Science is limited

[pokerfan]

by its refusal to make stuff up...



As seen on http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/science_is_limited_by_its_refu.php">Pharyngula.

[ananda]

1. Science yes, but not..

.. Bushinc's "scientists."

[pokerfan]

2. True

Ignorance and arrogance is boundless.

[anigbrowl]

3. In fairness, science is limited...

by the inability of any consistent formal system to encompass all true statements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorem

Cf. also, the Halting Problem, division by zero and so forth. In short, there are undecidable propositions in mathematics, and since mathematics is the underpinning of quantative science it's reasonable to say that there are some undecidable physical propositions too.

[pokerfan]

4. Mathematics is fine

insofar as it can help describe what we can observe.

[Silent3]

5. In fairness, maybe nothing else can fill in for science's limitations.

I have no problem, it and of itself, with the statement that science is limited. What I have a problem with is the agenda that often accompanies that statement, that something must fill in for what "science doesn't understand", typically someone's pet superstitions.

Many things promoted by those with a disdain for the supposed limits of science aren't "undecidable propositions", or anything at all radically out of reach of science, they're things which are quite accessible to scientific investigation (like, say, whether homeopathy or Reiki work any better than a placebo), but which simply don't hold up well under that kind of scrutiny.