Scientific Method Is Not Fundamental

By Leo Gura - June 13, 2025

Scientific method is insufficient to answer questions which are meta-methological. For any formal epistemic method there must always exist a set of meta-methodological questions which adjudicate between methods. How do you know whether method #1 is superior to method #2? Obviously this matter cannot be resolved by employing either method #1 or method #2, as that would be question-begging and self-biased. Get this: the question of whether science is superior to witchcraft cannot be resolved using science! It must be resolved using something higher. This point is not understood by almost anyone! But it gets worse. By extension, there also cannot be a single meta-methodological method because there will be questions about which meta-criteria to use. So, there will be meta-method #1 and meta-method #2 and you cannot use either to adjudicate which one is best, as there will always be meta-meta questions.

This demonstrates why epistemology cannot be reduced to scientific method, rationality, nor any kind of method. Epistemology is necessarily prior to and more fundamental than any articulable method. Epistemology is the field of all possible methods, true and false. Epistemology is not just more science. Epistemology transcends science. There are truths within epistemology which science cannot fathom, access, nor prove. Science is necessarily subordinate to epistemology. Epistemology must always remain an open-ended, unbounded field. This is the case because fundamentally we do not know which method is best. Whatever ideas you have about which method will reflect reality best — is just a guess. Scientific method has always been nothing more than a guess. The question of knowing which method reflects reality best is a harder class of question than any question of observable empirical fact. It is easier to know if atoms exist than it is to know whether scientific method is true.

Consider: How would you know, how would you demonstrate, that scientific method is true and best? Do you see that this is a harder problem than building an advanced atomic microscope? Humans can build atomic microscopes, humans cannot prove scientific method. This demonstrates why science cannot exist without epistemology, philosophy, and ultimately metaphysics. The issue of metaphysics goes even deeper and I’m not even addressing here. It is impossible to reduce away meta-scientific issues in the naïve way that most defenders of science wish to do. There are always meaningful questions which science cannot answer but upon which science’s entire existence and validity hinges. Acknowledging this fact drives scientists and rationalists nuts because it reveals an unfixable chink in their entire worldview. In their mind is opens Pandora’s Box to “woo”. But this isn’t a bug, this is a feature. The core problem is that scientific method is too closed to account for all truths about reality. Complaining about woo is not a solution, it is a childish deflection of the serious philosophy at play here. It is a fact that science does not have and cannot ever have a solid foundation. But, no serious scientist is allowed to admit this, which is the secret reason why serious scientists and rationalists do not do deep philosophy — because if they did, they would realize that science has no basis. What is the actual basis of science? Guesswork.

This is not a theoretical or academic matter. Science has no ground and it could not be otherwise. But this is not commonly understood, as the vast majority of mankind just believes that science is reality. No. This has never been true and cannot ever be true for deep metaphysical reasons — reasons of infinity that are beyond the scope of this post. My claim is, if you question science deeply enough, the entire system will fall apart. Therefore, it is fundamental to science’s existence never to question its own foundations to rock-bottom. If science seriously questioned its own foundations it would destroy itself. Which is why scientism is a stubborn old mule. You’re not arguing with facts, you’re arguing with group-think and unquestioned paradigmatic assumptions.

But how is it possible that science is foundationally groundless yet science still produces results and technology? Well, that’s a serious trick, indeed, which I don’t have time or space to explain here.

It follows from all of the above that no honest scientist is ever allowed to say, “The world is scientific.” No. You do not know that. You never knew that. You never proved that. That’s just a guess, nothing more. And it is a false guess. The world is not scientific. The world is meta-scientific. But scientists have sworn a figurative oath of loyalty to science, not truth, so their mind is incapable of understanding what I said here. And so they will forever remain wrong about the nature of reality. That is the price you pay for not taking philosophy seriously. Your paradigm tells you that philosophy doesn’t matter to science. Of course you never knew that, you never proved that — it was just a guess. Well, have fun living and dying in that paradigm, while those of us who know better soar above you like eagles.

Out beyond science and rationality there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

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