Science explains everything?

Do you believe all explanations are to be found with science?
If so...
If not..How or why did you arrive at this view?Debate not necessary....just getting to know different points of view.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.Note that this is not a debate thread. Responses should be to the OP as individual comments.This message has been edited by AdminNWR, 03-08-2006 04:57 PM

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Nope. Simply because I don't think there's one giant, monolithic "all the answers" to be found.Any process of discovery involves creating new questions, even while you're answering old ones, and these questions branch off in nigh-on infinite directions. There will never be a single moment at which the last little bit of something to be known is discovered, and mankind collectively says, "Ohhhhhhh... I get it!"

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"We had survived to turn on the History Channel
And ask our esteemed panel, Why are we alive? And here's how they replied:
You're what happens when two substances collide
And by all accounts you really should have died."
-Andrew Bird

In a word, NO. Science deals mainly with the physical world. However, a large part of our lives is spent on things that are part of our cultural world. While our culture is a response to the physical world, it does not appear to be fully determined by the physical world. There are social sciences, but I doubt that they will ever fully explain art and culture.

No, for the obvious reason is that there are questions which are beyond the scope of the natural sciences, like right vs. wrong, what is beauty vs. ugliness, and where I as an individual fit into society and into the cosmos. Therefore, the explanations for the answers to these questions cannot be given by science.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

No. Science is a tool specified to deliver results in a specific way, namely what is a good way to understand how a natural phenomena functions.I think there will always be one further question to ask regarding a phenomena, and there are plenty of things in this world besides natural phenomena.I cannot find purpose or answers of what I must do in science.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

No.I know you asked people to explain how they arrived at their view, but I think it would be more helpful to you if we examined why you asked this question in the first place. I think it's because you think most evolutionists would answer yes, and that that explains why no one accepts the ideas from your Do we affect the" physical " indepentent of the laws of physics thread. You don't seem very open to doing anything in that thread except criticizing anyone who disagrees with you. I think if you return to that thread and begin discussing instead of critisizing that you'll find the answers you're looking for.--Percy

No. It was to attempt to avoid all the clutter that many here cling to. I happen to think that evolution is on the right track.
The sight is based upon criticizing or debunking and defending ones positions. There is a bit of an adversarial air that is inherant in the process. But there are habbits instilled in you and others on this sight that detract from understanding. It is when you attempt to teach debate skills that understanding is lost. That process is for that topic. Clarification of ones ideas is a good thing. But taking a topic intentionally upon a sidetrack for a purpose is contrary to this sights own format. It becomes debate for debates sake and no meaningful understanding occurs within the context of the forum topic.I saw in my thread a complete avoidance of my proposed idea. Not an examination of the posibilities. As it progressed I saw that people enjoyed the playing of the game and that the topic was lost. There is no point to that. It is contrary ,in my view, to the premise of the sight in the first place. I am very new to a debate format. I am still contemplating the idea that it is being used as a tool to achieve understanding. I pointed out in many ways in my responses that people were coming from a pre concieved notion of reality. One that leads to a dead end...the world is flat until proven otherwise. I asked people to think outside the box. No one came out to play. Instead people hid within thier box and played box games. For those who are truly unwilling to leave the box this makes sense. I do not see a number of you falling into that catagory so why all the fuss?The purpose of this topic is to better understand a piece of who each of us is. There are many topics on this sight that stem directly from this. One cannot understand points of view in this context unless we better understand the individual who's view we are trying to grasp.

I do not believe science explains all things.I have expressed many times that I see it as a very usefull tool we use to explore and describe what we know as the physical world. It is a tool we concieved and has it's uses.
To me, science will never describe or explain "meaning" or emotion in any meaningful way. We will die for, or because of what things mean to us and how we feel about them. This is a world of ongoing dynamic interactions that is us. Meaning and understanding are found in the understanding of ourselves and others through this process.The topic percy reffers to illustrates my point of view and in addition offers a possible avenue to see us in a slightly different light. At least differently than I have seen before myself. In light of the freedom the concepts of quantum physics and string theory are given I would think this idea no big deal and that it would attract curiousity. I am surprized at the response.

I take it you are referring to Do we affect the" physical " indepentent of the laws of physics. Perhaps I am one of those you see as "playing of the game."I'll suggest that the problem with that thread is in the way you have worded the OP and the way you have responded to some of the posts.You are using words from science - for example the word "force" in "force of me." But you are not using them in the ways that science expects they be used. The result is that your posts in that thread are ambiguous, and different people are reading them in different ways. I commented on that in Message 46.Getting back to the current topic, I would expect most scientists here to agree that science does not explain everything. However, they might also believe that, to the best of our knowledge, everything happens in accordance with physical laws. Physical laws might not explain why a rose smell sweet, but if we were to break the process of smelling a rose down into actions on atoms then we would expect everything that happens to be according to physical law.I hope the distinction is clear.

One would see my title with another meaning if they are only willing to think within the limits of the box or playing the game. I am suggesting the box is bigger. That is the whole premice for the idea. Yes, I believe I made that distinction in my topic.To decide to smell the rose for reasons. To cut the rose for purpose.
To breed the rose for enjoyment. To sell the rose for proffit. To smash the rose because of association of bad past experiece. To outlaw the rose in a city because it might be considered a noxious weed. To glorify the rose as a symbol of love. These are not explained by known laws of physics. Our decissions based on these motivations will surely react in the physical world. I think we do it so often that it is overlooked.I appologise for further wandering and will go there no further in this topic.

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I do not believe science explains all things.

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Am I correct in assuming, then, that you are pleased that everyone in this thread agrees with you?

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

I may share similar opinions with those that have expressed themselves in this thread. However I do not believe all agree with me completely.
All meaningful conversation begins from common ground. If one does not know a language, one must establish common ground to comunicate. In this light I am happy. Common ground fosters comunication and understanding. Even if the common ground is recognizing the validity of another point of view one does not share. One must start somewhere.

I say yes science can absolutly and must explain all things, "if" there is no God. Even the emotions, love and all that crap. We evolved into being like that, so there must be an explanation. Whether we can carry out the science or not is another question.If there is a God, then there is the possibilty that we will not be able to measure certain things, and then we wouldn't find the explanations.I am quite shocked at the responses here. It would seem that God exists, if I am right.

In regard to the sciences, I do think there are unknowables. If you do not know it, you can not explain it. I do, however, believe that these are trivialities like the "can God make a stone He cannot lift" questions.For example, in the historical sciences, we know that there was a first ancient Greek Olympic game. We don't necessarily know when that was but we may eventually learn that and I am sure there are hypothesese waiting to be disproved.In that first Olympiad there was undoubtedly a single person considered to be the winner of whatever game was considered most popular (if I remember correctly there was only a race in the first recorded games). A "Wheaties man" of the day. This also we may eventually know.This man (or woman? most likely a man) at one time did or thought something they were ashamed of and never told anyone that he (or she) thought was really really bad. This we know because everyone does it. Science will never know what that was. Even if 800 years from now we can go back in time and capture this man and do whatever tests are available to us we will never know for sure what this was.I know this was a silly example, but it is late here. I was trying to remember an example from the philosophy of science about knowing what a bat thinks, but it has been too many years since that class.If the point of this topic was to ask "are there things science cannot know?" then I wholeheartedly agree. If it was a search for physical things that science cannot answer, then I do not agree. There are a huge body of things that science does not yet know. But these do not point to unknowables. I hope this post makes sense.

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Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"