhn's ‘The structure of scientific Revolutions’. In that book he mentions the shift from Newtonian model to general relativity and goes over some very interesting points about the history and the philosophy of science.

Picking up any book on the philosophy of science you will find the evidence to show that philosophers of science doubt this very simplistic understanding of science that many people in the public domain hold. For example, in the book ‘Philosophy of science a very short introduction’ by Oxford University, it says that historically there are many cases of theories that we now believe to be false but that were empirically quite successful. In another publication ‘Philosophy of science a new introduction’ by Oxford University, it says that science is revisable hence talk of scientific proof is dangerous because the term fosters the idea of conclusions that are graven in stone.

So it is not controversial to say that science can change and philosophers of science understand this and it's not surprising that those same philosophers try and reach out and grab the public's attention and tell them that this science that you believe to be immutable and graven in stone, that is not the case. Because if you think about it, if science really did work the way that some people think, and the way that certain people try and push it to be, then science would never change. A scientific theory from 100 years ago wouldn't be radically different to a theory today. It would just be a slight

adjustment.

The problem is that the scientific limitations are seen as something bad and the people pointing them out are seen to be pointing out problems with science when actually this is the beauty of Science and pointing out these limitations shows why science is beautiful and why we can have radically different theories in the future which are very different to the ones in the past.

So learning about the philosophy of science, learning about the limitations of science is not in any way undermining science. If anything, it is actually uplifting the status of science. Charles Darwin in ‘The Origin of Species’ says something very interesting in relation to what we've been discussing about the philosophy of science. Darwin said, “I am well aware there is scarcely a point discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be produced often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts on both sides of each question and this cannot possibly be done here”. What Darwin is saying here is in essence under -determination. The same data that he has he's admitting someone can come up with something radically different to him using the same data.

Often the data is seen as decisive. The data is seen as something which cannot possibly be explained by any other theory, as if there's no other way of understanding it and this is the only way that is certain and that obviously is not something which makes any sense, if we know the philosophy of science. Charles Darwin was more sophisticated than the people who are frankly simpletons when it comes to the philosophy of science and who want to push the idea that science leads to this type of certainty which they crave. I was surprised to find that even a well-known darwinist who has been pushing Darwinism as truth literally has admitted to what Darwin admitted to. Richard Dawkins in his book says, “we must acknowledge the possibility that new facts may come to light which will force our successors of the 21st century to abandon Darwinism or modify it beyond recognition”. That's quite a statement! In essence he's speaking about the problem of induction. But the same can be said for the other issues. He is saying it could be that Darwinism is modified beyond recognition or replaced by something else. So he obviously is aware of some of the philosophical issues when it comes to science.

So anybody who wants to speak about Darwinism with certainty needs to face the philosophy of science and understand that no scientific theory - including Darwinism - can be said to escape the problems and limitations which we know through the philosophy of science.