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 Home : News : Skeptic's Debate 1999

The End of Science?

Has science reached its limits, as writer John Horgan contends in his bestsellers The End of Science and The Undiscovered Mind? What position should a skeptic take?

Opinions

There exists a simple logical sense in which Horgan must necessarily be correct about an end of science. If we accept that the world operates according to specific and unchanging rules, and that these rules are knowable, then once such rule has been found it does not need to be discovered again. Thus, the conic sections were known in classical antiquity. Johannes Kepler used the ellipse to identify the orbital path of satellites about a central body, and Newton used this insight to specify the law of gravity. These rules once found may be refined and modified, but to the extent they are correct, they need never be discovered again. If the universe is finite, as we now think, so is the number of rules that govern its processes. Thus, there will come a time when all the rules of physics, and hence all other scientific rules, will be known. Whether Horgan is correct in thinking we are close to this point, that I don't know. Personally, I doubt that we are near the end of science, but there is no question such a point exists.

Wolf Roder
California
wolf.roder@uc.edu

I say as science critics go Horgan is better informed than most. Since the majority of the press uncritically report every little minor finding in science as the best thing since sliced bread, it's good to have at least one journalist who is willing to say ``hey, is that even right, let alone significant?'' He over states his case for the end of science, but, so do the physicists who say we are on the verge of some final, fundamental understanding of the universe. Horgan is right that we are finding the limits to the classical model of science derived from physics. As the problems we study become more complex, they will of necessity involve more computer simulations and complex, non-parametric statistical models, and the theories will decreasingly depend on empirical results. But that's the nature of progress, the simple problems are solved first. Unfortunately, without clear and decisive data, there will always be wiggle room for disagreement so progress in fundamental discoveries is likely to slow.

I think Horgan can only be controversial if you hold to some idealized form of realism---as many skeptics, alas, do. The problems of knowledge, and how we know things, have been debated for the better part of this century and a good review of the philosophy of science would be time better than any nit-picking of Horgan. He's a journalist, for goddess sake. Let's go to the source and see what we find.

Mike Sofka
New York
sofkam@rpi.edu
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