WHAT ARE THE LIMITS TO SCIENCE?
Sir Peter Brian Medawar (1915 – 2 October 1987) was a British biologist and writer, who won the Nobel Prize in 1960 for work on graft rejection and the discovery of acquired immune tolerance, now fundamental to tissue and organ transplants. He is regarded as the "father of transplantation”. He is remembered for his wit both in person and in popular writings. Stephen Jay Gould referred to him as "the cleverest man I have ever known”.
What a disappointment this book tuned out to be. After a great start- humble, funny, making small jokes at science culture and showing a wide breadth of knowledge in different areas of culture, especially poetry, and right out of the gate admitting that science has no role in creating a government - he goes all in for fulsome praise of Science, calling it by far man’s highest achievement. The “limits of science” appear to be almost none it turns out, besides “first and last causes”. Medawar ends the book with a ringing defense of his atheism.
He does spend an entire paragraph on Metaphysics. (Sir Francis Bacon said that his “method” would end Metaphysics!). Medawar doesn’t go quite that far. He admits some value in metaphysics. Strangely, he finds ‘fraud” to be a much bigger issue in metaphysics than in “science”.
He make gratuitous praise of fluoridation of water out of nowhere as if to say YES science should have a place in public policy and he of course praises vaccination and repeatedly brings up Edward Jenner, the British scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines and created the smallpox vaccine.
Medawar does say “I do not believe that, and indeed I consider it a cosmic blunder to believe…that the exercise of reason is sufficient to explain our condition and where necessary to remedy it” and “I fear we may never be able to answer the questions about the first and last things that have been the subject of this short essay- questions to do with the origin, purpose and destiny of man…”
This statement is as far as Medawar will go with any perception of his that Science has limits.
It seems to pain him to admit this and he spends little time examining what this means, ending the above sentence with “..we know however that as individuals and as political people, we do have some say in what comes next, so what could our destiny be except what we make it?”
“What we make it” means how do we use “science” within politics, and since science, as Medawar admits, is useless in government, this difficult question is almost completely ignored.
In terms of other limits, no mention is made that science has no idea at all of how a thought is formed in the the chimical soup of the brain. Where does thought come from? How does a memory of that thought get “stored” and recalled? Will science ever have any clue at all? The very basis of science itself, thinking and reason, will always be a mystery to science because human consciousness is a mystery to science and it even appears to be beyond science. So then, how should government and science function? Who should do the advising? Medawar makes no mention of the strange brew and enormous opportunity for fraud and corruption where science meets government making policy that creates commerce and profit. Fraud in science is much more remunerative than fraud in metaphysics.
Medawar blithely ignores the big questions while seeming to address them. He did say he wanted to write a short book…but he could have at least thrown these questions out there as areas needing to be addressed. These issues are of critical importance need to ongoing discussion, debate and trial and error. Perhaps they are not truly solvable with any certainty. But let’s at least admit these questions exist!
So what are the limits of science? Science is great for mechanics- but once the line from chemistry to a living organism is crossed into biology, science needs to admit that it can rarely if ever provide much certainty, despite a Nobel Prize. Using physics to be a doctor or a health coach is like using religion to form a government.
Biological life is too complex, and the incredible accomplishments of science in the technosphere of buildings and bridges and gadgets and cell phones and airplanes doesn’t translate in the same way to biology, and the improvement of life expectancy and quality of life (although these claims are debatable, maybe ancient Sumerians lived as well as modern Americans) for humans is based almost solely on electricity, improved transportation resulting in improved nutrition, all created by the mechanical, sciences- the Physics.
Science is nowhere near close to understand life, but it has made great strides in understanding Physics. Life is infinitely more complex than physics because it includes the aspect of consciousness and the emotions. How does Consciousness fit with Physics?
The mechanical parts of life (molecules and atoms) are communicating with each other, somehow, through consciousness.
How hydrogen reacts with oxygen can be sorted out. It’s mechanical/electrical. It’s Physics. But when the hypothalamus gland releases a hormone that triggers the pituitary gland to release a hormone that triggers the adrenal gland to release a hormone that then regulates body temperature, sweat glands and glucose metabolism we are in an entirely different area - where there are so many different inputs that actual science for the controlling of all variables is impossible. How does the CRH hormone released by the hypothalamus know where to go…how does it recognize the pituitary gland? How does it dock in exactly the right place in the pituitary gland which is in a totally different location? How then does the ACTH hormone released by the pituitary gland travel to the kidney to dock in the adrenal grand which then releases the cortisol that travels to multiple other organs triggering increased heart rate and further nervous and endocrine system responses? In a split second? This physical part of our existence is triggered by the emotional and mental side of our existence which is METAPHYSICAL isn’t it Mr. Medawar?
Kudos to science for all the remarkable discoveries regarding the pathways of molecules in the body but science needs to admit that it has created more questions than it has answered. How do those molecules know what to do?
With such a large degree of uncertainty surrounding the near infinity of complex biology, of just a single person, creating policy based on an always uncertain science for a collective of 350 million adds yet another layer of complexity to any science effecting a political decision. Since each individual has a unique biochemistry and then each group of people has a unique social structure, making policy decisions using “science” may give little aid or comfort and may make things much worse. Wrongly prescribes or bad medicine itself is the third leading cause of death in America. There’s the thalidomide disaster, nuclear weapons, mercury and aluminium in vaccines and the fiasco of the global response to Covid.
Science Will Win? Trust The Science? What a joke.
It is often the Science that kills us.
Science needs to address these issues and blanket mandates regarding individual health procedures need to be taken off the table.
Perhaps we should focus for now on basic issues like keeping water clean and cleaner air guidelines for instance, with actual repeatable science. Science has become corrupt. For instance, the science on fluoride has, since Medawar’s book was published, shown fluoride to be more toxic than lead, to lower IQ, and to have little effect on the health of teeth when put into water. (It needs to be applied directly, like in toothpaste) Would Medawar read THAT science and change his stance on his public policy advice on flouridation? One would certainly hope so.