SCIENCE WILL NEVER REACH THE TRUTH — BECAUSE IT HAS NO SUCH CAPACITY
- Madhukar Dama
- 6 hours ago
- 6 min read
A detailed, fact-based critique of the structural inability of science to produce final understanding
INTRODUCTION: THE CORE PROBLEM IS NOT ERROR—IT’S DESIGN
Science is widely seen as the most reliable pathway to understanding.
People believe that with time, correction, and refinement, science gets us closer to a full and final grasp of reality.
But that belief is flawed.
Because science is not a completeness-seeking force—it is a model-updating process built on impermanence.
Its very nature ensures that it can never arrive at finality.
It does not, and cannot, operate in a framework that allows for full or fixed knowledge.
What science actually produces is a stream of provisional models, constantly replaced, contradicted, and celebrated—often by the same system that declared the previous one absolute.
PART 1: SCIENCE BUILDS ON FAILURE AND CALLS IT PROGRESS
Science does not discover final conclusions. It replaces previous misunderstandings with newer approximations, then rewrites history to make it appear progressive.
EXAMPLES:
Atom was declared indivisible → Nobel awarded
Later: Nucleus discovered → Another Nobel
Later: Subatomic particles, quarks, bosons—each discovery awarded again
Each earlier "final unit" was later broken down further
Estrogen declared “the female hormone” → Entire medical and pharmaceutical empires built
Later: Progesterone identified as critical
Still later: Oxytocin, testosterone, cortisol, microbiome added to the mix
Cholesterol causes heart disease → Statins prescribed globally
Later: Distinctions emerge (HDL, LDL, triglycerides, inflammation)
Original assumption oversimplified
Sugar was safe, fat was dangerous → Global dietary guidelines shaped around this
Later reversed, after decades of health damage
Ulcers caused by stress → Treated with antacids
Later: H. pylori bacterium discovered → Nobel awarded
Original treatments were misguided
DDT used worldwide → Later found toxic to ecosystems and human health
Lead in fuel and paint → Once widely accepted → Now banned after irreversible harm
Thalidomide → Given for morning sickness → Caused birth defects → Banned post-disaster
Tobacco promoted as safe → Later linked to cancer and other diseases
Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) → Once widely recommended → Later linked to increased disease risks
Insulin therapy as the answer for type 2 diabetes → Now challenged as counterproductive in many cases
Overuse of antibiotics → Led to antibiotic resistance, gut destruction, and global health concerns
Vaccines once declared lifelong solutions → Require regular reformulation, boosters, and policy revision
Radiation for minor ailments → Previously common, now known to be harmful
Serotonin-based antidepressants → Under fire for being based on disputed theories
GMOs promised to end hunger → Delivered seed dependence, ecological problems
BMI used to measure health → Now widely criticized as misleading
PART 2: SCIENCE IS NOT A PATH TO FINALITY—IT’S A SYSTEM OF CORRECTABLE MODELS
What these examples demonstrate is not steady progress toward completeness, but a permanent cycle of replacements.
Scientific method requires:
– Controlled variables
– Repeatable experiments
– Quantifiable results
– Peer approval
– Institutional backing
But life is:
– Contextual
– Fluid
– Interconnected
– Unpredictable
This makes science fundamentally limited to conditional understandings, not total clarity.
PART 3: SCIENCE PROFITS FROM ITS CORRECTIONS
Each scientific error spawns:
– New fields
– New treatments
– New technology
– New academic careers
– New industries
– More funding
Errors aren’t punished—they are monetized.
This means that science has no incentive to finalize anything.
A system that generates its own corrections and rewards them is not converging—it's perpetuating.
PART 4: FRAGMENTED APPROACH CANNOT PRODUCE HOLISTIC UNDERSTANDING
Science thrives on:
– Isolating variables
– Narrowing scope
– Breaking systems into parts
But reality cannot be fully explained this way.
Understanding pain is not the same as measuring inflammation.
Understanding a forest is not the same as cataloguing species.
Understanding consciousness is not the same as scanning brain waves.
Science avoids what it cannot reduce.
Yet most of what matters in life is irreducible.
CONCLUSION: SCIENCE CANNOT ESCAPE ITS OWN DESIGN LIMITS
Science was never designed to deliver completeness.
It is a system that functions by constant revision.
It only works in controlled conditions.
It must ignore variables to measure anything.
It is institutionally shaped by politics, funding, and repeatability—not by final clarity.
The illusion is not in its method, but in the belief that it can arrive at something fixed.
Science will never reach completeness—because it has no such capacity.
That’s not a flaw. That’s the system.
And we must stop demanding certainty from a process that cannot offer it.
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THE MAZE HAS NO EXIT
science walks in circles with a compass that doesn't know what north is
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they built a machine
to find the answer.
it buzzed, it blinked, it beeped.
it smelled like rubber and sweat and grant money.
they filled it with equations
and called it reason.
they locked it in a lab
and called it objectivity.
they trained a million men and women
to carry notebooks
and not blink when the data broke their goddamn hearts.
---
they started chasing something
they called truth—
but nobody ever stopped to ask
what the hell truth even means.
they measured blood and called it personality.
they measured brain waves and called it consciousness.
they measured pain and called it inflammation.
they measured breath and called it function.
they turned life into charts,
then stared at the charts
until the colors told them who you were.
but the lines didn’t speak.
and the graphs didn’t breathe.
and the numbers didn’t bleed.
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they said the atom was the end.
then cracked it open like a nut.
inside was a nucleus.
inside that were particles.
inside that—more questions.
every answer they found
opened three more corridors,
each with a door
that required another career to unlock.
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they said,
“this is the model.”
and then changed it.
then changed the change.
then added footnotes
to last year’s gospel.
they got awards
for realizing they were wrong
about things they used to shout as fact.
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they built a maze.
and called it knowledge.
but the exits kept shifting
and the walls were drawn in pencil
by men who sold theories
to other men who couldn’t leave the building.
they called that science.
and they called it progress.
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you ever watch a rat run a maze?
it doesn’t ask why.
it just runs.
because the light is on
and the food is gone
and the room is quiet
and the world outside is too loud.
that’s what science became:
trained rats with citations,
running loops for prizes,
while the exits are erased behind them.
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the problem isn’t that they’re not trying hard enough.
the problem is:
they’re chasing a shape that doesn’t exist.
truth isn’t hiding.
it’s not even there.
not like they imagine it.
not in the cage.
not in the lab.
not on the page.
you don’t dissect the forest to find its soul.
you don’t find freedom
by measuring the length of the leash.
you don’t find meaning
by running faster in the wrong direction.
---
and yet they run.
they run like it's holy.
they run like it's hope.
they run like stopping means dying.
and they keep calling it a search
when it's clearly a ritual.
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truth was never the goal.
completeness was never possible.
but movement?
that was easy to sell.
and so they sold it.
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and now,
you sit in front of the television
and say:
“trust the science.”
as if it were a god.
as if it knew what it was doing.
as if it wasn't crawling
blindfolded
through its own blueprint
trying to convince itself
that the spiral is a staircase.
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you want truth?
stop running.
step out.
tear the maze down
with your bare hands
and ask yourself why
they kept you in it to begin with.
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because if science knew what it was doing,
it wouldn’t need to start over
every ten years.
and if truth could be captured,
they would’ve done it
before building the maze.
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