Hirondelle: forum

I will find you.

By the "scientific method" I'm guessing you mean that of the Natural Sciences. Even if we reject the idea of it providing us with knowledge, we find that the logic on which the whole nature of investigation stands is flawed. What I mean is that the mistakes we stumble upon in results are not only due to errors in designing or doing the experiments, but sometimes also to inconsistences in the mothod itself.

Why do I say this? If we were to go with a purely logical approach, we could break down any form of reasoning to: 1) If A, then B. 2) A. Conclusion: B. This is what we call deduction (although many also give that name to abduction), and it's the only logically sound form of reasoning the scientific method uses. Now, if we wanted to build our whole understanding of the universe by deducing, firstly, we would need a handful of statements we assume to be correct (axioms); if we committed the slightest inconsistence there, it could affect the whole theory. Exact Sciences use this sort of systems, but Natural Sciences have the Universe to answer to. Since, without a solid, objective method to percieve the Universe (there isn't such thing), we in fact can't decide which statements are the absolute truth, scientists decided to put two other formulas into use.

Abduction (which, as I stated before, is often called deduction), has the logical form of 1) If A, then B. 2) B. 3) A at least as likely as any other cause for B (this observation is not based on logic, but on the evaluation of uncontrolled agents). Conclusion: A. This, as you can surely appreciate, is not solid reasoning, in terms of our (my?) ideal axiomatic system. Abduction provides results which can be continuously debated among the scientific community and is the main essence of the "un-reasonable doubt" you pointed out in your post. It does, however, successfully give us information regarding the universe, granted the apparent plausibility of a cause over others. Still, we are missing a way to get (somewhat) reliable information out of our observations, which brings us to my favourite method: induction.

Not to be confused with induction in Maths, this is probably the oldest formula I'll be mentioning in here, and constitutes the basis of our prediction of the future. It looks like this: 1) In many instances, when A, also B. Conclusion: If A, then B. It's hilarious just to think of it as logically consistent.

Now, these three formulas (and some logical equivalents which I'll skip) are what the scientific method of Natural Sciences is made of. As you can see, two of them are beyond faulty, and still, they are the ones that get us to connect with the Universe. We may say that the problem is in logic itself, but if we rebuilt it around this we'd be just ripping a solid discipline off its rigor, instead of granting it to a more... flexible area. In conclusion, then, even if we disregard every piece of information the natural method gives us, we will still find faults in its very logic. I wouldn't say it's infallible at all, but I certainly believe it's a very good way of grasping the mechanics of the Universe.