• Question: Can everything be explained by science?

    Asked by jewlz to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 26 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      I think so.

      One grey area is ‘conciousness’, or self awareness. I think that I am aware of what I am doing, but that all of my thoughts and the processes going on in my head can be explained from a chemistry/physics point of view, it’s just that it is very difficult to do this. Some other people say ‘it is too complicated to explain in this way, and so it there must be another explanation’, or something along those lines.

      If science is a way of observing something, and coming up with a theory that fits the observation and can predict other behaviour, then this process can be used on anything. The theories are never ‘correct’, as there will always be something that doesn’t fit the theory, but when you find this, you just need to come up with a new theory.

    • Photo: Philippa Bird

      Philippa Bird answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Argh, that’s a tough one. As a scientist, I was about to say “Yes, of course, definitely”, but then I thought about “the grace of God which passes all human understanding”. Of course, you could explain religion using science – social science, evolution – but I am willing to believe there are some things we can’t explain using science.

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Eventually, perhaps everything can be. Right now, there are lots of things that scientists do not know.

Comments