Among the critical factors that caused science to revolutionize human technology are repeatable experiments. The process of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and duplication by indifferent skeptics is what makes modern civilization different from the era of medieval superstition. Science not only democratized technology, but revolutionized our entire way of thinking. It is no longer enough to apply philosophical analysis to answer questions of science. We require hard evidence.
The success of the scientific method so far is largely due to the existence of what might be called “low-hanging fruit.” Physical phenomena provide a fertile field for observation, and they invite experiments. Once that low-hanging fruit has been exhausted, however, science will find the going more difficult. What is happening now in science is a drift away from the gold standard of repeatable experiment.
For example, relativity and quantum mechanics are truly scientific fields, but they are beyond the abilities of most people to understand, much less investigate. Hard evidence comes to us through the advanced technology to which they have given rise. I can question the ideas of Albert Einstein, but not the accuracy of my GPS, which is made possible by applying his relativity theory.
That, however, is not quite the same as repeatable experiment. Few of us can really understand the link between relativity theory and our GPS devices.
As science advances, we increase the degree of separation between accessible science and the realm that only geniuses can navigate. Moreover, there are now sciences that have blurred the distinction between the scientific method and philosophical analysis. Exobiology is one. It creates untestable hypotheses about life on other planets, life that has yet to be shown to exist — if indeed it does exist at all. Multi-universe theory is even farther afield. We cannot test for, or experiment with, other universes — and for all we know, they may not exist, except in the imaginations of science fiction writers.
Is there no way to restore the scientific method to explain common observations? Are there any unexplored, real phenomena to study?
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