The Science of Can and Can't: A Physicist's Journey through the Land of Counterfactuals

scientific knowledge is not what we can verify directly, as positivists expected. On the contrary, it is based on theoretical constructs that can be contradicted by empirical observations. We hold valid a theory that offers predictions that are corroborated as long as it has never been contradicted (“falsified”) by reality.

All science can do, Kalanithi argues, is “reduce phenomena into manageable units.” It can make “claims about matter and energy” but about nothing else.

Yes, there are effectively certain truths of science. General Relativity may be overturned by some future physics—albeit not in any way that predicts the Sun will orbit Jupiter; the new theory must steal the successful predictions of the old theory, not contradict them. But evolutionary theory takes place on a higher level of organization than atom

Can the fundamental nature of matter really be lawlessness? Can the stability and order of the world be but a temporary dynamic equilibrium achieved in a corner of the universe, a short-lived eddy in a chaotic current?