While there are very few limits of science in answering metaphysical questions, even science itself cannot answer some questions of science as was discovered in the early 1900s by Werner Heisenberg as a result of work done by Max Planck (Hawking, 1998).

 

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle led Heisenberg, and others, to create a new theory based on the uncertainty of the ability to make predictions about packets of light called quanta, resulting in a new theory called Quantum Mechanics (Hawking, 1998).

 

The result of this fundamental law of uncertainty means that, not only will science fail to make accurate simultaneous measurements of the speed and position of quanta, but science will never be able to make accurate measurements of the future. So while the future may itself be deterministic, science will never be able to determine it (Tipler, 2007).

 

Like the future, the question of the origins of the life will definitely be challenging if not impossible for science to answer. How can one test in a reproducible fashion, the state in which the early universe was in leading up to the evolution of life, without being able to accurately reproduce that state?

 

One of the hallmarks of scientific learning is to be able to test in a reproducible fashion a theory that has been devised. I don’t ever see humanity recreating the Big Bang without a consequent of the unintentional annihilation of humanity (we’ll see what the LHC produces over the next few years!).

 

I also don’t think science is equipped to answer existential questions, like “Why am I here”, “What is my purpose”, “Where am I going”.

 

So, while science may continue to build on the hypothesis of the origin of life, I find it unlikely that we will ever be able to reproduce the initial creation of life, nor answer the questions of the meaning and purpose of life. Those answers are beyond the limits of science.

 

Of course, if Heisenberg taught me anything, it’s that the future is uncertain from a human standpoint – so who knows for sure!

 

References

Hawking, S. (1998). A Brief History of Time. New York: Bantam Books.

Tipler, F. J. (2007). The Physics of Christianity. New York: Doubleday.