MadSci Network: Other
Query:

Re: Are any laws of science absolute or dependent on current technology?

Area: Other
Posted By: Keith McGuinness, Faculty Biology
Date: Mon Jan 6 02:06:37 1997
Message ID: 849205589.Ot


Scott Murrell asked:

This question has been sitting here for a while, so I'll take a stab at answering it. And I'll proceed by answering the last question first, then working backwards!

So "do I foresee a time where 'truth' is an absolute?" It depends what you mean by truth! If by "truth" you mean "the way the universe really works", then "truth" is already an absolute, and it always has been (except, perhaps, for those who believe that there is no external reality and the "universe" is only a construct of our own minds).

If, on the other hand, by "truth" you mean "our understanding of the way the universe really works", then "truth" is not going to be an absolute for a fairly long while (long, long after I'm on the pension).

The reason for this is, in part, that there are no "fixed beliefs of science". All that we, as scientists, can tell you at any time is what we think is going on in a particular system. For systems which have been well studied, we may be able to tell you in considerable detail what is going on and be very confident that we are right. For systems which have not be well studied, we may only be able to offer tentative suggestions and we may not be at all confident that we are right.

You mentioned technology in your question and this highlights an important point: changing (that is, increasingly more sophisticated) technology changes the types of observations which we can make. Sometimes this provides strong support for theories by allowing us to directly observe things which were initially hypothetical constructs (such as molecules and genes).

In other cases, however, it results in us to making observations which conflict with existing theory; in this case, the theory will need to be modified or replaced. This is (partially) what happened when Newton's ideas were replaced with Einstein's. Newton's Laws of Motion work fine for things of moderate size moving at moderate speeds; and up until very recently these were the only sorts of observations which we could make. But Newton's Laws do not work very well for very small objects (such as subatomic particles) or for objects moving very fast. The behaviour of these objects is much better predicted by Einstein's theories.

I hope this helps.

An approachable introduction to the philosophy of science, which covers many of these points, is What is this thing called science? by AF Chalmers.

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