Scientific Questions and Answers
Many scientific questions are currently being asked or have recently been asked. Some of these questions have answers and the answers have already been found or at least been partially been found. A current example of a question that seems to have a positive answer is “can a vaccine against cervical cancer be found?” A vaccine does seem to have been found and is being administered to girls in schools and colleges even as we speak. Another example of a current question that science addressed successfully was “can a process be found that will turn wheat into a source of fuel? A process of turning wheat into fuel has been found but with seriously harmful consequences for food production.
There are also scientific questions that are being asked currently that have not yet been answered satisfactorily however are believed will result in desirable answers. Let us examine some of these questions. “Can a vaccine be found against HIV/AIDS?” Much research and money is being poured into this project and treatments and medications have been found such as anti-retroviral drugs that slow down the establishment and spread of AIDS in an infected person. Nevertheless at present, no vaccination has been found. There is certainly hope that a vaccine will be found sooner or later.
Perhaps the reason many scientific questions have not yet been answered is that the research techniques available at present are not sophisticated enough or maybe the technology needed for the research has not been developed yet.
Finally there is a set of questions that are unlikely to be answered with a high degree of certainty. An obvious question that comes to mind is “will the universe expand forever?” Firstly I would like to analyse this question in terms of the distinction between philosophical and scientific questions.
Certainly we can write this question as a statement, “The universe will expand forever.” This can form our hypothesis and has a true or false answer. So this set of criteria seems to be met. However, in terms of the distances involved as well as the time involved, both which are so great as to be beyond human understanding, direct investigation of the hypothesis, “the universe will expand forever.” is not possible. All that can be investigated meaningfully are the conditions that will result in the universe expanding forever and the likelihood of those conditions existing in the universe.
In the realm of neuropsychology things could be even more complicated because some of the so-called scientific questions that are put forward in this discipline could also belong under philosophy. The neuropsychologist Oliver Sack has been researching some extraordinary cases of brain damage where our very beliefs in reality are challenged. Cases like “the man who mistook his wife for a hat”. In “the man who mistook his wife for a hat” a professor of music displays very peculiar symptoms. In this case the professor was able to recognise all the parts of a composite structure like a flower and its stem but could not integrate the parts into a whole. For example, when the professor was asked to describe a long-stemmed rose in the hand of his doctor he said the thing the doctor held seemed to be a long tube attached to some sort of pink inflorescence. Once the professor was allowed to smell the flower he was able to identify the rose immediately.
What causes this kind of illness and how to treat it seems to be way beyond our understanding.
Many scientific questions are currently being asked or have recently been asked. Some of these questions have answers and the answers have already been found or at least been partially been found. A current example of a question that seems to have a positive answer is “can a vaccine against cervical cancer be found?” A vaccine does seem to have been found and is being administered to girls in schools and colleges even as we speak. Another example of a current question that science addressed successfully was “can a process be found that will turn wheat into a source of fuel? A process of turning wheat into fuel has been found but with seriously harmful consequences for food production.
There are also scientific questions that are being asked currently that have not yet been answered satisfactorily however are believed will result in desirable answers. Let us examine some of these questions. “Can a vaccine be found against HIV/AIDS?” Much research and money is being poured into this project and treatments and medications have been found such as anti-retroviral drugs that slow down the establishment and spread of AIDS in an infected person. Nevertheless at present, no vaccination has been found. There is certainly hope that a vaccine will be found sooner or later.
Perhaps the reason many scientific questions have not yet been answered is that the research techniques available at present are not sophisticated enough or maybe the technology needed for the research has not been developed yet.
Finally there is a set of questions that are unlikely to be answered with a high degree of certainty. An obvious question that comes to mind is “will the universe expand forever?” Firstly I would like to analyse this question in terms of the distinction between philosophical and scientific questions.
Certainly we can write this question as a statement, “The universe will expand forever.” This can form our hypothesis and has a true or false answer. So this set of criteria seems to be met. However, in terms of the distances involved as well as the time involved, both which are so great as to be beyond human understanding, direct investigation of the hypothesis, “the universe will expand forever.” is not possible. All that can be investigated meaningfully are the conditions that will result in the universe expanding forever and the likelihood of those conditions existing in the universe.
In the realm of neuropsychology things could be even more complicated because some of the so-called scientific questions that are put forward in this discipline could also belong under philosophy. The neuropsychologist Oliver Sack has been researching some extraordinary cases of brain damage where our very beliefs in reality are challenged. Cases like “the man who mistook his wife for a hat”. In “the man who mistook his wife for a hat” a professor of music displays very peculiar symptoms. In this case the professor was able to recognise all the parts of a composite structure like a flower and its stem but could not integrate the parts into a whole. For example, when the professor was asked to describe a long-stemmed rose in the hand of his doctor he said the thing the doctor held seemed to be a long tube attached to some sort of pink inflorescence. Once the professor was allowed to smell the flower he was able to identify the rose immediately.
What causes this kind of illness and how to treat it seems to be way beyond our understanding.
2 comments:
These last two posts are very thought provoking!
The posts help to clarify what Scientific Method is, and also what its limitations might be.
The difference between science and philosphy has been outlined by postulating two types of question: a scientific question and a philosophical question.
However, the distinction may break down, further up the line. Sometimes it is the answer, not the question that is the deciding factor.
For example the question, "Is this a piece of string?" - a scientist would test the material from which it is made, identify its fibres under a microscope and therefore conclude that it is indeed string,or that it is some other material.
A philosopher, on the other hand, may be concerned with the aspect of sensory perception and knowledge. How far can we trust our senses to give us the truth? Can we prove conclusively that this is not really an elephant that is merely manifesting as a piece of string?
My last sentence in the previous coment may sound facetious, yet philosphers such as Russell and Wittgenstein really have concerned themselves with the reliability of what we take for reality.
There is also the question of the reality of which we are not aware or perhaps able to perceive.
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