"we are increasingly led to believe that if nature can be subjugated by technology, it necessarily follows that we understand it"

http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/7ivWbJ8GqMomYDRNfx1pzN/Does-uncertainty-allow-scientists-the-right-to-remain-silent.html

Does uncertainty allow scientists the right to remain silent?

The scientific method of experiments doesn’t mean it’s the universal password to make sense of every mystery in nature

Jacob P. Koshy 

"Had weather agencies in the US gone by the book and bet that Sandy would’ve been relatively tepid, they would’ve been in trouble and yet the Italian scientists went exactly by what the textbooks told them about earthquakes and faced criminal flak. The natural question that follows is, should science be lauded when scientists make a leap of faith, and are right? Obversely, should we castigate scientists if they go by the book and end up being wrong? It isn’t the case that science must always bear the burden of certainty, but when it is uncertain, does it merit scrutiny or criticism? Does uncertainty allow scientists, much of them funded by taxpayers, the right to remain silent?

The strength of the scientific method is its reliance on testable claims, experiments and careful deductions and yet the history of scientific progress rests on lucky guesses and inexplicable insight. The scientific method is the best tool that we have to make sense of the world around us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the universal password to make sense of every mystery in nature.

That’s been the singular message of quantum mechanics, which essentially says that matter at its fundamental level cannot be understood in an intuitive, commonsensical way. Yet we are increasingly led to believe that if nature can be subjugated by technology, it necessarily follows that we understand it. As the sobering reality of earthquakes, cyclones and India’s annual attempts to forecast the monsoon reminds us, nothing could be further from the truth."