Does Science discover absolute knowledge and thus lead to absolute truth?

Question

EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER

Answer 1

No, but it is the closest thing to truth available to humankind.  Humans will never be exposed to absolute truth because humans are not omniscient.  The biggest strength of science is that it recognizes this fact and it assumes that it will ALWAYS be wrong in some way or another.  This means it is always open to change to fit new or better data, and the search for new or better data is never closed.  This is why science works better than any other human attempt to find truth.  If truth is a line, science is an asymptote.  It never quite reaches truth, but it gets closer and closer until eventually it's so close there's no practical difference.

Michael, you're using two completely uncontrolled examples and a third from a fictional story.  Are you sure science is 'your life' because your examples are so unscientific they are useless as anything other than an emotional argument with no real logic behind them.

And the whole point of science is to tell a story.  This is what science is, storytelling.  Anybody can make observations and find facts.  You're not doing science until you try to put a theory to those facts.

Answer 2

No.

h**l no.

A few examples:

A) My grandmother. My grandmother could make dough and bread like no other. Did she ever use a recipe? Did she ever consciously think to herself: "Hmmm... It's humid out, better add a bit extra flour." No. She didn't.

A friend once asked for the recipe. So she gave it to her off the top of her head. Did the friend's dough/bread taste good? No. It was c**p. So my friend watched my grandmother make the bread. She studied her every move and recorded it. She then made a second attempt. Her bread still wasn't good.

My grandmother had an innate gift for making bread. Science could not recreate it.

B) My friend's a great soccer player. He touches the ball, and magic happens.

I've tried to play soccer my whole life. I suck. I've made great strides in improvement, but I'm horrible. I've watched videos of perfect kicks, I've studied scenarios, I've done it all. I've trained myself to think like a soccer player. I'm no good at it. I can't read a play, I can't MAKE a play, I can't get the proper spin. It tooke me years to manage an semi-accurate kick.

My friend on the other hand, never really played soccer in his life. But the first time he started, it was like God himself was working through him.

C) Rocky IV: Drago was an athlete made in the lab. He WAS science. Rocky had heart. Drago, by every standard was better than Rocky. Rocky still won. He had a natural gift.

So science will not lead to absolute truth. Some things, no matter how much they are studied and practised will always be better done by someone with natural talent.

Science may explain a lot, but it shows facts, it cannot tell a story. Facts may be open to interpretation.

Absolute truth will be reached through the mind, but not NECESSARILY through science.

Wow... I'm an engineer and I can't believe I just said all that. Science is my life.

Answer 3

Do you have any connection with science even a remote one ?

If you did you would know that there is nothing "absolute" about science, at least not anymore. These words "absolute", "complete", "totally" do not belong to science. They are more religious than scientific more tyrannical than rational. Even the best facts of science leave room for exceptions. Science discovers yes, it criticizes its fact all the time. The goal of science is to discover for the sake of discovering. Finding knowledge and truth in those discoveries is the job of thinkers.

Religions steal that knowledge and declare it absolute truth for the tired and closed minded who want to assume that the journey is over.

Answer 4

Science never "proves" anything, only "disproves." Science is a process of learning about the natural world and involves making hypotheses and attempting to disprove them. When a hypothesis stands up to testing, it hasn't really been proven, only that it didn't fail the current test.

In practicality we could always come up with a doubt or uncertainty and so nothing could be "proven".