Plurality in the Sciences

The common mission of modern science, with increasing scope, ability, and insights into a systemic understanding of the natural world, is now on the precipice of unification. The existence of a single universal wave function from which the frequency at which all mater vibrates  is a derivative of is a seriously discussed topic in the scientific community today. The notion is commonly held that science will eventually be reducible to one cohesive study, reserved to itself, built upon the absolute foundations of biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. 

The idea that a pure science can be distilled somehow out of these various fields is a mistake; I posit that physics and chemistry are no more parallel than philosophy and biology, or astronomy and history. The fields of study, all developing, certainly influence each other, guide each other, and shape each other, so to see all academic study as one overlapping tapestry is not necessarily inaccurate. To think that there is a single trajectory that this pluralistic, melioristic, unfinished tapestry is aiming towards is dangerous- to believe that a certain isolated area of the sciences can indeed be 'finished' is a fallacy. As Kuhne tells us, scientific research operates in a specific paradigm, with specific terminology, lexicons, modes of understanding, and rubrics for what counts as valid. Each scientific field operates both within the paradigm of its time, and the paradigm established by its content; ichthyologists, anthropologists, and theoritcal physistics are all scientists but operate by radically differnet standards.

If we really want to talk about the overlapping interpenetrating unity of science, we need to not only reserve the recognition of interpenetration to the sciences. We need to go all the way. An examined look at the structure of scientific revolutions, development, and technological trajectory yields a picture of scientific progress not wrought from cold calculation, but from a melioristic tapestry of sociological, economic, historical, and ultimately philosophical conditions. Let's talk about all these conditions, qualitative or quantitative, on a level ontological playing field.   

As always, more pictures to cool the mental palette.