The limits of science and the scientitlc method

The claim is made that as science moves increasingly closer to the human limits of perceptibility, nnt ordy the fmsrrcisi, rnarrpwer, and epistemologicat factors present problems (ss discussed in an eartier article), hut that the seierrtific method itself atse deteriorates. In particular, the interaction between theory and experiment weakens and beeonrcs very slow, because experiments rakealong time and are indecisive, and because theories bceome overly msthematieatly motivated and tend also to be the” slippery” kind that can evade verification or fstsitication. The sociologist envirrrnmentof scientists working in these Big Science fields is slsn detrimental to the workings of the usust seierrtitl method, in that the influenceof personalities can beeome stronger than the influence of more objective factors, and because the need for the acquisition of large pubtic resources for research stitles critique and controversy. White no science is entirely t%e of these effects, aeierrceat the limits of perceptibility becomes dominated by them. It is urged that substantive assessments be made of the progress (or lack thereof) cwurring in such fields of science. The teams performing such assessments shordd include scientists from neighboring fields. Such assessments wcadd try to calf attention to and then try to correct the various aspects of the deterioration of the scierrtMcmethcdrdogy in these fields of science, thus improving the prospects for substantive progress in such fields.