Is scientific knowledge proven knowledge

Answer 1

This is a complex question. The quick and dirty answer is a resounding 'no'. This does not mean that there is no such thing as scientific progress. Science itself is a heuristic, a specific kind of process. It's like an algorithm or a special kind of 'computer code'. It starts with curiosity and wonder about the world we occupy. The curiosity turns into questions, and some of the questions can be tested because they are closely linked with some aspect of the physical or behavioral world, and some aspects of those worlds can be manipulated or juxtaposed. As some authors have said: Theories turn mysteries into problems. But here is a Big Secret. When science is happening at its best, the testable questions are designed to rule out the theory in question, not prove it. The reasons it works out this way are simple. One brilliantly developed experiment that is accurately carried out might actually topple the theory it is meant to test, but even if the experiment supports the theoryinstead, this does not prevent some future question/experiment from challenging the theory again. Support for a theory is necessary, and many theories have withstood the tests of time with flying colors. But there is never a point where we can say that the way we have formulated the theory, or the basic processes that we believe are truly at work within the theory, are absolutely beyond any possible future challenge. This holds for the theories of Newton, Einstein, Bohr, Quantum theory, String, Super-String and M-theory, Evolution, the Big Bang, and every other theory of note that you can name. Despite this, scientific advance is obvious, and progressing every day. How? Because the process of challenging, toppling, re-formulating and testing again and again does bring us to a deeper understanding of systems. We may in fact have hit upon some basic principles in one science or another that will never be toppled for the balance of human existence. Even this would not necessarily prove that we have the principle or theory exactly right. It would only indicate that we have run out of questions challenging it. The heuristic of science as it currently exists has no way of indicating when we hit that elusive moment of absolute proof. It is not possible for the heuristic, which is itself not verifiable by any external means, to have such a 'test for proof' built-in. If it did, it would pre-suppose that we have all possible future knowledge, and there would be no need for science at all. The scientific process itself is not sufficient to arrive at a conclusion of absolute proof. There are many other problems with proof that are deep and subtle. For one thing, we probably will never have certain knowledge of the exact pre-existing conditions out of which our universe sprang. Without such knowledge, it may be difficult or impossible to formulate the best theories of the multi-dimensional universe. Also, we are so steeped in our classical heritage of physics that we might be missing the connections to classical thinking in which even our most advanced non-classical theories (like Quantum and String theory) are steeped. It's a little like the three blind men standing next to an elephant and describing what they are touching. They experience the elephant based on what their intellects are prepared to experience, no matter how brilliant they are. Likewise, scientists observe things and ask questions based on what their earth-bound intellects are prepared to observe and ask, no matter how brilliant they are. We are making progress and we are breaking through, but we have no idea just how primitive we remain. The above is not an indictment of classical physics or the standard model of physics. The progress we make depends upon the questions we ask, and the questions that we ask are limited by our language, our ability to conceptualize, and perhaps by other things that we cannot even fathom. There may be other paths of inquiry, or other kinds of inquiry itself, that would lead us to very different places theoretically and technologically. So the progress that we enjoy is not merely a product of the 'scientific method'. It is also very much a product of our humanness, and the kinds of things that our humanness drives us to want to know.