>> I expect that several of the regular participants will be happy
>>to defend the position that the scientific model is a useful one but
>>that it has its limitations and blind spots.
David R. Wrote:
>What limitations and blind spots exist in the scientific model? If there
>were any such limitations and blind spots, they could be taken into account
>as part of the model.
Ken McE Writes:
The Scientific Model is IMO the best model of reality available at this
time. However this does not mean that it is perfect. I would consider
it an odd coincidence if *I* happened to be born just at the exact
moment when our understanding of reality became total and perfect. I do
think we are filling in blind spots and expanding limits as we go, and
do not know what limits this process may have.
Just as human eyesight shows only a slice of what is, so do our models
, including science, show only a slice of what is. Things that are much
larger, smaller, faster, or slower, than us exist, but are hard to
notice and understand.
If I spend time with a child or animal I will usually observe that they
are intelligent and alert. However despite years of education, and
millennia of neural design, testing, and improvement, I can often see
limits in their ability to reason, observe and understand.
If I consider that *I* am the final and last word in intelligence and
reason, and that civilization has nothing important left to find, then I
could assume that I do in fact know it all.
If I consider that I am just an evolutionary way station, a stop on the
road from Homo Erectus to Homo Superior, then it does seem reasonable
that just as I can show a child the truth more clearly, so could a
superior being show me scientific theory more clearly.
As time goes by I would hope that the scientific model will continue to
improve, just as it has always done. I am not however, willing to
simply assume that it is all done yet.