Are there limits to scientific knowledge?

Question:I mean, what is the best definition for "scientific knowledge"? And are there limits to it? I think not but I can't find any examples that can answer the question.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I mean, what is the best definition for "scientific knowledge"? And are there limits to it? I think not but I can't find any examples that can answer the question.

There are probably two answers, one for modern science and one for what was considered "science" a few centuries ago.

Science (or natural philosophy) spent a good deal of its history without very clear bounds on its subject matter or conclusions. A priori reasoning was valued above experiment and critical analysis.

The modern scientific method requires testable hypotheses, which limits the possibilities. "Intelligent design" is an example of the older approach; as it presents no hypothesis which can be tested, but merely piles up opinions as to what can or cannot develop without a guiding intelligence, it never manages to come within the bounds of science.

Similarly, claims by "evolutionists" to have proven the nonexistence of God by establishing the theory of evolution are a throwback to the older model. The theory is well established; its relevance to questions about God, however, extend the reasoning into nonverifiable territory. All that can be proven is that particular creation myths, such as the Biblical one, aren't literally true--something any competent Biblical scholar or literary theorist could have pointed out in the first place.

There is a second major characteristic of modern science: research data and conclusions need to be published and exposed to criticism by other scientists. There was a classic case in which someone wandered about a desert, catching lizards and taking their temperatures, and then published the data and claimed that it showed the lizards were "thermoregulating" (sunning themselves to raise body temperature, moving to shade to lower it). A reader proceeded to scatter beer cans about his back yard on a sunny day, took their temperatures after a few hours, and produced data with similar variations, demonstrating either that beer cans thermoregulate or that something was screwy about the interpretation with respect to the lizards.

That openness to criticism also, I dare to hope, inhibits the extension of scientific "knowledge" into the realm of pure malarkey.

...As long as the concept of infinity is allowed to exist the practical limits will never be acknowledged. Division by zero keeps them at work I guess. Looking for other planets to live on when space travel kills humans and changing the gene structure of plants makes me think they have already exceeded their grasp.

To the extent science is limited, it would be limited by two factors: man's ability to perceive and observe the universe and his capacity to reason. It may be the case that these are, in fact, limited. However, it can hardly be said that we have pushed up against the boundaries of these limitations, so it is difficult to state with particularity that there are boundaries at all.

Thanks for your question.

Yes there is. It is limited by what we haven't discovered yet. And it is limited by us not understanding fulling what we already have discovered and learned.

Try faith - Mind over matter

What is meant by scientific knowledge is a difficult question discussed at length by philosophers of science. The view that makes the most sense to me is that scientific knowledge is knowledge that comes from the process of doing science. By knowledge here I mean true justified belief. Whatever the problems with that definition in epistemology, I think it is sensible here, as the meaning of knowledge in science is as vague and error prone as that definition. By doing science, I mean the methods of practicioners, being experiments and rigorous theories with a willingness to throw out beliefs that fail in light of new discoveries, but still basing new ideas on the best existing practices.

As to the limits of scientific knowledge, there are experiments that cannot be performed. We cannot, for example, ever see any past events that are time-like separated from us. That is to say events that occurred long enough ago that the light from those events already reached and passed us. We may be able to know certain things about them, but we cannot observe them. However, other contemporaneous events that happened further away can be observed, as it takes the light longer to reach us.

We also cannot affect anything too far away from us in too short a period of time.

Many would point to the uncertainty principle, but that doesn't so much say what we cannot know, as it does say what facts don't exist. However, to a certain extent, you can say you cannot know facts that don't exist. For example, the future is unsettled, and therefore fundamentally unpredictable. Also in the realm of uncertainty, you cannot know certain counterfactuals, such as what the position of a particle would have been if you hadn't measured it, because the answer is still unsettled.

There are others, but those are the first ones that come to mind.

to know all that is true in every context and to be able to prove it mathematically or practically - that is scientific knowledge.
No limit

EnJOy

I'll not dodge your questions. The short answers are: I believe that there are inherent limits in any system of knowledge that must rely on inductive reasoning in a 'universe' that cannot be examined exhaustively. I define 'scientific knowledge' as 'theoretically best guesswork,' and I rely on those guesses as if they were certainly true--until I get my nose rubbed in it.

You can only guess at the limits of scientific knowledge--part of the generally agreed scientific mission consists in establishing and re-establishing the boundary of the known and the boundary of the possible, and in identifying the unexplained phenomena (e.g., by pointing to theoretical failures to explain admitted phenomena)--to the extent that this is possible, given that scientists are people in an unavoidable human context. It's an ongoing endeavor, that proceeds erratically.

Behind whatever is 'scientific' in the moment, there is a seething boil of thought on what 'scientific' means, or should mean, or can mean. Ditto 'scientific knowledge,' or 'scientist,' or 'conclusive,' or 'theory.' Two scientists are likely to have two sciences--at least. The philosophy of science is a cockpit. Dive in. You'll find friends and enemies there, in abundance.

we will never truly know anything for sure. that's why scientists mostly say that they are 99% sure. never 100% positive, because not even they can get that last 1% for sure. the rest is up to us to believe it for sure.

Right now , they are so precise , that they are on the edge of building an electrical cell , you put enough of them together and the human is born , mind you this would be an electrically powerd living thing , but complete with cells , and again this is only in the planing stages , they need these cells to devide and multiply in order for this to work , but they have a start ... limitless , you add a little stem cell reserch too this and bam mam made man ,,,