On Science and Humanities
Okay so I have been having this discussion off and on with a friend about science versus humanities, and my recent investigation of Intelligent Design has really got me reeling about the subject.
So often we talk about the difference between science and religion but I claim the difference is the same as the foundational difference between science and all humanities. That difference is the pursuit of "truth". Truth in quotes because science's goal is not truth but rather predictive models.
In science, we look for patterns to describe future events. You want to know when the stars will move in a certain way, or when chemicals form a particular reaction, or when biological organisms will evolve, or any other question of science, one intuitively looks at similar events in the past. Now does this really have any bearing on what will happen right now? NO, of course not, how could dead dinosaurs have an affect on the mutations of fruit flies? But what we would like to believe is that there are physical laws that govern the process that are the same now as they were before. So science is really about studying supposed physical laws. Now go ahead and try to justify that these physical laws exist, and no just saying they always work does not prove their existence. I would contend that these supposed physical laws are much like proving the existence of God.
Thus science only assumes they exist and they are constant. It then pursues models that cohere with the physical laws. Now these models often fail; if they do pass the scrutiny of the scientific community they will pass off as laws and be taken for almost fact. When the laws fail, we just assume that the conditions are different and try to prove new laws for the new conditions. Thus we have useful models that are based off what we see but have dittly squat to do with what is causing the effects. In fact we could just have a very consistent Flying Spaghetti Monster causing all science to come out correct, but that is silly so let's rename the monster to physical laws.
Now humanities is interested in truth. Truth in all its forms but truth for sure. It does not work in literature to say that a text is good because an unseen, undetected force makes it so. Beauty cannot be defined as the things that pleases a mountain or is created by a pirate. Mathematics cannot make a claim on all its pretty definitions because Euler said so. Moreover humanities cannot just say something is good because it works, whereas science does this all the time. Humanities is taking on a tougher challenge and thus needs a stricter definition of proof. If I just created a model for assessing beauty and here comes along something that doesn't fit in that model, is it okay just to claim that it is a different condition? No, my model is wrong because it missed the very essence of beauty if things that are beautiful are not described as beautiful.
With this said, comparing science and humanities is bound to fail. Now sometimes the two are inspired by one another but each has to prove its results in it's own ways.
So often we talk about the difference between science and religion but I claim the difference is the same as the foundational difference between science and all humanities. That difference is the pursuit of "truth". Truth in quotes because science's goal is not truth but rather predictive models.
In science, we look for patterns to describe future events. You want to know when the stars will move in a certain way, or when chemicals form a particular reaction, or when biological organisms will evolve, or any other question of science, one intuitively looks at similar events in the past. Now does this really have any bearing on what will happen right now? NO, of course not, how could dead dinosaurs have an affect on the mutations of fruit flies? But what we would like to believe is that there are physical laws that govern the process that are the same now as they were before. So science is really about studying supposed physical laws. Now go ahead and try to justify that these physical laws exist, and no just saying they always work does not prove their existence. I would contend that these supposed physical laws are much like proving the existence of God.
Thus science only assumes they exist and they are constant. It then pursues models that cohere with the physical laws. Now these models often fail; if they do pass the scrutiny of the scientific community they will pass off as laws and be taken for almost fact. When the laws fail, we just assume that the conditions are different and try to prove new laws for the new conditions. Thus we have useful models that are based off what we see but have dittly squat to do with what is causing the effects. In fact we could just have a very consistent Flying Spaghetti Monster causing all science to come out correct, but that is silly so let's rename the monster to physical laws.
Now humanities is interested in truth. Truth in all its forms but truth for sure. It does not work in literature to say that a text is good because an unseen, undetected force makes it so. Beauty cannot be defined as the things that pleases a mountain or is created by a pirate. Mathematics cannot make a claim on all its pretty definitions because Euler said so. Moreover humanities cannot just say something is good because it works, whereas science does this all the time. Humanities is taking on a tougher challenge and thus needs a stricter definition of proof. If I just created a model for assessing beauty and here comes along something that doesn't fit in that model, is it okay just to claim that it is a different condition? No, my model is wrong because it missed the very essence of beauty if things that are beautiful are not described as beautiful.
With this said, comparing science and humanities is bound to fail. Now sometimes the two are inspired by one another but each has to prove its results in it's own ways.
posted by Andy R. Terrel at
9/07/2005 10:06:00 AM
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