I recently read the following statement
“You cannot use the 'scientific method’ as a reason to make science as an authority of truth, simply because the only way to prove science as the truth is to use the “scientific method”! The logic is circular.”
How would you refute it?
Posted: March 16th 2009
Eric_PK
Science is not about truth. Science is about utility – discovering things that are useful.
In chemistry, one of the models we use puts electrons in different 'shells’ around the nucleus of atoms. Using this model, we can make useful predictions about how atoms of one element will combine with atoms of another element. Hugely useful predictions.
But for a long, long time, nobody knew why this worked, or if there was even a physical manifestation of the shells. Even today, that’s not that clear, but the theory works.
That focus on utility is why science is different than philosophy.
Posted: March 18th 2009
George Locke
Let me rewrite the statement, with the following substitutions:
- X = 'scientific method’
- Y = 'science’
- P(Z) = 'Z is an authority of truth’
Here goes:
bq. You can’t use X to prove P(Y), because the only way to prove P(Y) is by using X.
This is clearly nonsense.
I think what your source meant to say is that you can’t use the scientific method to verify the efficacy of the scientific method. This is actually correct.
There are other ways of proving that the scientific method works, though. We’ve been to the moon, for example. If the scientific method didn’t work, then we couldn’t have gone to the moon. If you ask, “Does the scientific method succeed in its goals,” just use common sense and obvious examples (e.g. nuclear power, solar power, genetically modified plants, penicillin, etc) to provide an answer.
If these things were not made possible by the scientific method, then how did we invent them? The tools created by people using the scientific method work. Therefore, the scientific method works.
It’s also true that you can’t verify the efficacy of common sense using common sense, but if you doubt common sense then verification itself has no meaning.
Posted: March 17th 2009
George Ricker www
It’s a bogus argument.
The “scientific method” is better described as a collection of processes for discerning the nature of the material universe (i.e. the universe of matter/energy in all its various configurations).
Sciences yield valid results when the observations of scientists and the scientific theories based on those observations appear to conform with that material universe.
The methodology of science is not the product of science. The methodology is the process. The products are the observations and the theories based on those observations.
Hence no tautology exists.
Q.E.D.
Posted: March 17th 2009
brian thomson www
The thing that stops the scientific method from leading to circular logic can be described with one word: Reality.
We might think we have figured out how an experiment will go, but we don’t really know until we do the experiment and analyse the data – and even then, the reality can surprise us. We have methods such as double-blind trials to eliminate the human factors as far as possible. to minimize the effect that our knowledge and wishes have on the results. The argument simply doesn’t stand up when you examine it.
Posted: March 17th 2009
SmartLX www
It’s a hypocritical criticism of science coming from a religious person, who supports the authority of a holy text primarily (or entirely) by using the text itself.
The scientific method is not itself evidential support for anything, and doesn’t try to be. It is a method for finding evidence to support hypotheses and theories. Once real evidence has been found, it stands on its own and its source is irrelevant. If it’s physical evidence, to dismiss it without considering its merit requires one to question the reliability not of science, but of the entire physical world.
Posted: March 16th 2009