Quote:
Originally Posted by TimMason
Blakemore's answer is similar to Beppe's: science cannot describe everything. On the other hand, she believes that it is capable of *explaining* everything.
Are scientists even interested in describing everything? Perhaps they are interested in describing as well as possible those bits of reality that test their theories.
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To take the second part first: I suspect scientists are not very interested in explaining everything. Most seem content to operate within their regional ontologies, some explore the edges of those ontologies but only to see what falls within their boundaries.
To take the first part second: if "everything" means something like "all that is known" then there is no a priori reason why science - the individual sciences operating within their regional ontologies - should not explain this, nor, so far as I can see, why science should not also describe it. However, if "everything" means all that is known plus some stuff we don't know, then to expect science to explain and/or describe this is to set science up for failure. Only metaphysicians and religious people have either the time or the inclination to fret about whether that of which we know nothing is describable or explainable.