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Comment by grif-fin | Hacker News Reader

Not getting into the story just commenting on the title 'Can Science solve...'. It boils my curiosity when sentences start with 'Can science solve X, Y or Z?'. It is referred to as if science is a tool.

I mean is there an alternative to science that we question in that way? -_-

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> It is referred to as if science is a tool.

Science is a tool, especially when used in such a directed investigative manner.

> I mean is there an alternative to science that we question in that way?

Historical research in this case. Though in a less polarised view of reality both such research and science go hand-in-hand (science questioning the sources, the sources suggesting things for science to test, new sources being found (via archaeology or dredging libraries and other meta-analysis?) perhaps with the help of directions from the science, and so on.

I would not read this as questioning science but as the science-journalism equivalent of asking whether the 'mystery' can be 'solved' at all.

When a sentence is in form of 'Can X do/solve/manage/become/etc ... Y?' it is both simply asking and challenging X at the same time.

Challenging science is absurd as is challenging the reality.

"Can the president outrun a cheetah?" is not the same as challenging the president's qualifications as president.

It is challenging the idea that the president can outrun a cheetah, however. So, "Can science solve X?" is not the same as "Is science effective?".

Sure there is! Idle philosophizing, gut instinct, and preconceived notions are all well-established alternatives to scientific inquiry. We note their extensive use in related literature dating back millenia.

I've got a feeling that is not true.

I was being glib, but not that glib. There are plenty of ways to make discoveries without "science," even in the broad sense of scientific inquiry.

In the future we will have new techniques that current-day science does not have, and things that science can't do today, it may be able to do then. The question is whether science can do it now, not whether science is an appropriate avenue of inquiry.

> The question is whether science can do it now, not whether science is an appropriate avenue of inquiry.

I agree but it still does not make the title 'Can science....' a good title to like. A good title/question should be readable at any day and age. This form titles/questions can cause such arguments as we are having, not very productive ones.

God. God created science. God created the world, and science is the effort in understanding it.

> science is the effort in understanding it.

It's just a human effort. That's all.

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