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<p>It’s better than anything else, so we use it. Because what are our alternatives? Nothing. </p>
<p>But let’s not think of absolutes. Of course science is not perfect. But it can be close to perfect. If it’s close to perfect, I think it’s legitimate justification to use it. </p>
<p>And it does work for making predictions about our very little tiny world, even if those predictions cannot be extended into the future. The key question with science is CONSISTENCY, and the fact is that most observations we make nowadays is very consistent with what we’ve observed. In fact, most scientists have been VERY surprised with the consistency of the sciences (at least for the more fundamental sciences). There’s a Eugene Wigner essay “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of mathematics in the Sciences” that you can google up. the softer social sciences face larger problems with consistency. hm. </p>
<h1>I think one of the fundamental questions with science concerns the process with patterns. Science only works when you can observe patterns (in which case predictions are useless). With perfect patterns, science is perfect. With no patterns (random walk), science is near-useless. With near-perfect patterns, science does do a good job.</h1>
<p>of course though, ONE major issue that I’m debating with myself right now is the issue of global warming. Global warming is inevitable in the long term (since the sun is expanding). Yet, OTOH, there are clear causal relationships between human generated actions and other pollutants (especially particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, CFCs, etc). Their levels in the atmosphere have clearly risen with industrialization, and fallen with environmental laws. the same can be said for carbon dioxide. But yet, carbon dioxide does go in natural cycles. The question is, is it desirable to conform to natural cycles? hard to say… (and now that depends on a combination of both your moral axioms and your factual axioms).</p>