Grayce P. Storey
In organizing his universe into a meaningful pattern and developing a system of values, man can turn to three chief sources of understanding;
-
1. science, which can help man better to understand himself and the universe in which he lives,
-
2. experience, which relates both for the group and the individual, the consequences of various types of behavior in term of need, satisfaction, happiness, and fulfillment, and
-
3. belief, which gives subjective validity to religious and ethical concepts about the meaning and proper conduct of human life. No one of these sources seems sufficient in itself, nor in any of them infallible.
Science has the advantage of providing information that has been checked and rechecked by objective methods. But fact is impersonal and , except as it is interpreted, does not contribute to meaning or provide a guide for action. Even the value of searching for truth the basic premise of science cannot be proved scientifically. Probably the greatest scientist of our age, Albert Einstein, acknowledged that “the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other”
14
(1950, pp. 21-22):
