Chapter 7: Relative Heaven

Footnote: The Scientific Method

The human senses are limited. The human mind is fallible. A true picture of reality can therefore never be beheld by human eyes. Nevertheless, the formal method of scientific investigation is always bound to present a far clearer view of reality than passive observation and casual consideration.

Driven primarily by natural human curiosity, science's formal approach to finding out about life, the world and reality goes roughly as follows.

Flow chart of the scientific method.

The laws that govern nature are thus revealed by science and recorded for posterity in the formal language of mathematics. Here they can rest, often for centuries. But sooner or later, they are exploited by engineers to develop ways and means of marshalling the forces of nature for the economic and cultural benefit of mankind.

Whether exploited economically or not, this knowledge of how nature works is in itself vital to a balanced view of reality and how best to live within it. I look with fear up on a world which is governed largely by those whose education has been exclusively in the humanities. History, Law, Art and Language focus incestuously on fallible human reasoning which is unanchored to the more absolute frame of reference of natural law.