Science and Philosophy

Jan 29

Science and Philosophy

Will Durant said “The sciences are the windows through which philosophy views the world”. I could not make out much from this quote, but I guess he is trying to say that science and philosophy go hand in hand. But my view is that they are quite opposite to each other.

There are many things that are beyond “proven” science. To bring them under the scope of science, scientists define theories around them. This allows them to talk about them in the scope of science. But just defining theory doesn’t mean that it is true. Theory is accepted not on the grounds of its certitude, but on the grounds that nobody has yet disproved it.

“The best anyone can say of a theory is that it has not been disproved.” –Ferguson

This principle forms the basis of modern scientific knowledge. >

Ironically, the same principle is considered a fallacy (mistaken belief) in classical philosophy; “the fallacy of argument from ignorance”. An argument that says something is true because nobody has proved it false, or that something is false because nobody has proved it true, is held to be invalid according to this rule of fallacy.