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The Limits of Science
"Science," writes Sir Peter Medawar, "is incomparably the most successful enterprise human beings have ever engaged upon." In this brief, brilliant book the Nobel laureate explores the nature and limitations of scientific pursuit. The three essays included touch on some of the largest questions known to Can science determine the existence of God? Is there one "scientific method" by which all the secrets of the universe can be discovered?
In "An Essay on Scians" (an early spelling of "science"), Medawar examines the process of scientific inquiry. Debunking the common belief that science is inductively structured, he claims that great leaps of imagination are required to determine the laws of nature and likens the process of scientific hypothesis to the creative acts of poets and artists. The question posed in "Can Scientific Discovery Be Premeditated?" is answered with a firm no. Sir Peter stresses the role of luck in the history of science and cites as examples of un-premeditated discoveries those of X-rays, HLA polymorphism, and the nature of the disease myasthenia gravis. In the title essay, Medawar distinguishes between "transcendent" questions, which are better left to religion, literature, and metaphysics, and questions about the organization and structure of the material universe. With regard to the latter, he concludes, there are no limits to the possibilities of scientific achievement. "This is science's greatest glory," writes Medawar, "for it entails that everything which is possible in principle can be done if the intention to do it is sufficiently resolute and long sustained."
In "An Essay on Scians" (an early spelling of "science"), Medawar examines the process of scientific inquiry. Debunking the common belief that science is inductively structured, he claims that great leaps of imagination are required to determine the laws of nature and likens the process of scientific hypothesis to the creative acts of poets and artists. The question posed in "Can Scientific Discovery Be Premeditated?" is answered with a firm no. Sir Peter stresses the role of luck in the history of science and cites as examples of un-premeditated discoveries those of X-rays, HLA polymorphism, and the nature of the disease myasthenia gravis. In the title essay, Medawar distinguishes between "transcendent" questions, which are better left to religion, literature, and metaphysics, and questions about the organization and structure of the material universe. With regard to the latter, he concludes, there are no limits to the possibilities of scientific achievement. "This is science's greatest glory," writes Medawar, "for it entails that everything which is possible in principle can be done if the intention to do it is sufficiently resolute and long sustained."
108 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 29, 2020
Less than a monograph and more akin to loosely collected musings by a research scientist who attempts to distinguish between the kinds of questions that science can answer and those that it cannot. The latter being the ultimate questions about beginnings, endings, and the purpose of being. That is where science ends and literature, metaphysics, and religion begin. However, Medawar doesn't inspire much confidence in those disciplines being able to answer such questions. Moreover, he seems equivocal about literature (viz. poetry) and religion and downright negative on myth and metaphysics.
Medawar attempts to support his views, both positive and negative, with short qualitative arguments but as a short overview of the philosophy of science, it misses the mark. However, he does propose some interesting ideas such as the Law of the Conservation of Information wherein the informational content of all statements will yield upon further explanation no information greater than that already contained in the statement. It is offered without proof and challenges the reader to find an exception; such ideas can provide the reader with food for further thought.
Medawar attempts to support his views, both positive and negative, with short qualitative arguments but as a short overview of the philosophy of science, it misses the mark. However, he does propose some interesting ideas such as the Law of the Conservation of Information wherein the informational content of all statements will yield upon further explanation no information greater than that already contained in the statement. It is offered without proof and challenges the reader to find an exception; such ideas can provide the reader with food for further thought.
January 24, 2018
The brevity and succinctness of this book is its triumph. An excruciatingly simple but important conclusion: there can be no answer to beginnings as such a concept requires acknowledgement of what must precede being; it is impossible to prove nothingness, for we have no concept of nothingness.
March 21, 2020
Livro excelente, Peter Medawar critica algo que se tornou comum hj em dia o cientificismo.
April 6, 2024
THREE ESSAYS ON THE ‘PHILOSOPHY’ AND ‘LIMITS’ OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE
Sir Peter Brian Medawar (1915-1987) was a Brazilian-British biologist and writer, who shared with Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for discovery of acquired immunological tolerance.”
He wrote in the Preface to this 1984 book, “This is a serious book, but a very short one. I decided to make it so for two chief reasons:… I have long thought that nearly all books on nearly all subjects… are much too long… The three essays which make up this book are in three different styles. For ‘An Essay on Scians’ I followed the aphoristic style… The second essay, ‘Can Scientific Discovery Be Premeditated?’ began as a lecture delivered [in] 1980… The principal essay, ‘The Limits of Science,’ is written in the format of a short book… The purpose of [this essay] … is simply to exculpate science from the reproach that science is quite unable to answer those ultimate questions… I show to be beyond the explanatory competence of science. But in spite of this failing, science is a great and glorious enterprise---the more successful … that human beings have ever engaged in.”
In the opening essay, he states, “The most heinous offense a scientist can commit is to declare to be true that which is not so… If a scientist is suspected of falsifying or inventing evidence to promote his material interests or to corroborate a pet hypothesis, he is relegated to a kind of half-world separated … by a curtain of disbelief... science can only proceed on a basis of confidence, so that scientists do not suspect each other of dishonesty or sharp practice, and believe each other unless there is a very good reason to do otherwise.” (Pg. 6)
He states, “I go along with the opinion of William Whewell, Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper that scientists do not make their discoveries by induction or by practice of any other one method…there is no such thing as a calculus of discovery or a schedule of rules by following which we are conducted to a truth.” (Pg. 16)
In his Abstract to the closing essay, he says, “There is an intrinsic, built-in limitation upon the growth of scientific understanding. It is not due to any cognitive incapacity. It is a logical limitation that turns on a ‘Law of Conservation of Information.’ It is not to science, therefore, but to metaphysic, imaginative literature or religion that we must turn for answers to questions having to do with first and last things. Because these answers neither arise out of nor require validation by empirical evidence, it is not useful or even meaningful to ask whether they are true or false. The question is whether or not they bring peace of mind to the anxiety of incomprehension and dispel the fear of the unknown.” (Pg. 59-60)
He observes, “The nature of science is such that a scientist goes on learning all his life---and must---and exults in the obligation upon him to do so. There is no determinate process of education at the conclusion of which a scientist… can pronounce himself ready at last to take part in the long struggle against ignorance and disease. It would be different is science had a goal that would be attained, but it has not… there can be in science be no apodictic certainty---that is, no finally conclusive certainty beyond the reach of criticism.” (Pg. 73)
He notes, “I ended the last chapter with the brave claim that there was no limit upon the power of science to answer questions of the kind that science can answer. If the ultimate questions can be answered---something I have no REASON to believe---we must seek transcendent answers, by which I mean answers that do not grow out of or need to be validated by empirical experience: answers that belong to the domains of myth, metaphysics, imaginative literature or religion. But, I was once asked, ‘might not the answer to a question such as ‘How did everything begin?’ be empirical in character?’ I believe not. We can hardly have empirical awareness of a frontier between being and nothingness without also having an empirical awareness of what lies on either side of it, and whereas the hither side of the frontier poses no special problem, for we can be empirically aware of that which is in being, there can be no empirical awareness of nothingness, so that if any such frontier exists it cannot in the domain of discourse of science and common sense.” (Pg. 88)
He acknowledges, “I regret my disbelief in God and religious answers generally, for I believe it would give satisfaction and comfort to many in need of it if it were possible to discover and propound good scientific and philosophic reasons to believe in God… Twice in my life I very nearly died as a result of cerebral vascular accidents… I neither cursed God for depriving me of the use of two limbs nor thanked and praised Him for sparing me the use of two others… I derived no comfort from religion or from the thought that God was looking after me… I do not believe … that God watches over the welfare of small children in the way that … fond parents do… I do not believe that God does so because there is no reason to believe it. I suppose that’s just my trouble: always wanting reasons.” (Pg. 96-97)
This book will be of keen interest to those interested in the philosophy of science.
Sir Peter Brian Medawar (1915-1987) was a Brazilian-British biologist and writer, who shared with Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for discovery of acquired immunological tolerance.”
He wrote in the Preface to this 1984 book, “This is a serious book, but a very short one. I decided to make it so for two chief reasons:… I have long thought that nearly all books on nearly all subjects… are much too long… The three essays which make up this book are in three different styles. For ‘An Essay on Scians’ I followed the aphoristic style… The second essay, ‘Can Scientific Discovery Be Premeditated?’ began as a lecture delivered [in] 1980… The principal essay, ‘The Limits of Science,’ is written in the format of a short book… The purpose of [this essay] … is simply to exculpate science from the reproach that science is quite unable to answer those ultimate questions… I show to be beyond the explanatory competence of science. But in spite of this failing, science is a great and glorious enterprise---the more successful … that human beings have ever engaged in.”
In the opening essay, he states, “The most heinous offense a scientist can commit is to declare to be true that which is not so… If a scientist is suspected of falsifying or inventing evidence to promote his material interests or to corroborate a pet hypothesis, he is relegated to a kind of half-world separated … by a curtain of disbelief... science can only proceed on a basis of confidence, so that scientists do not suspect each other of dishonesty or sharp practice, and believe each other unless there is a very good reason to do otherwise.” (Pg. 6)
He states, “I go along with the opinion of William Whewell, Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper that scientists do not make their discoveries by induction or by practice of any other one method…there is no such thing as a calculus of discovery or a schedule of rules by following which we are conducted to a truth.” (Pg. 16)
In his Abstract to the closing essay, he says, “There is an intrinsic, built-in limitation upon the growth of scientific understanding. It is not due to any cognitive incapacity. It is a logical limitation that turns on a ‘Law of Conservation of Information.’ It is not to science, therefore, but to metaphysic, imaginative literature or religion that we must turn for answers to questions having to do with first and last things. Because these answers neither arise out of nor require validation by empirical evidence, it is not useful or even meaningful to ask whether they are true or false. The question is whether or not they bring peace of mind to the anxiety of incomprehension and dispel the fear of the unknown.” (Pg. 59-60)
He observes, “The nature of science is such that a scientist goes on learning all his life---and must---and exults in the obligation upon him to do so. There is no determinate process of education at the conclusion of which a scientist… can pronounce himself ready at last to take part in the long struggle against ignorance and disease. It would be different is science had a goal that would be attained, but it has not… there can be in science be no apodictic certainty---that is, no finally conclusive certainty beyond the reach of criticism.” (Pg. 73)
He notes, “I ended the last chapter with the brave claim that there was no limit upon the power of science to answer questions of the kind that science can answer. If the ultimate questions can be answered---something I have no REASON to believe---we must seek transcendent answers, by which I mean answers that do not grow out of or need to be validated by empirical experience: answers that belong to the domains of myth, metaphysics, imaginative literature or religion. But, I was once asked, ‘might not the answer to a question such as ‘How did everything begin?’ be empirical in character?’ I believe not. We can hardly have empirical awareness of a frontier between being and nothingness without also having an empirical awareness of what lies on either side of it, and whereas the hither side of the frontier poses no special problem, for we can be empirically aware of that which is in being, there can be no empirical awareness of nothingness, so that if any such frontier exists it cannot in the domain of discourse of science and common sense.” (Pg. 88)
He acknowledges, “I regret my disbelief in God and religious answers generally, for I believe it would give satisfaction and comfort to many in need of it if it were possible to discover and propound good scientific and philosophic reasons to believe in God… Twice in my life I very nearly died as a result of cerebral vascular accidents… I neither cursed God for depriving me of the use of two limbs nor thanked and praised Him for sparing me the use of two others… I derived no comfort from religion or from the thought that God was looking after me… I do not believe … that God watches over the welfare of small children in the way that … fond parents do… I do not believe that God does so because there is no reason to believe it. I suppose that’s just my trouble: always wanting reasons.” (Pg. 96-97)
This book will be of keen interest to those interested in the philosophy of science.
June 8, 2019
Great companion to Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discoveries.
October 29, 2019
Very well written essay on what science is and is not about.
February 11, 2022
three short and insightful essays. very funny. i could tell sir medawar’s love and respect of science throughout—made my heart melt.
November 19, 2020
Il linguaggio è semplice e chiaro in modo da essere fruibile a tutti, così come l’idea di scienza che propone Medawar: «[La scienza] è accessibile quasi a tutti e rappresenta una delle più preziose opportunità che una società liberale e democratica possa offrire. Inoltre la scienza è già di per sé così varia da soddisfare ogni temperamento.»
Le varie riflessioni sono talvolta punteggiate da piacevoli ed esplicativi aneddoti che hanno caratterizzato sia in positivo che in negativo la storia della scienza, con anche dei racconti personali legati alla carriera dell’autore.
Lettura davvero molto interessante e decisamente consigliata.
Le varie riflessioni sono talvolta punteggiate da piacevoli ed esplicativi aneddoti che hanno caratterizzato sia in positivo che in negativo la storia della scienza, con anche dei racconti personali legati alla carriera dell’autore.
Lettura davvero molto interessante e decisamente consigliata.
February 7, 2021
Una raccolta di vari scritti, che, a tratti, risente dell'età in cui sono stati scritti.
May 4, 2022
Another solid little gem.
April 29, 2011
3 razones para leer este libro: es breve, es prosa de lectura sumamente amena (puro ensayo inglés, pues), y sobre todo es útil para aliviar los efectos de algunos vicios intelectuales: el superficial positivismo, la pereza intelectual y las estériles disputas, siempre tan nuevas y siempre tan añejas, de creyentes contra ateos. El planteamiento de Medawar es simple: no se puede pedir a la ciencia que responda las últimas preguntas de la misma manera que no se puede hacer volar una locomotora. Pero la ciencia, y la locomotora, vaya si son buenísimas para hacer lo que les corresponde en su campo de acción.
Nota al margen: es de lamentar que este libro ya no esté en el catálogo del Fondo de Cultura Económica. Y me extraña que incluso la versión inglesa tenga tan pocos lectores en Goodreads. En serio, hay que leer más seguido a Medawar, por salud mental y espiritual, y también por pura diversión.
Nota al margen: es de lamentar que este libro ya no esté en el catálogo del Fondo de Cultura Económica. Y me extraña que incluso la versión inglesa tenga tan pocos lectores en Goodreads. En serio, hay que leer más seguido a Medawar, por salud mental y espiritual, y también por pura diversión.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews