"Phaedrus' break occurred when, as a result of laboratory experience he became interested in hypotheses as entities in themselves. He noticed again and again in his lab work that what might seem to be the hardest part of scientific work, thinking up the hypotheses, was invariably the easiest. The act of formally writing everything down precisely and clearly seemed to suggest them. As he was testing hypothesis number one by experimental method a flood of other hypotheses would come to mind, and as he was testing these, some more came to mind, and as he was testing these, still more came to mind until it became painfully evident that as he continued testing hypotheses and eliminating or confirming them their number did not decrease. It actually increased as he went along.
"....It pleased him never to run out of hypotheses....It was only months after...that he began to have some doubts....
"If the purpose of the scientific method is to select from among a multitude of hypotheses, and if the number of hypotheses grows faster than experimental method can handle, then it is clear that all hypotheses can never be tested. If all hypotheses cannot be tested, then the results of any experiment are inconclusive anPd the entire scientific method falls short of its goal of establishing proven knowledge."
Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Phaedrus then begins to study the history of science and confronts the ever shortening 'half life' of scientific truth and he is profoundly shaken - enough so that a promising career as a biochemist came to a crashing halt. The chapter as a whole is worth reading by anyone who has a serious interest in the philosophy of science.
No comments:
Post a Comment