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Western technological science is directly responsible for the greatest increase in standard of living in human history. It has also led to the development of the most destructive weapons in human history. The scientific project has allowed humanity to overcome nature and master their environment. Despite this success, science continues to push the boundaries and promises new technological revolutions to continuously reinvent our world. Such unparalleled power requires tremendous responsibility from all involved, but particularly in reference to the developers and practitioners, known as researchers and engineers. This responsibility can only be developed through deep engagement with the scientific method and its underlying philosophy.

To understand science, it is best to start at the beginning and observe its evolution. Science’s early iterations can be traced to Ancient Greece in the form of philosophy, where thinkers used reason and observation to understand both the world and the human experience. Through the development of philosophy, two fields emerged that would go on to define
science; metaphysics–the study of the outside world, and epistemology–the study of knowledge. From these fields emerged the natural sciences, where the outside world is studied using the scientific method. The focus on the outside world hails from metaphysics, while the scientific method serves as an epistemological framework for how we, as human beings, can generate knowledge. Through making observations we create hypotheses about the world, and then test those hypotheses with experiments, deriving conclusions from the results.��

The scientific focus was placed on the natural and observable world, that which can be both observed and tested, and whatever can’t be observed or tested has typically been left in the realm of pure philosophy. Despite the success of modern scientific methods, they remain surrounded by epistemological landmines. The most obvious of these landmines is the problem of induction. Induction is a method of proof that expands a specific case to make a general claim. For example, if every measurement of the mass of an electron is consistent at 9.1*10-31 kg, and a lot of measurements have been made, we conclude that the mass of an electron is, in fact, 9.1*10-31 kg, within some error associated with the measurements. However, induction is not always correct. We can show this by imagining a scientist turkey on a farm who observes that every day at 6:00am the farmer feeds the turkeys. The scientist turkey, after hundreds of observations, announces to the other turkeys he has discovered a law of the universe, dubbed the “turkey time law”, which states that the farmer feeds the turkeys every day at exactly 6:00 am. The scientist turkey, observing the time to be 5:55 am, predicts that the farmer will feed them in precisely five minutes. However, while the farmer does arrive at 6:00 am, he does so without food, instead slaughtering the turkeys in preparation for Thanksgiving. Induction’s fatal flaw is its reliance on assuming that observations reveal insight about the underlying mechanism of a process, which is not always true. The mass of the electron suffered a similar problem when it was discovered that the measured mass deviated significantly from the theoretical mass. The initial failure catalyzed the development of the Higgs mechanism which proposes a solution to the discrepancy. Clearly, measuring the mass of the electron does not provide insight into why or how it has mass.

Naturally, science isn’t solely observation, researchers also employ reason and logic to deduce implications of observations and find fundamental knowledge. Witnessing a bird take
flight does not grant understanding into how the bird flies, or why it does. Understanding the phenomena of flight in birds requires understanding the physics of flight, the bird’s biology, and evolutionary history–in other words, the how and why. Therefore, even an observation must be supported by logic, and a claim of knowledge must be supported by a logical proof.
If a valid proof is provided, then the claim must be true. However, proofs always rely on additional claims, and each claim will require an additional proof. These new proofs will have unproven claims which require additional proofs, and so on, ad infinitum. An infinite number of proofs is required to validate a claim, this creates a paradox known as infinite regress.

Let’s instead try an argument that doesn’t rely on any other claims: only untrustworthy people run for president, and the fact that politicians are untrustworthy is proof. The premise is only untrustworthy people will run for president, and the proof given is that politicians are untrustworthy. This argument relies on the conclusion (politicians are untrustworthy) to prove the premise (only untrustworthy people run for president). This is known as a circular argument, and is considered a logical fallacy. Therefore, claims cannot be logically proven in this way, and no knowledge can be generated.��

We can try a third approach, what if we arbitrarily stop the infinite regress somewhere and take a claim as true without proof. This is known as an axiomatic approach or an appeal to dogma. Typically axioms are thought of as innately true or common sense. For instance, the idea that knowledge requires validation to be true is the central axiom of this argument, and an appeal to common sense. To agree with that axiom is to accept that there are limits to our knowledge based on our inability to create valid proofs. To reject this axiom means believing that knowledge requires no proof, making it impossible to determine what is and isn’t true. Even this argument, known as the Munchausen Trilemma, falls victim to itself, demonstrating the difficult–if not impossible–nature of proving we know anything. Clearly, both observations and claims of knowledge are dubious ground. Unfortunately, there is no one size fits all solution to answer the questions “what do we know” and “how do we know it." Instead, scientists and engineers need to be able to engage with the epistemological underpinnings of science and decide for themselves what constitutes a satisfactory proof, and what observations can be trusted.
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The only way forward for science is through epistemology. As such, we need philosophical-scientists who understand what constitutes knowledge, and can integrate it into their scientific work. One such philosophical-scientist is a PhD candidate in material science at the ������ý���� named John Rynk. In addition to his work in polymer physics, he enjoys woodworking and philosophy. When asked about philosophy’s place in science, he responded with his motto, “The most important part of research is having strong epistemological foundations.” In and outside of his research he lives by that statement, contemplating what we know and how we know it, and integrating philosophic thought into his scientific work.

John serves as a model for how science can be done philosophically. Instead of taking observation at face value or accepting dogma and axioms, he integrates philosophic inquiry into polymer science, questioning the why and how behind every experiment. Furthermore, John consistently invites criticism of his work, being constantly open to novel ideas based on new evidence and reasoning.

Scientists and engineers need to be more philosophically inclined like John Rynk. We all need to work on putting epistemology before ego, and being open to new ideas and theories.
Only through change are we able to grow, and for science to grow, it must become more focused on epistemology. It is high time that scientists and engineers began thinking more deeply about our disciplines and our knowledge. Otherwise, we doom ourselves to repeat history as articulated by famous physicist Max Planck “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”