The End of Science

People expect a lot from science—that it will eradicate disease, put us in contact with aliens, create robots that do our laundry—but the claims sometimes border on extravagant. In a New York Times essay this week, Dennis Overbye continues this trend by arguing that science (what he calls the “most successful human activity of all time”) elevates democracy. Because science does not purport to provide ethical guidance, he says, it transcends the divisions of culture and creed to bring people together.

Many may argue that Overbye is flawed in his portrayal of science as a beacon of objective truth. Certainly, a large part of the aura around “Science” is derived from its perception as merely a series of impartial discoveries. But Overbye’s deeper premise—that science must separate itself from the metaphysical—too often goes unquestioned. If scientists truly follow the principles of openness their method espouses, they cannot rule out the possibility of a purpose behind the process.

In that sense, the greatest strength of science is also its greatest weakness. Science advances through perpetual disagreement and revision; scientists establish rigorous methods and standards to work toward the achievement of truth, and never seek to predict outcomes unconditionally. These practices allow for the exhilaration of unexpected discoveries. But it comes with a caveat: When the scientific method is turned inward to examine its own premises, it becomes destabilized. An ideological breach opens, in which, theoretically, a God or ethics could exist.

Indeed, for all the innovations it has engendered, the very goal of science remains unknown. What will happen when we learn all there is to know about the natural world? It’s possible that reaching that stage will destroy our humanity, causing us to march inexorably toward an uncontrollable determinism. According to this view, once we are fully cognizant of our biology, our thoughts and desires can be predicted, and therefore no longer belong to us. We will not fall in love, but rather possess a body in which environmental stimuli allow the activation and repression of certain genes, leading to the release of hormones that produce perceived feelings.

But the alternate scenario is also possible: that upon exhausting the natural world, science has the ability to someday reveal hitherto unfamiliar regions of metaphysics. Consider, for example, the explosion in understanding of the cell, the fundamental unit of life. The expanding field of systems biology elucidates breathtaking networks of interactions, as thousands upon thousands of molecules are precisely regulated to perform the simplest of functions. Metaphysically, many explanations could exist for the arguably beautiful nature of these networks.

And the principle naturally extends beyond biology. While science owes its success to its rigorous methods, the search for truth is much more than a process. There is an end truth to be sought. Indeed, while Einstein may have been right to contend that “I have never obtained any ethical values from my scientific work,” it must be remembered that then, as now, science was incomplete.

Scientists may now lack the means to provide metaphysical answers to humanity’s deepest questions, but the values it espouses leave open the possibility that one day, these answers may be attainable. Overbye and others are right to praise science, but they do so for the wrong reasons. It is unduly pessimistic—as well as unsound methodologically—to assume that science can or should be separated from the religious, the metaphysical, or the ethical. After all, no good scientist should reject a hypothesis before it is tested.

Bilal A. Siddiqui ’11, a Crimson editorial writer, is a molecular and cellular biology concentrator in Winthrop House.