Whats the point of modern science?

[salamenfuckyou]

How immensely I love chemistry and life sciences, oh my holy god.
Regardless, generally there is so much interesting that I tend to get overwhelmed

[The_Thinking_Theist]

“Study without thinking is a waste of time; thinking without study is dangerous.”
~ Confucius

CHING CHONG CHANG LI WOO ZHAO WUU! DING YANG YANG YONG!!!!

[Ryantology]

CHING CHONG CHANG LI WOO ZHAO WUU! DING YANG YANG YONG!!!!

Wow.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Science is never pointless. Even if a discovery needs a few decades for there to be a practical application for it, the fact remains that there will be one.

This is what people don't understand about the space program.

[max-greece]

Number of points:

First the question isn't quite as dumb as it may at first appear - but I will get to that later.

Second - Whilst I agree with most of the posts here that science yields great advances I do not like the idea that this justifies science. Science needs no justification. Einstein's theory of relativity didn't need the development of GPS to justify it. It is its own justification.

Science is merely one expression of the search for knowledge. That is a driving force for humanity and has been since hunter gatherer societies first developed.

There is, however, a potential problem of science looming on the horizon - which is what justifies the OP, IMHO and all that.

As science develops an ever smaller number of people actually understand it or its implications. I do worry that at some point in the future there will be just a handful of people who actually have the faintest clue as to what science is talking about - this is particularly true of the direction that quantum physics is taking.

I can see a day when a discussion between a theist and an atheist ends with:

"Because God says so!"
"Nonsense, because Lawrence Krauss (or equivalent) says so."

And neither will be able to take it any further than that.

[Angrboda]

I can see a day when a discussion between a theist and an atheist ends with:

"Because God says so!"
"Nonsense, because Lawrence Krauss (or equivalent) says so."

And neither will be able to take it any further than that.

Science means being able to take it further than that. Dogma means having no choice but to stop there.

[Alex K]

So what we need are imho 1.specialists applying the scentific method to their specialties
2. Populace educated in the scientific method
7

I can see a day when a discussion between a theist and an atheist ends with:

"Because God says so!"
"Nonsense, because Lawrence Krauss (or equivalent) says so."

And neither will be able to take it any further than that.

Science means being able to take it further than that. Dogma means having no choice but to stop there.

[max-greece]

What I am referring to is the idea that ultimately the vast majority of the population will only be able to refer to the answers dogmatically because they are unable, even if willing, to be able to take it further.

I don't think educating people in the scientific method will really help as it is the conclusions that are beyond understanding in the vast majority of cases.

If we look at quantum physics even the physicists are saying that if you think you understand it, you don't. Our logic appears to fail completely at this level.

Lets use an example:

Take one of the simplest electric devices - a switch (not a dimmer switch - a simple on/off switch).

Now a switch can be on and it can be off - but not both at the same time.

And yet a quantum switch can be off and on at the same time (http://dwave.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/qu...-switches/)

Obviously even a chimp like me can be educated enough to understand the result - but not the why's and wherefore's of it so I end up taking it on faith and that is the point.

If a swtich that is on and off is beyond me - what chance my understanding the universe as it is explained by Quantum Physics at any level other than being able to repeat, parrot fashion, some of the underlying principles and the result?

[FreeTony]

Max - I get your point. To the average person, why should they trust a scientist over a preacher? Vast numbers of the population nowadays can't even grasp the simplest of scientific ideas.

On the other hand, even after a Masters in Physics, I will struggle to understand most modern Theoretical physics papers. I can get the gist of it, but that's about it. (Actually a good Maths degree would almost be more useful).

The hardest thing about advanced physics is that our minds cannot visualise relativity or QM is because at our scale and speeds they are insignificant. Take something like temperature though. This is obvious to everyone and seems very intuitive because we are used to it. But if we didn't have organs that sensed temperature, understanding why water is ice in some places would be really difficult and not at all intuitive. The same goes for trying to visualise things in 4 dimensions, which is pretty much impossible due to brain limitations.


Going back to the switch, I don't think it is possible to understand why it can be on and off in the sort of visual way you perhaps want to (and neither can I). What is important is that by modelling reality (in this case) as a wavefunction consisting of two states which follows schroedingers equation, we get repeatable results that indicate that QM is a good model of reality. I also can't visualise an electron in a hydrogen atom as not being in a particular point in space, yet it gives much better results to model it this way than an electron orbitting a proton like the Earth orbits the Sun. (If that were the case it would radiate energy and the orbit would decay in a fraction of a second)

This last part is the most difficult thing to explain to people.

[Tonus]

Science is never pointless. Even if a discovery needs a few decades for there to be a practical application for it, the fact remains that there will be one.

It reminds me of the story about Thomas Edison and how he dismissed his many failed attempts at inventing a light bulb as steps towards the successful attempt. There are scientific discoveries that came about accidentally, when scientists were researching something else. The microwave oven comes to mind.

You could come up with some version of "look how much progress we've made since" for almost any number of years back. We've made incredible leaps in understanding and progress in the past 1,000 years. But also in the last 100. And we've made them in the past 10. I can think back to the 1970s and just the improvements in day-to-day life are amazing to me. I wonder how many of the continuing improvements that we see today are being built on things we first learned 10, 100, or 1000 years ago.