it is a fact that science is not fit to be an absolute authority of reality.

while science has undeniably expanded our understanding of the world, it is based on the data provided by our senses. however, these senses are limited and do not provide a complete picture of reality.

limited range of perception: our senses—sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell—have a limited range. for example, humans can’t perceive ultraviolet or infrared light, yet we know through science that such wavelengths exist and have an impact on the world. this means that the reality we perceive with our senses is partial, and there may be entire dimensions or phenomena beyond our perception that are crucial to understanding the universe.

subjectivity of perception: each individual’s perception of the world is subjective and can be influenced by various factors, such as biology, environment, culture, and personal experience. our brains can be easily deceived (optical illusions, auditory hallucinations, etc.), and what one person experiences may not be universally true. this challenges the idea that sensory perception can be the sole basis for universal knowledge.

quantitative vs. qualitative knowledge: science often emphasizes objective, quantifiable data. however, much of human experience cannot be reduced to numbers or measurements. emotions, consciousness, moral intuition, and even the subjective experience of beauty or awe are not easily explainable by scientific methods alone. the qualitative aspects of life, which are a large part of human existence, elude the scientific method’s capacity to fully grasp.

potential for unobservable phenomena: there are phenomena that science may currently be unable to observe, like dark matter or consciousness itself. if science is only concerned with what can be directly measured by our senses or through instruments designed to extend those senses, it might miss out on aspects of reality that are beyond this scope.

the limits of instrumentation: even with advanced instruments that extend the range of human senses (microscopes, telescopes, etc.), there are still aspects of reality that remain inaccessible. instruments can enhance perception, but they cannot create the ability to sense things that our biology was not designed to detect. the very act of observing something through instruments can change its nature, as seen in quantum physics, where observation affects the outcome of experiments.

philosophical limitations: scientism assumes that all meaningful knowledge is scientific. however, there are philosophical questions about existence, meaning, and consciousness that science cannot answer. metaphysical questions, such as why the universe exists or what consciousness truly is, may fall outside the domain of empirical investigation.

tl;dr our senses are inherently limited, and the universe may contain dimensions and truths that our biology and our scientific instruments cannot yet access or fully interpret. therefore, scientism fails to account for the entirety of human experience and reality itself.

thank you for coming to my ted talk,