Time to reconcile science and philosophy

摘要

Iemcmbcr making a conscious decision to become a scientist instead of a philosopher because the former offered the opportunity to test ideas using the scientific method.Once I began my formal training as a working scientist,the most difficult thing beyond formulating a testable/refutable hypothesis was devising controls for the experiment,which in theory seemed trivial,but in practice was challenging.In order to perform a scientific experiment,it must be controlled.But why? Functionally,controls compensate for methodologic and biologic variation,but controls may have a much deeper philosophical significance.Controls acknowledge the rclativistic nature of our existence,which theoretical physicist David Bohm expressed as the Explicate Order,perceived subjectively through our evolved senses.Bohm thought that there was an ideal world beyond our subjective experience-the Explicate Order-which he termed the Implicate Order.Experimentation is the only quantitative way of transitioning from the Explicate Order to the Implicate.And because of the subjective nature of the Explicate Order,reference values,or controls must be used to compensate for such subjectivity in order to successfully make this transition.