I am not so sure that we will ever be able to understand and predict accurately complex systems (ecosystems, stuff involving interactions of multiple living beings, let alone human behaviour).
Let me explain:
------ Sorry, this got longer than intended 😅
TL;DR The scientific method is awesome, but specialized scientists struggle to get the pieces again together to understand complex systems.
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The scientific method was developed around testable hypotheses. For this, either you need experiments (usually in the lab) or large observational studies.
While I agree that the scientific method is probably the best way to explain things we have so far, sometimes dout crawls up my back and makes itself comfortable.
See, I am a soil scientist working on agricultural systems. Soil is an amazingly complex ecosystem due to its biological diversity and physical-chemical heterogeneity. When we add other factors that are completely common in nature (such as plants) and the plants exudate carbohydrates into the soil via their roots and the microbes use these substrates as energy source and mobilize nutrients from the soil, but meanwhile produce some signalling compounds that give information to the plants and the plants interact in every moment differently with the soil depending on the availability of water (affects soil chemistry and sorption on particle surfaces) and the plant and some other microbes start competing for some nutrients and ...
We are still only in the soil. Around one single plant root. No other plants, no animals, no farmers, no economy, ...
We need an entire research group including chemists, biochemists, multiple soil microbiologists, botanists, physicists, geologists et al. to try to decipher still rather basic processes.
What I want to show here is that, although science is amazing and our tools are improving at an impressive pace, in practice I think that there is a frontier:
The human mind. Our capacity to understand things and to connect knowledge.
The times of the universalist scholars scholars that had knowledge of many fields is history. In academy, we are getting more and more specialized (this is a trend in the structure of universities and research areas). Every advance in research technology allows us a closer look on one single thing. But then, to bring all this knowledge back together to understand the whole system is highly complex. It is also a matter of different scales (ok, here we could argue that some day we'll be able to deal with larger and larger datasets). Large research projects require a significant organizative effort organizing and moderating workshops to bring all the involved experts together and to relate the findings to the real world.
One of the main jobs of scientists is also to sell themselves. We need to convince the other folks (and ourselves?) that our research is important (and deserves funding).
So, sometimes I see an indigenous farmer having a deep understanding about their soil and environment feel... humble and insignificant? A product of my society with its ideological baggage and biases?
(Of course, no need to be overly romantic, humans have shown to be perfectly capable of destroying their can local ecosystems without science).
So, I still go with the scientific method. I like being a scientist and sometimes we really can do useful stuff. 🧑🔬🤓🦠🔬
(e.g. blocking some private jets 
)
Also, it is sad that it is difficult to have a public discussion about its limitations, as there are legions of anti-scientific trolls out there waiting to take single statement of doubt in their propaganda ("scientists are not 100% sure about climate change") or whatever.
Maybe I have too much of the impostor's syndrome? 🤣
@mrillig , have you another opinion on this issue?
#AcademicChatter #ScientificTheory #Science #SoilScience #SoilMicrobiology #Agriculture
This message was intended as a contribution in the discussion at https://syzito.xyz/@selzero/110943380457364143
, but I thought it would be more polite to start a subthread. (Thanks to @Radical_EgoCom for being prolific in bringing up interesting topics 
) 😘
@selzero @d10c4n3 @maxelcat
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Michael ヘビ Steinwandter
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