Can findings in one science contradict those in another?

Question

I'm new to philosophy and recently started reading some books on the field. I came across a statement that somehow I understood as saying the following propositions:

Truth is single and indivisible.
Sciences busy themselves with achieving truth concerning different subject matters or standpoints, which all have to do with reality.
Findings of one science should not contradict with findings of some other.

While all these seem right, I cannot get how two findings of different sciences may contradict since they concern different aspects of reality. If their findings contradict then they must occupy the same field and consequently they are not different sciences, or the one has gone to the field of the other.

Thank you in advance.

Yes. Metaphysical truth (e.g. Logic or Mathematics) is simple and abstract, and has a tendency to internal consistency (-But Gödel... -Shut up!). However, empirical truth (the goal of science) is viced with the complexities of nature. So, it is normal to find inconsistencies in scientific facts. — RodolfoAP, Oct 13 '23 at 09:55

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 15 '23 at 15:50

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Science is intrinsically a bottom-up process. We build models that fit a data set, then try to integrate those models with other models that we fit to other data sets. That models could then contradict each other -- is actually expected of such a bottoms up process.

Most of the contradictions and conflicts within science, however, are WITHIN a particular science, as the sub-fields within a science tend to interact more than there is interaction between sciences. A good example is the age of the universe, which for many decades was estimated as ~13.7 billion years per Hubble expansion, but our stellar age models said the oldest stars were about 15 billion years old... The conflict was finally resolved after many decades by the Big Bang model changing its assumptions of a zero and unchanging cosmological constant.

A conflict between sciences was when paleontologists and geologists said that South America and Africa were once connected, but planetary physicists said this was impossible. This also took decades to resolve, when the planetary physicists eventually realized that magma was "fluid-like" and could sustain currents and continental floating.

So the presumption of a single "truth" is generally assumed, but the science of a particular day will often include a LOT of contradictions about what the details of that truth are -- and the competing models are both used for scientific work in their particular fields despite their not agreeing holistically.

As some comments to the question note, the presumption of a single truth IS just a presumption. It is a mostly very useful one, but the peculiarities of both quantum mechanics and general relativity have pushed the envelope of what one can call "truth".

edited Oct 15 '23 at 15:50

End Anti-Semitic Hate

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answered Oct 13 '23 at 20:49

Dcleve

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Right, things can only be explained in terms of things on a another level, where all the presumptions are completely different. Objects that we see have color, but atoms and molecules do not. The only way to reconcile it would be to have one ginormous container for science, with everything fully interlinked. Some people actually try to do that, but masses of stuff gets left out. – Scott Rowe Oct 14 '23 at 12:33
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@ScottRowe Yes linking is an aspiration. And as you note, complete linkage requires a settled theory of emergence, which is not on any plausible horizon currently. – Dcleve Oct 14 '23 at 14:50
@Dcleve, what would a top-down process in this context look like? Wouldn't top-down processes also ultimately attempt to come up with models that fit the data? – Satyajit Sen Oct 17 '23 at 11:59
@SatyajitSen -- A top down process starts with a presumption of a holistic solution. Rationalism is a top down process -- it starts with presumptions of the truth of , say, classical logic being necessary, then tries to derive the entire world from there. Logical Positivism was the last gasp of Rationalism within science, and it was unable to plausibly describe how to do science. – Dcleve Oct 17 '23 at 13:51
@SatyajitSen We see some more modern movements that are top down as well, that at least nominally tried to follow falsification. "Soviet Science", where the party ideology drove what science was accepted, Creation Science, and more controversially on this board, deterministic materialism. These movements have to reject much data, taking Quine to an extreme. YEC declare God created fake light that only appears to be billions a years old, Einstein declared time an illusion, and the Delusionist movements on consciousness and willing are the responses to refuting data on consciousness and will. – Dcleve Oct 17 '23 at 14:02
Do you think that it has to do with reductionism in any sense? And if we accept the contradiction between different disciplines, doesn't thi imply logically that reductionism is true? – Stephanos97 Oct 18 '23 at 14:27
@Stephanos97 -- Yes this has a relation to reductionism, but it is the opposite relationship to what you are imagining. Philosophers of science are almost certain that a) strong emergence is needed in science, and b) math, philosophy and the humanities logically can never reduce to science. This combo means that universal reduction cannot be valid, and therefore pluralism is needed for our knowledge sources. See section 5 of SEP on scientific reduction. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-reduction/#:~:text=The%20concept%20of%20reduction%20entails,world%20reduced%20to%20that%20base. – Dcleve Oct 18 '23 at 15:47
@Stephanos97 -- One poorly recognized consequence of intrinsic pluralism is that at least some of the sorts of contradictions that I noted are very likely to be irresolvable in principle. Contradictions means that our knowledge is not coherent. Irresolveable contradictions means that coherence is not even a viable hope or objective. – Dcleve Oct 18 '23 at 15:50
@Dcleve, thank you for your response! – Satyajit Sen Oct 18 '23 at 20:54

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 13 '23 at 09:35

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You are overlooking the fact that the subjects of sciences overlap. In chemistry, for example, we study the interactions between chemicals, and since chemicals are atoms held together by electromagnetic forces they must obey the laws of physics. Likewise, biology is the study of massively complicated collections of chemicals, so the constituent chemical parts of a plant, say, being studied in a biology lab are the same parts being studied in a chemistry lab, and the constituent parts of a chemical are also being studying in a physics lab, so we would expect consistency. To take a trivial example to make the point, it would be a cause for raised eyebrows in the physics community if a finding in biology, say, suggested that gravity on Earth acted other than downwards.

answered Oct 13 '23 at 09:35

Marco Ocram

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First of all thank you for your respond. If i get it right you say that it is possible for one to shake some physics argument by supporting his/her case on chemistry principles or/and findings...so it is like a ladder, and while physics have arguments from bottom up, then chemistry may have from top down. – Stephanos97 Oct 13 '23 at 09:48
@Stephanos97 yes, something like that. The important point is that if a fact is true it is true. If gravity always acts downwards, according to physics, then it must act downwards in the physics lab, the chemistry lab, the biology lab, the neuroscience lab and so on. – Marco Ocram Oct 13 '23 at 10:17
@Stephanos97 That does not necessarily mean that they all use the same methodology, though. For example, chemistry tends to use easier quantum equations than physics does because they suffice to describe everything they need for their applications. GeV collisions and gloun plasma just aren't really important in chemistry so they can do without quantum fields. – Philip Klöcking Oct 13 '23 at 10:38
@PhilipKlöcking To my knowledge, the reason why simplified quantic equations are used in elementary chemistry, is that we don't know how to solve the regular (not simplified) Schrödinger equation at the level of two atoms in a covalent bound, let alone at the level of a molecule composed of many atoms. It's not that we don't need to, it's that we don't know how to. – Olivier5 Oct 13 '23 at 17:47
What about in the Skylab? – Scott Rowe Oct 14 '23 at 12:26
@MarcoOcram -- "facts are facts" is not true in science. All observations are suspect, and can be challenged. Same with all inferences from those observations. Science takes as "fact" those hypothesized inferences that we have very high confidence in, sufficient to use to build higher level inferences. And all science "laws" are actually just regularities, that can be broken, and most of them have known breakages. The magnetic field reversals found in geology -- sure they raised physicists eyebrows, but told the physicists to improve their game. You are misrepresenting science here. – Dcleve Oct 14 '23 at 15:18
@Dcleve You are using the word fact in a different way from the one I intended, and are therefore simply arguing with me at cross purpose. – Marco Ocram Oct 14 '23 at 15:48
Marco -- I'm using fact as it is defined by Karl Popper, and the Popperian approach to science is how science operates today. – Dcleve Oct 14 '23 at 16:43
@dcleve. Good. I was using the word in the sense defined by my Chambers dictionary as: a truth, as distinguished from a mere statement or belief. – Marco Ocram Oct 14 '23 at 17:11
The question and answer both reference science, so use of a term as it is used in that specialty field is appropriate, not a general usage. – Dcleve Oct 14 '23 at 17:16
@dcleve, yes, in your opinion. – Marco Ocram Oct 14 '23 at 17:19
That is standard practice in all specialty fields, to avoid the sort of equivocation that your answer suffers from. – Dcleve Oct 14 '23 at 17:27
Alternative (definitions of) 'facts'? – Scott Rowe Oct 15 '23 at 00:31

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 13 '23 at 20:42

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Lets look at statement 1.

1)Truth is single and indivisible. This is one of the most unscientific statements you can ever make in my opinion. If you ask me the very basis of science is to never accept anything as truth. Every statement can and should be questioned in science. If you cannot define any truth it follows that the nonexistant thing can neither be single or indivisible.

The scientific approach is instead to humbly accept that all we have right now is models or theories that currently work. They may be proven unsatisfactory tomorrow and we should be happy for that as proving things as not true is the only thing we most of the time actually can do.

answered Oct 13 '23 at 20:42

ghellquist

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You are confounding the truth with what we accept as truth. Truth can never contradict itself, that's its very definition. But our flawed believes about what is true can definitely contradict. And because of that, scientists know to distrust their findings. And they will change their belief about what is true the instant that contradicting data arrives. – cmaster - reinstate monica Oct 14 '23 at 08:50
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Change 'indivisible' to invisible, and we can all be happy. (and leave the addendum "under God" out) – Scott Rowe Oct 14 '23 at 12:39
@cmaster-reinstatemonica If something is utterly unattainable, does it exist? Arguably only mathematicians can reach truth, and even then only relative to a system of logic. – wizzwizz4 Oct 14 '23 at 18:19
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@wizzwizz4 Did gravitational waves pass through the earth before we built LIGO? It is utterly unattainable to know the signals that we may have missed, but does that say anything about their existence? I think that it would be pretty arrogant to claim something does not exist just because we can never gain knowledge of it. – cmaster - reinstate monica Oct 14 '23 at 18:31

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 15 '23 at 15:46

@MarcoOcram's answer has already made similar points to this one, but:

I cannot get how two findings of different sciences may contradict since they concern different aspects of reality

Nature doesn't cut into pieces that neatly. The concerns of specific fields are more like slightly overlapping circles in a Venn diagram (or an Euler diagram, to be pedantic).

Historical example: Kelvin, based on a pre-nuclear guess as to how the Sun shines, underestimated its age and argued there hadn't been enough time for natural selection. Both physics and biology care about time.

Modern example: we don't know how to unify gravity (which is well-understood for large masses) and other physical forces (which are well-understood at small length scales), because "what happens if something has a lot of mass but very little size?" raises tricky questions. (Warning: that's a massive oversimplification of why there is a conflict.) Both general relativity and the Standard Model care about distance.

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 15 '23 at 18:22

"All models are wrong, some are useful"^*

... no models are [true]—not even the Newtonian laws. When you construct a model you leave out all the details which you, with the knowledge at your disposal, consider inessential.... Models should not be true, but it is important that they are applicable, and whether they are applicable for any given purpose must of course be investigated. This also means that a model is never accepted finally, only on trial.

— Rasch, G. (1960), Probabilistic Models for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests.

Your second proposition ("Sciences busy themselves with achieving truth...") is not strictly accurate. Sciences work with observations, models, predictions and theories. Using the most relevant observations, a model attempting to describe aspects of reality is defined. It is then repeatedly compared to new observations, and its predictions provide leads for other relevant observations. As long as a model "survives" those, it is considered valid, and the most sturdy models are used to define scientific theories - but strictly speaking, models and theories are never proven right - they can only be proven wrong. And even when they are proven wrong, they can still be useful - for example, the Newtonian laws of motion's predictions are far less accurate than Einsteinian relativity's predictions - and in some places where these differences matter (GPS, precise prediction of planetary motion etc.), the Einsteinian model is used. But for many practical applications, the much more simple Newtonian model is good enough, and is used instead (e.g. construction and engineering, artillery, aerodynamics etc.).

Just as different types of maps may disagree (e.g. which continent looks larger, what is the length of the Nile, etc.), none of those flat projections of a single scale, for a specific point in time can accurately represent every aspect of the ever-changing, spheroidal face of the Earth. They can't be absolutely accurate and complete, but they just need to provide a correct representation of the relevant information.

Bottom line - different scientific models may disagree, but typically that's because their utility is different - this doesn't mean multiple, contradicting truths - just as even something as seemingly straightforward as the length of a road will be measured differently by using a satellite photo, an aerial photo, measuring with a step counter, measuring with a measuring wheel or from the perspective of an ant that crawls over the non-flat asphalt surface.

Which of those measurements is the truth?

*: See the Wikipedia entry for this statement.

Yes, one of my favorites examples is, where is the shore? As you get closer to the ground, the exact shoreline dissolves into bumps and islands. What is the real shoreline? — Scott Rowe, Oct 18 '23 at 02:08

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 13 '23 at 09:49

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It all depends what you mean by science.

Mathematics is arguably a science, but if it is, then it can accept statements which are contradictory to each other as long as they belong to distinct mathematical theories, where a theory is defined by a specific system of axioms.

We can formalise this with the following pair of expressions:

S₁ : (A → B) ∧ A ⊢ B

S₂ : (A → B) ∧ ¬B ⊢ ¬A

In theory S₁, the axioms are A → B and A, and the truths are A → B, A and B.

In theory S₂, the axioms are A → B and ¬B, and the truths are A → B, ¬B and ¬A.

So, S₁ and S₂ agree with each other that A → B is true, but contradict each other on whether A and B are true or false.

If mathematics is a science, it is not an empirical science. Unlike mathematical theories, empirical sciences are meant to describe, and are therefore tested against, reality. As there is presumably only one reality, and although each science has it own theory or theories, different sciences may well contradict each other as to what is really the case.

Notoriously, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics contradict each other at the origin of the universe (if I understood that right).

answered Oct 13 '23 at 09:49

Speakpigeon

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Religions are in some cases based in science (psychology?) But they contradict each other too. – Scott Rowe Oct 14 '23 at 12:53
@ScottRowe "Religions are in some cases based in science" I will assume that you are kidding. – Speakpigeon Oct 14 '23 at 15:53
People persist in calling Buddhism a religion when it is actually Psychology. So either they are wrong in calling it that, or I am correct in my statement (which vexes me to call Buddhism 'religion'). – Scott Rowe Oct 14 '23 at 16:19
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@ScottRowe The crucial point is whether different disciplines are meant to refer to the same thing, broadly, reality, in which case they may well contradict each other. Whether Buddhism is called a science is irrelevant. Whenever Buddhism is meant to refer to reality it becomes possible that it contradicts for example psychology. Religions are usually meant to refer to reality. A Christian presumably believes that God exists in reality. So religions may well contradict science, or each other. – Speakpigeon Oct 14 '23 at 16:37
Maybe they should all refer to different things, then there would be no contradiction? :-) – Scott Rowe Oct 14 '23 at 19:05

Mikhail Katz · Answer 7 · 2023-10-13T12:34:59.177

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"Can findings in one science contradict with ones from another?"

At least apparently, yes. A physicist would balk at the idea that a unit ball can be decomposed into five parts, and the parts rearranged by rigid motions so as to form... two unit balls. Yet this is precisely what the Banach-Tarski theorem asserts.

Of course, there are numerous ways of explaining the paradox. If you are dealing with different sciences, then they would be dealing with different subject matters, and therefore by redefining the subject matter more precisely it would typically be possible to resolve such paradoxes.

edited Oct 13 '23 at 12:34

answered Oct 13 '23 at 12:14

Mikhail Katz

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The Banach-Tarski theorem relies on classical logic and is not intuitionistically valid. Theorems from classical logic may not be realizable, and realizability is a prerequisite for physical instantiation. – Corbin Oct 13 '23 at 18:46
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Corbin's right. Physicists have no problem accepting the Banach-Tarski theorem, but they know that it bears no meaning for physics because there are no infinities in physics. You can't squish a particle to a mathematical point, and you cannot have (un-)countably many particles as well. – cmaster - reinstate monica Oct 14 '23 at 08:56
@cmaster-reinstatemonica "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - Alice in Wonderland – Scott Rowe Oct 14 '23 at 12:47
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Mathematics is not a science. – Jack Aidley Oct 14 '23 at 14:14
@JackAidley That's an opinion. To me it seems that math bears all the hallmarks of science, with the only exception that you can actually prove something true in math. But, just like the other sciences, mathematicians make observations (derive values and formulas), try to generalize them (spot patterns), come up with theories (conjectures) and try to verify/falsify those conjectures by searching for an observation that tells them whether their conjecture is actually true or false (a proof). I.e. it's the scientific method on steroids. To me, that's enough to call it a science. – cmaster - reinstate monica Oct 14 '23 at 15:36
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Mathematics operates on fundamentally different methods to Science. But this isn't a debate for the comments. – Jack Aidley Oct 14 '23 at 15:53
@Corbin, This would be one way of explaining away the apparent paradox. Note, however, that physicists use without blinking numerous results of classical mathematics (results that rely on classical logic, not intuitionistic logic). Basically, what you are saying is that physicists would reject anything that seems unphysical. I don't know how much explanatory power such an explanation has :-) – Mikhail Katz Oct 14 '23 at 17:48
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@JackAidley, mathematics and physics are routinely listed as departments in a common Faculty of Exact Sciences in many universities. The claim that mathematics is not a science is an idiosyncratic one. – Mikhail Katz Oct 14 '23 at 18:18
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@cmaster, You wrote: "it bears no meaning for physics because there are no infinities in physics". Quantum mechanics is based on the separable Hilbert space, which is infinite-dimensional. Relativity theory takes as its basic object a 4-dimensional manifold with a metric of signature $(3,1)$, an eminently infinitary entity. The list goes on. – Mikhail Katz Oct 14 '23 at 19:16
Quantum mechanics is a theory, i.e. a mathematical formalism that aims to describe reality. It is not reality itself. As such, an infinity that arises in the theory does not mean that this infinity actually exists. 2. General relativity also allows for infinities at the centers of black holes, and the common consensus among scientists is, that this infinity simply means that the theory "breaks down" at that point, that we don't actually have a clue about what is happening inside a black hole. Of course, the assumption that there are no infinities in physics may also be wrong.

cmaster - reinstate monica

Oct 15 '23 at 07:55

And even if physics allows for infinities in principle, it does not allow for infinite counts of particles, or infinitely confined particles. Each of the two would require an infinite amount of energy, and that's simply not available within the observable universe.

– cmaster - reinstate monica Oct 15 '23 at 07:57

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 13 '23 at 20:23

As this is a philosophy question there are a lot of parts to this question. I start with number two:

2)Sciences busy themselves with achieving truth concerning different subject matters or standpoints, which all have to do with reality.

Achieving thruth? If you talk about, say physics, we know that it only has one kind of thing that can even approach what you might call truth: observations. In physics only well controlled observations or experiments can be relied on. Everything else is, to be a bit of blunt, speculations. Even General relativity or other very well tested theories will be changed the very second observations contradict them. But no physicist believes that we have reached "truth", only that we over time have been able to to create better models. But all models are only temporary, until better models are developed. And even if observations sort of approach truth, every observation has a degree of uncertainty. Small uncertanties in observations may be the start of better models.

Reality? Well, one of the basic tenets of physics is that there is one and only one reality which we may inspect and learn from. But this is not necessarily the case in other areas. As example, in social sciences generally we assume that what counts is how different persons perceive things, not assuming that any of perceptions has any strong connection to any objective reality. You might call this a subjectivy reality, but I guess that the statement you referr to has a higher requirement on the word.

Sciences? There are a lot of things called or recognized as sciences. Methods and subjects of study will differ partly due to the person doing the categorization. I guess you need to define which sciences you want to include, or even more important which you want to exclude. As example, personally, but this is very personal, I find the basis of religion to be outside of science (does God exist and what forms does he/she/it take?).

"Man may occasionally stumble over the truth. But then he gets up, dusts himself off, and moves on." - Winston Churchill — Scott Rowe, Oct 14 '23 at 12:43
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." - Albert Einstein — Scott Rowe, Oct 14 '23 at 12:46

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 13 '23 at 20:51

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3)Findings of one science should not contradict with findings of some other.

Why not? Findings, if you by this means observations or experiments, they could very well contradict other findings. In the history of sciences in general, contradictions is often what creates progress.

From the observations or experiment we may create more or less elaborate theories or models. These may very well contradict each other - the contradictions creates an opportunity for further observations which mey allow the creation of better models.

answered Oct 13 '23 at 20:51

ghellquist

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A computer isn't just a lot of transistors. – Scott Rowe Oct 14 '23 at 12:29
The issue and the difficulty I face is that sciences do not occupy the same subject, so there is no possibility at all for any conflict in the first place. It is like comparing smell and taste. We use different organs to inspect each one. So we do not bother to use our ears to smell or our tongue to hear. It is totally acceptable in my mind to be conflicting theories in one and the same science. If we accept reductionism it would be fine, and science would be a totality. But if one does not embrace reductionism then he/she should avoid statements like "there are contradictions in sciences" – Stephanos97 Oct 14 '23 at 14:03

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 03 '23 at 11:51

Truth is a philosophical concept. The overlap between sciences has been addressed in previous answers. If there is ultimate truth, then science pursues it. Ultimately, there is only one science. What we currently call sciences are just convenient, human categorisations. We currently see mathematics as the foundation of science, but mathematics may have foundations. The ultimate answer to your question is no.

score -2 · Answer 11 · answered Oct 13 '23 at 21:27

Science of homeopathy, if you can call it science, contradicts traditional science. In homeopathy , something which causes an illness is used to cure the illness by diluting its molecular presence to near zero. Interestingly greater the dilution greater is the potency of medicine. Homeopathy is very popular , at least in India. I take homeopathy medicines and I can tell you it works.

In science ,apart from contradictions, there are anomalies. One famous example is water. Water has dozens of anomalies. They contradict the common sense like water expands on cooling and shrinks on heating. But those anomalies have been explained using very complex structural theories.

In my opinion, gene theory is also contradictory as the selfish genes fails to explain altruistic behaviour and sexual abstinence found in wide range of people. There are other objections as well like epigenetics but I will not go into that.

Science of psychology also has contradictory assumptions in my opinion. It says Schizophrenia is a disease. When it might not be so. There can be spiritual reasons for the behaviour. But I leave it at that because it touches the subject of religions.

Physics has wave particle duality , which in my opinion is a contradiction which has been nicely covered up by quantum mechanics.

Homeopathy doesn’t belong in a discussion of the sciences. And neither is schizophrenia assumed to be a disease, that’s a description of its characteristics, which one might disagree with but an axiom it is not. — Azor Ahai -him-, Oct 13 '23 at 21:46
I hope, you never happen to drink pure water. All those active compounds it has touched, and which have been diluted away. It must be pure poison... — cmaster - reinstate monica, Oct 14 '23 at 09:06

Can findings in one science contradict those in another?

11 Answers11

"All models are wrong, some are useful"^*

Linked

Can findings in one science contradict those in another?

11 Answers11

"All models are wrong, some are useful"*

Linked

"All models are wrong, some are useful"^*