To what extent is science our best guide to reality?
Taylor Lai
Science has played a key role in enhancing human understanding of the world. The modern scientific method is a systematic method of inquiry that aims to explain and understand everything in the natural world accurately (Berkeley 2024a). Broadly speaking, it involves 7 steps – making an observation, performing research, generating a hypothesis, conducting experiments, analysing the data, making a conclusion, and finally, publishing the results (Britannica, 2024; Indeed, 2023; Simply Psychology 2023). I would argue that, while the scientific method is not the only way of inquiry, it has contributed to a great improvement in our understanding of the world and is the best tool we have to guide us in understanding reality. Science aims to help us solve problems in the world by providing answers to questions that are testable by empirical evidence (Study.com 2024). As such, the scientific method is able to provide guidance and direction to our understanding of the world in many respects. One aspect of the real world where science has significantly helped humanity navigate is the cause and treatment of infectious diseases. Take the contrast in treatment of Black Death (the bubonic plague) in the 14 th and 15 th centuries, and the treatment of the Coronavirus pandemic in the 21 st century as an example. The Black Death was a global epidemic of bubonic plague that started in the mid-1300s. People at the time believed that the disease was spread by ‘ bad air ’ – air contaminated with odours from rotting organic matter (World History Encyclopaedia, 2020). The doctors at the time did not have the body of knowledge gained by modern scientific inquiry, so they proposed many cures or treatments for the Black Death such as: bloodletting (extracting ‘ bad ’ blood from the patient so that the ‘ good ’ blood that remained would heal the patient), concoctions (potions made from all sorts of substances like ground emeralds and spices), prayers, and animal cures (like strapping a chicken onto the infected person so that the chicken would extract all the disease from the patient) (World History Encyclopaedia, 2020). The basis of these treatments was almost entirely from religion or superstition, because the scientific method at the time was not as developed as nowadays, and doctors did not have a good understanding of what caused the disease. Nowadays, although the bubonic plague is still present, our understanding of what causes the plague has deepened – now we know that it is the bacteria Yersinia Pestis (that enters the human body by the bite of a flea) that causes the bubonic plague. The contemporary treatment for bubonic plague is very different from the treatment back in the mid-1300s. The World Health Organization ’s (WHO) recommended treatment is an immediate dose of antibiotics alongside supportive therapy (diagnosing and treating the bubonic plague is crucial to the survival of the patient) (World Health Organization, 2022). The development of antibiotics is in itself a scientific achievement. The fact that humans have a much higher chance of survival with the same disease compared to the Middle Ages is a testament to the knowledge that scientific inquiry brings to society.
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