Using Science in Philosophy: Part 1 (Tyler Wren, Section 12)

Introduction: Using Science in Philosophy

In the world we live in, we as humans are compelled to understand all we can. Everything from why the sun rises and falls, to how many galaxies exist in the universe. As human beings, we are gifted with something unique to ourselves alone: the thirst for answers. While some people turn to religion for their beliefs on how to find these answers, others turn to a way to get concrete, definite answers; these people collectively are known as the scientific community. While we don’t know everything, we can say that we do have a relatively fair understanding of how the world works around us, and our impact on the other organisms that share the space with us.

But how can we use philosophy and science at the same time to try to understand our origins? Using the sciences such as organic chemistry, we can understand how the basic building blocks of life come together one by one to create living, breathing organisms. With the knowledge of these building blocks, we can then start to understand how organisms are programmed to do the things they do in their own lives. We can learn what chemicals can kill us in under a minute, and we can learn how to grow fruit that prolongs our lives decades. Using science, we can learn how to detect cancer before it even shows malignance. We can use genetics to unravel what is considered by some researchers the most complex molecule to ever exist- our own DNA. By researching and understanding how everything in our world works, we can immerse ourselves deeper into the journey that is life.

While science hasn't answered all of the questions that have ever been asked, it has definitely helped us understand the unknown that we all call home. Every day thousands upon thousands of important discoveries are made every day, each slowly moving us to the answer that we as a people have searched for so long.

While to some this seems impossible. I would like to end this first post with a quote by Robert A. Heinlein.

“Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.”