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发帖数: 6300 | 1 Science has limits: A few things that science does not do
Science is powerful. It has generated the knowledge that allows us to call a
friend halfway around the world with a cell phone, vaccinate a baby against
polio, build a skyscraper, and drive a car. And science helps us answer
important questions like which areas might be hit by a tsunami after an
earthquake, how did the hole in the ozone layer form, how can we protect our
crops from pests, and who were our evolutionary ancestors? With such
breadth, the reach of science might seem to be endless, but it is not.
Science has definite limits.
Science doesn't make moral judgments
When is euthanasia the right thing to do? What universal rights should
humans have? Should other animals have rights? Questions like these are
important, but scientific research will not answer them. Science can help us
learn about terminal illnesses and the history of human and animal rights
— and that knowledge can inform our opinions and decisions. But ultimately,
individual people must make moral judgments. Science helps us describe how
the world is, but it cannot make any judgments about whether that state of
affairs is right, wrong, good, or bad.
Science doesn't make aesthetic judgments
Science can reveal the frequency of a G-flat and how our eyes relay
information about color to our brains, but science cannot tell us whether a
Beethoven symphony, a Kabuki performance, or a Jackson Pollock painting is
beautiful or dreadful. Individuals make those decisions for themselves based
on their own aesthetic criteria.
Science doesn't tell you how to use scientific knowledge
Although scientists often care deeply about how their discoveries are used,
science itself doesn't indicate what should be done with scientific
knowledge. Science, for example, can tell you how to recombine DNA in new
ways, but it doesn't specify whether you should use that knowledge to
correct a genetic disease, develop a bruise-resistant apple, or construct a
new bacterium. For almost any important scientific advance, one can imagine
both positive and negative ways that knowledge could be used. Again, science
helps us describe how the world is, and then we have to decide how to use
that knowledge.
Science doesn't draw conclusions about supernatural explanations
Do gods exist? Do supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These
questions may be important, but science won't help you answer them.
Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition,
beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what can
be studied by science. For many, such questions are matters of personal
faith and spirituality.
Moral judgments, aesthetic judgments, decisions about applications of
science, and conclusions about the supernatural are outside the realm of
science, but that doesn't mean that these realms are unimportant. In fact,
domains such as ethics, aesthetics, and religion fundamentally influence
human societies and how those societies interact with science. Neither are
such domains unscholarly. In fact, topics like aesthetics, morality, and
theology are actively studied by philosophers, historians, and other
scholars. However, questions that arise within these domains generally
cannot be resolved by science.
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12 | n********n
发帖数: 8336 | |
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