RE: If someone says science can't explain everything what's the best way to repond?
November 13, 2016 at 1:48 am
(August 23, 2016 at 2:59 am)ReptilianPeon Wrote: I've though about this one a bit. I think what the person, e.g. my parents or somebody in the street, is trying to say is: 1. God of the gaps (they don't know what advancements will happen) and 2. The supernatural is real and "science" can't explain it.
My idea is to simply agree with the person and remind them that, for example, archeology and mathematics are not sciences (maybe philosophy too?) and humanity has learned so much from those two fields. Nobody would claim digging up fossils or human artifacts is a kind of science experiment right? Even within science, some great discoveries are made without the scientific method: You have luck alone and armchair theorizing, as two examples.
Maybe I'm overthinking this and there is a simpler answer. One route a person might go down is to say "there is no way to measure love". In which case, I'll list the hormones associated with love and infer that by measuring those we can be sure a person is in love.
I think the wider question here is that science can't tell you how to live your life.
"Science" is just the scientific method, no more, no less, it's a fantastic thing don't get me wrong, but its just that.
Can't tell you why you should get up in the morning.
Can't tell you the "meaning of life".
I think what a lot of people tire of are people who say they live their life by science. That it's their philosophy - as if by saying this they are automatically more intelligent and rational than the next man. What that translates to, for me, is "I subscribe to a form of logical positivism because I actually have no idea what philosophy is or how it works, and don't have a very imaginative mind."
Much like many religious people really.
