chris barbieri: Topic 7: Are There Limits to Science?

	The question of limits to science is a complex 
one that deserves a great deal of thought.  I thought 
group 7 did a good job of exposing some issues that 
are inextricably involved in this idea.  
	Personally, I have a lot of interest in this 
matter.  It is intriguing to try to grasp a world 
where science has ceased to be a useful method of 
interpreting one's environment.  This in itself is an 
issue that must be considered: that science is only 
one reference frame with which to view one's world.  
The question then is, "What developments could 
actually lie outside the scope of science?"  
Essentially, this question is unanswerable, because 
there is nothing in the wrold today that truly cannot 
be examined or dealt with by science; therefore, if 
there is something outside the scope of scientific 
thought, the modern human mind us not likely to be 
able to conceptualize it.
	Another question involving the limits of science 
is ot what if something makes science obsolete, but 
what if science makes itself obsolete?  The ultimate 
goal of scientific exploration, some would say, is to 
eventually reach a point where all knowledge has been 
conquered, and all phenomena explained.  Basically, 
it is a point where we know EVERYTHING. Is this 
likely to happen?
	I believe the answer is a resounding know.  The 
history of science has continually shown us that the 
scope of the universe is always much larger than we 
believe.  Just when a field of science seems like it 
has exhausted its horizons, like physics in the era 
before relativity and quantum mechanics, something 
will come along and show us just how ignorant we 
really are about what is really going on in the 
world.  In addition, the forward progression of 
science leades not to stagnation, but further 
branching and specialization as small sub-field 
become hut new branches of science in their own 
right, similar to biochemistry.
	Group 7 did a good job of getting us thinking 
about these things, which is the point of these 
presentations after all.  For this, they should be 
commended.