The scientific approach to knowledge (everything we know so far) is fundamentally limited in its ability to understand complex systems. Physics & co. are the lo

The scientific approach to knowledge (everything we know so far) is fundamentally limited in its ability to understand complex systems. Physics & co. are the low hanging fruit (tautologically)... modular systems so it’s very easy to isolate the system or control for external influences (so experiments are repeatable, and knowledge is generalizable), then nice linear/quadratic system models which are amenable to tractable mathematical modeling, etc. If (for eg) I wanted similar (analogous to how well we understand mechanics) understanding of the health implications of going vegan, or dropping fertility (ref: post on HN front page currently) where would one even begin to research that question? Even assuming one can unilaterally bring to bear all of humanity’s collective resources on this problem, the scientific method is not powerful enough to generate timeless generalizable truths for this problem. It’s very possible that the ideal diet might easily change when we’re talking about humans living in a Martian colony, or a century into the future with different climate, or living in a different continent different from their native ethnicity. Questions of that nature/complexity cannot strictly be answered “scientifically”. We continue with traditions (as a baseline) and occasionally experiment with tweaks and gather empirical evidence when we can, to iteratively improve our dietary practices (as our food technology improves).