* THERE IS NO TRUTH IN SCIENCE * Laws of Science are human inventions * EMPIRICISM IS NOT A SOURCE OF TRUTH * SCIENCE IS NEVER TRUE BUT CAN BE USEFUL ***************************************************** THERE IS NO TRUTH IN SCIENCE Science thrives on the conviction that man does not have final knowledge about anything, and that any doctrine, no matter what its credentials, should be subject to inquiry and correction. Beck, L. W. - Philosophic Inquiry - p352 It can even be shown that all theories, including the best, have the same probability, namely zero. Popper, Karl - Conjectures & Refutations - p192 The method of science is the method of bold conjectures and ingenious and severe attempts to refute them. Popper, Karl - Objective Knowledge - p81 There seems to be in all this a thoroughgoing epistemological relativism that makes the obtaining of truth impossible; and if scientific procedure cannot obtain truth, it can offer no absolute arguments against theism nor can it say truthfully that “the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge.” Clark, Gordon - A Christian View of Men and Things - p216 There is no science to which final appeal can be made; there are only scientists and their various theories. ... No scientific or observational proof can be given for the uniformity of nature, and much less can experience demonstrate that “the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge.” On the contrary, a plausible analysis showed that science was incapable of arriving at any truth whatever. Clark, Gordon - A Christian View of Men and Things - p227 The hope of finding objective, infallible laws and standards has faded. The age of Reason is gone. Kline, Morris - Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty - p7 Laws of Science
are human inventions Nature’s laws are man’s creation, we, not God, are the lawgivers of the universe. A law of nature is man’s description and not God’s prescription. Kline, Morris - Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty - p98 The theories of natural science, and especially what we call natural laws, have the logical form of strictly universal statements; thus they can be expressed in the form of negations of strictly existential statements, or, as we may say, in the form of nonexistence statements (or ‘there-is-not’ statements). For example, the Law of the conservation of energy can be expressed in the form: “There is no perpetual motion machine”... In this formulation we see that natural laws might be compared to ‘proscriptions’ or ‘prohibitions.’ They do not assert that something exists or is the case; they deny it. ... It is precisely because of this that they are falsifiable. [If one perpetual machine is discovered, the ‘law’ has been falsified.] ... Strictly existential statements, by contrast, cannot be falsified. No singular statement ... can contradict the existential statement, ‘there are white ravens.’ ... we cannot search the whole world in order to establish that something does not exist, has never existed and will never exist. Popper, Karl - The Logic of Scientific Discovery - p68-9 Laws of science are not laws at all . . . Laws of science state tendencies we have recently observed in our corner of the universe. Kosko, Bart - Fuzzy Thinking- p8 ... we do not try to prove or verify [our scientific theories], but we test them by trying to disprove or to falsify them, to refute them. ... this fact makes it possible to infer from observations that a theory is false. ... from a logical point of view, all empirical tests are therefore attempted refutations. Popper, Karl - Conjectures & Refutations - p192 Scientific theories are perpetually changing. Popper, Karl - The Logic of Scientific Discovery - p71 A theory is accepted ... because it can explain all facts already observed ... an infinite number of theories can meet this requirement. Randall, J. H. - Philosophy: An Introduction - p137 The principles of dynamics appeared to us first as experimental truths, but we have been compelled to use them as definitions. It is by definition that force is equal to the product of the mass and the acceleration; this is a principle which is henceforth beyond the reach of any future experiment. Thus it is by definition that action and reaction are equal and opposite. Poincare, H. - Science and Hypothesis - p104 If we examine the history of science ... we find that in each period a given theory is entertained by science as true. Shortly afterward, the theory is found inadequate, and is replaced by a new theory ... and so on ... These theories ... cannot all be true. ... A true theory would not be replaceable, for what is true remains true - unless of course what we are explaining no longer remains the same. Thus the theories of science are guesses, which are changed after the scientific fashions of the day, but none are faithful accounts of reality. If they have a use, it is the important one of helping to adapt man to his environment by enabling him to predict what will take place and to develop instruments of technology. Randall, J. H. - Philosophy: An Introduction - p98 ... we can only establish the falsity of the statement under test, but not its truth. The reason is that the latter entails an infinite number of test statements. Popper, Karl - Logic of Scientific Discovery - p424 The old scientific ideal of episteme- of absolutely certain, demonstrable knowledge- has proven to be an idol. The demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative for ever. Popper, Karl - Logic of Scientific Discovery - p280 Science is not a system of certain, or well-established statements; nor is it a system which steadily advances towards a state of finality. Our science is not knowledge (episteme); it can never claim to have attained truth, or even a substitute for it, such as probability; we do not know, we can only guess. Popper, Karl - Logic of Scientific Discovery - p278 When we call theories ‘true’ we do not mean that they are exempt from improvement. We mean that they are accepted on the best available evidence. It is possible to eliminate the word ‘true’ in speaking of scientific theories, and speak only of the ‘best-evidenced’ theories. ... The quest for certification can never be satisfactorily completed, because it is a quest for an infallible guarantee. Randall, J. H. - Philosophy: An Introduction - p100 Our experience with the Newtonian theory, probably the most successful scientific theory ever constructed, may suggest that we look twice at the foundations before building the Kingdom of Heaven on the ever receding shores of the expanding universe, as some have attempted to do. The extrapolators seem to believe that although scientific theories cannot save themselves, they can save others. Eric Temple Bell - The Search for Truth - p195 . . . scientific philosophy . . . does not claim to possess an absolute truth, the existence of which it denies for empirical knowledge. Reichenbach, H - The Rise of Scientific Philosophy - p325 EMPIRICISM IS NOT
A SOURCE OF TRUTH It is a general consequence of the approximate character of all measurement that no empirical science can ever make exact statements. Bridgman, P. W. - The Logic of Modern Physics - p34 ... we can never have perfectly clean-cut knowledge of anything Bridgman, P. W. - The Logic of Modern Physics - p33 ... in principle we must recognize its (uncertainty of experiences) presence, and must further recognize that all empirical science must be of this character. Bridgman, P. W. - The Logic of Modern Physics - p36 ... all our measurements are subject to error. Bridgman, P. W. - The Logic of Modern Physics - p61 ... nowhere has anyone ever seen a body continue moving in a straight line with uniform velocity. Nor has anyone ever seen a body at rest remain at rest. Indeed, we do not even know what the words ‘at rest’ mean. Goetz, B. - Usefulness of the Impossible - p190 To the superficial observer scientific truth is unassailable, the logic of science is infallible . . . Mathematical truths are derived from a few self-evident propositions, by a chain of flawless reasonings; they are imposed not only on us, but on Nature itself. By them the creator is fettered, as it were, and His choice is limited to a relatively small number of solutions. A few experiments, therefore, will be sufficient to enable us to determine what choice He has made. . . . This, to the minds of most people, and to students who are getting their first ideas of physics, is the origin of certainty in science. Poincare, H. - Science & Hypothesis - pxxi Refutations have often been regarded as establishing the failure of a scientist, or at least his theory. It should be stressed that this is an inductivist error. Every refutation should be regarded as a great success. Popper, Karl - Conjectures & Refutations - p243 The particular law that the scientist announces to the world is not a discovery forced on him by so-called facts; it is rather a choice from among an infinity of laws all of which enjoy the same experimental basis. ... The scientist wants mathematical accuracy; and when he cannot discover it, he makes it. .. however useful scientific laws are, they cannot be true. Clark, G. - A Christian View of Men & Things - p209 It is quite safe to say that no significant experiment can be completed without measuring a line. . . . the length of a line . . . is most difficult to ascertain. Clark, G. - A Christian View of Men & Things - p205,206 There is an impossibility of making measurements which is due to the limitation of our technical means . . .
In addition, there is a logical impossibility of measuring ...
It is logically impossible to determine whether the standard meter in Paris is really a meter . . . the meter cannot be defined in absolute terms. Reichenbach, H. - Philosophy of Space & Time - p28 . . . all our measurements will still contain some degree of inexactness which a progressive technique will gradually reduce but never overcome. Reichenbach, H. - Philosophy of Space & Time - p29 The method of the physical sciences is based upon the induction which leads us to expect the recurrence of a phenomena when the circumstances which give rise to it are repeated. If all the circumstances could be simultaneously reproduced, this principle could be fearlessly applied; but this never happens; some of the circumstances will always be missing. Poincare, H. - Science & Hypothesis - pxxvi SCIENCE IS NEVER TRUE
BUT CAN BE USEFUL ... science is extremely useful, though by its own requirements it must be [untrue]. Clark, G. - A Christian View of Men & Things - p210 It is often said the experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make every experiment fruitless, but even if we wished to do so, it could not be done. Poincare, H. - Science & Hypothesis - p143 Everything which the bodily sense touches and which is called sensible is constantly changing. . . . what does not remain stable cannot be perceived, for that is perceived which is grasped by knowledge, but that cannot be grasped which changes without ceasing. Therefore truth in any genuine sense is not something to be expected from the bodily senses. Augustine - 83 Different Questions (#9) - p40 . . . in our present state none of our bodily senses has any contact with the incorruptible and immutable, unless, of course, something such be divinely revealed to it. Augustine - 83 Different Questions (note) - p41 If, therefore, there are false images (mistaken judgments) of sensible objects, and if they cannot be distinguished by the senses themselves, and if nothing can be perceived except what is distinguished from the false, then there is no criterion for truth resident in the senses. Augustine - 83 Different Questions - p41 We do not have an infallible ability to distinguish between correct & incorrect perceptions. Aenesidemus, leader of the third skeptical school, drew up “ten tropes”, a general statement of reasons why perception must not be trusted, as follows: Things present a diverse appearance: 1- to different species of animals 2- to different men 3- to the different senses of one and the same man 4- to the same sense according to the man’s circumstances and physical condition 5- to the same sense according to the distance & perspective. Moreover 6- on account of mixture with one another in various degrees 7- on account of their extent In general 8- perception depends upon the relation of the perceiver to his object, or of things or notions to one another. 9- their strength varies with habituation 10- the beliefs, laws & customs of men are indefinitely variable. Aenesidemus - Encyc. Brit. Vol 1 - p197 It is a commonplace that all our knowledge is in some degree liable to error, and that we are fallible even in our most dogmatic moments. Russell, Bertrand - Theory of Knowledge - p167 The problem of the validity of empiricism may be roughly put as follows: is observation the ultimate source of our knowledge of nature? And if not, what are the sources of our knowledge? Popper, Karl - Conjectures & Refutations - p21 Xenophanes (570BC) knew that our knowledge is guesswork, opinion - as shown by his verses (DK, B, 18 & 34): The gods did not reveal, from the beginning
All things to us; but in the course of time,
Through seeking, men find that which is better.
But as for certain truth, no man has known it,
Nor will he know it; neither of the gods,
Nor yet of all the things of which I speak.
And even if by chance he were to utter
The final truth, he would himself not know it;
For all is but a woven web of guesses. Popper, Karl - Conjectures & Refutations - p25-26 Empiricists usually believed that the empirical basis consisted of absolutely ‘given’ perceptions or observations, of ‘data’, and that science could build on these ‘data’ as if on rock. In opposition, I pointed out that the apparent ‘data’ of experience were always interpretations in the light of theories, and therefore affected by the hypothetical or conjectural character of all theories. ... there are never any un-interpreted data experienced by us . . . Popper, Karl - Conjectures & Refutations - p387 Is the sensation which I call blue really the same as that which my neighbor calls blue? Is it possible that a blue object may arouse in him the same sensation that a red object does in me and vice versa? Bridgman, P. W. - The Logic of Modern Physics - p30 - Nobel prize winner in 1946 ... empiricism as a theory of knowledge has proved inadequate ... all human knowledge is uncertain, inexact & partial. To this doctrine we have not found any limitation whatever. Russell, B. - Human Knowledge - p527 Next >> 5- Truth is Christ ^^^ RETURN TO TOP ^^^ | 
