The fact of scientific progress is only an opinion, and nothing - TopicsExpress

The fact of scientific progress is only an opinion, and nothing more than that. Progress always depends on fixed parameters that themselves are non-observable which no amount of scientific inquiry is able to provide for us. That laws of nature are descriptive cannot be demonstrated, since parameters are never arrived at - they are presupposed and are chosen, which begs the question: What criterion is used in order to choose a fixed parameter which would serve as the model for a graph in order to even determine progress? The parameters themselves are chosen, read into nature, and used as the graph, and no amount of variables are able to prove this. There will always be un-addressed variables, and even these are chosen arbitrarily. Once again, this may only serve as a practical purpose to attempt to cure disease, and if for example a cancer is treated successfully, this would be by providence of God and not through the fixed parameter, for how would we even know what a fixed parameter is unless we establish the criterion upon which parameters are set? The major pitfall that scientific inquiry proceeding from rational empiricism ultimately falls into is that it is unable to cross the divide between generals and particulars. Generals (abstraction) cannot be read into particulars (Dons red house). So a law cannot be used as a criterion to demonstrate anything about a particular house in X neighborhood. The reverse stands - particulars cannot arrive at generals. This is where measurement, in order to address a particular case will not be a fact, but an opinion at best. If a person is cured of cancer, it does not follow that the parameters or the hidden criterion was indubitably set. What we can only witness is that a person was cured. Again, it does not follow that the criterion or the parameters were the foundational method by which the cure arrived thus arriving at a certainty that progress has occured, so although a patient was cured, still no scientific progress was determined precisely because no fixed parameters were determined. By faith, the no doubt hard-working scientists (Christian, Muslim, or not) have arrived at a cure, but not an empirical explanation that could determine scientific progress. We may agree with their opinion and continue, by faith, seeing patients cured - but not by and epistemologically fixed methodology or structure, only by faith and hard work at building machines, attending patients, and using practical steps as means to an end (to relieve people of disease). The practitioner of this noble but highly limited enterprise may scoff, but our skepticism is by no means unfounded. The hard questions are hardly addressed, usually by philosophers of science. Progress remains elusive, yet in this society, we have the freedom to opine.