Can science answer all questions?
Science has transformed the world around us. After hundreds of thousands of years existing as a species, in only a few centuries, the world has been changed forever. The scientific method has so far been the most reliable way human beings have ever discovered for gaining knowledge and resolving disputes about facts (save perhaps mathematics).
Given that it is so reliable, can we say that all questions can be answered scientifically, that is, by the application of the scientific method to evidence?
If so, then we are certain to gain all knowledge in the universe that can be had in a reliable way.
If not, then a further question is: can we know anything that cannot be obtained through the scientific method?
Before we get into these questions, it’s best to define terms. Many people implicitly assume these days that to know something is to obtain it from science. That is not what I mean here because then the logic would be a tautology (a self-implying statement). That is: to know = to obtain with the scientific method. If that were the case, we might as well stop now.
There is a whole field of philosophy about what it means to know something called epistemology. I am not going to get into all the details here. Instead, when I say you can know something I mean precisely this: that you are…
