The Limitations of Science

Science these days seems all but omnipotent. Its practitioners build nuclear weapons powerful enough to pulverize much of the world; they put together space vehicles with which man can probe deep into the solar system and beyond. The time seems close when experimenters may actually create life in the laboratory. Small wonder, says Dr. Vannevar Bush, 75, honorary board chairman of M.I.T., that to the general public, scientists are "supermen" who "can do anything, given enough money."

Many people, says Bush, believe "that scientists can establish a complete set of facts and relations about the universe, all neatly proved, and that on this firm basis men can securely establish their personal philosophy, their religion, free from doubt or error."

Mechanical World. All this, says Bush, who is recognized as the father of the modern analogue computer, is a crass misconception. In the current issue of FORTUNE, Bush explains that so exaggerated a faith in the powers of science is a residue of a naive 18th century belief in absolute "laws of na ture, based on observation and measurement." In this view, man himself is "merely an automaton, his fancied choice of acts an illusion," and the universe a great mechanical contraption ticking away according to a "neat set of equations." Thus, by observation, man "would be able to understand all nature and predict all the future."

As a matter of simple fact, says Dr. Bush, "science never proves anything in an absolute sense. It accumulates data by observation and measurement. From an assemblage of such data the scientist constructs a hypothesis, a formula that expresses the relationships he finds." As soon as further observation shows that the working hypothesis is faulty, it is replaced by another which seems more nearly correct. "Fortunately, scientific endeavor does not have to be perfect to yield results. The magnificent structure of dynamics was based on a differential calculus that was, logically, full of holes." Kepler's laws explaining planetary motion were based on calculations now shown to be mere approximations. Even the Euclidean underpinnings of Newton's iron law of gravitation have become only one of the possible systems of geometry.

The Wonderful Why. Science has gone far toward delineating the probable nature of the universe. It has even pried into the mechanism by which the human brain thinks. But beyond this, says Bush, science cannot go. It offers no proof, "it does not even produce evidence," on the two vital realities of man's being, his free will and his consciousness. Thus those "who follow science blindly come to a barrier beyond which they cannot see." They end "where they began, except that the framework, the background, against which they ponder is far more elaborate, far more probable than was the evidence when an ancient shepherd guided his flock toward the setting sun and wondered why he was there and where he was going."

Science, when understood properly, makes man humble in his ignorance and smallness. Dr. Bush concludes that man will "follow science where it leads, but not where it cannot lead. And, with a pause, he will admit a faith."

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