What Science Does And Does Not Do
Let's say that we witness two things, A and B. B comes after A, and as far as we can tell, B is "caused" by A.
A ---> B
We confirm this by doing stuff so that whenever A happens, B seems to always happen after A. Do this a lot of times (more than a few), and this is become somewhat of a "law."
A ---> B
A ---> B
A ---> B
A ---> B
A ---> B
A ---> B
A ---> B
We soon have better ways of figuring things out (technological advances), and pretty soon we start to see that there are more "steps" that go between A and B
A ---> A1 ---> B
A ---> A1 ---> A2 ---> A3 ---> B
A ---> A1a-->A1b-->A1c-->A2a-->A2b-->A2c-->A3a-->A3b-->A3c-->B
Actually, this division can go on downwards pretty much forever, until you hit a "wall of non-explanation"...
"We have the protons and neutrons of an atom which are made up of even smaller subatomic particles, but what is holding those together? The nuclear forces should be pushing those apart... All the atoms in the universe should all be flying apart by now... Wait, we have detected some evidence that something must be holding them together. Since it sort of "glues" the subatomic particles together we'll call it GLUONS..." (hmm ok, so what makes up these "gluons?" Let's play "dissect a gluon" and see what happens next)
or
"At the base of evolution is genetic mutation, which is caused by some kind of gene damage via the collision of high-energy particles to the DNA or carcinogenic (or otherwise disruptive/distabilizing) substances to the same..." (...which goes back to "what made up those chemicals" and "what produces that high energy radiation" and the question ultimately ends up going back to the sort of stuff you see in physics, like I described earlier)
So basically, science describe things in smaller and smaller steps, and predicts how things would repeat in a more and more accurate basis, but never actually manages to explain exactly how or why any of these "smallest steps" have to happen at all. Why do anything change, at all? Divide things long enough, and you get a really small piece that you don't really have a good explanation for, other than "it looks to always goes to this next step if we have this other step before" So what?
Science describes and predicts phenomena. It never "explains" any of it.
It does't have to. That's actually not what science is for.
Science is about the knowledge of the physical universe. Scientists don't do metaphysics**, and they don't do "metaphysical experiments" to "test the density of a person's spirit," because there's no such thing as "metaphysical experiments."
[Edit: Looks like I need to write down the definition I'm using.
**metaphysics- the philosophical investigation of the overall nature of reality]
A ---> B
We confirm this by doing stuff so that whenever A happens, B seems to always happen after A. Do this a lot of times (more than a few), and this is become somewhat of a "law."
A ---> B
A ---> B
A ---> B
A ---> B
A ---> B
A ---> B
A ---> B
We soon have better ways of figuring things out (technological advances), and pretty soon we start to see that there are more "steps" that go between A and B
A ---> A1 ---> B
A ---> A1 ---> A2 ---> A3 ---> B
A ---> A1a-->A1b-->A1c-->A2a-->A2b-->A2c-->A3a-->A3b-->A3c-->B
Actually, this division can go on downwards pretty much forever, until you hit a "wall of non-explanation"...
"We have the protons and neutrons of an atom which are made up of even smaller subatomic particles, but what is holding those together? The nuclear forces should be pushing those apart... All the atoms in the universe should all be flying apart by now... Wait, we have detected some evidence that something must be holding them together. Since it sort of "glues" the subatomic particles together we'll call it GLUONS..." (hmm ok, so what makes up these "gluons?" Let's play "dissect a gluon" and see what happens next)
or
"At the base of evolution is genetic mutation, which is caused by some kind of gene damage via the collision of high-energy particles to the DNA or carcinogenic (or otherwise disruptive/distabilizing) substances to the same..." (...which goes back to "what made up those chemicals" and "what produces that high energy radiation" and the question ultimately ends up going back to the sort of stuff you see in physics, like I described earlier)
So basically, science describe things in smaller and smaller steps, and predicts how things would repeat in a more and more accurate basis, but never actually manages to explain exactly how or why any of these "smallest steps" have to happen at all. Why do anything change, at all? Divide things long enough, and you get a really small piece that you don't really have a good explanation for, other than "it looks to always goes to this next step if we have this other step before" So what?
Science describes and predicts phenomena. It never "explains" any of it.
It does't have to. That's actually not what science is for.
Science is about the knowledge of the physical universe. Scientists don't do metaphysics**, and they don't do "metaphysical experiments" to "test the density of a person's spirit," because there's no such thing as "metaphysical experiments."
[Edit: Looks like I need to write down the definition I'm using.
**metaphysics- the philosophical investigation of the overall nature of reality]