/Tech9h ago

Steve Jurvetson and Naval Ravikant debate whether the scientific method is a repeatable algorithm for human progress

Story Overview

Two well-known investors trade replies on X about whether the scientific method functions as a reliable, step-by-step algorithm that powers ongoing human advancement, with one side tracing the shift to the 17th century and the other emphasizing creative conjecture over any fixed procedure.

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Original post

Steve Jurvetson@FutureJurvetson#1274inTech

The scientific method is an algorithm, a process for eternal learning. It has been the greatest advance in humanity’s ability to learn. For most of human history prior, there was little to no progress. Almost no progress in a human lifetime. Any silly idea had equal merit as a “personal truth”. It was an intellectual hell.

H/T to @kevin2kelly in What Technology Wants: “In all cultures prior to the 17th century or so, the quiet, incremental drift of progress was attributed to the gods, or to the one God. It wasn’t until progress was liberated from the divine and assigned to ourselves that it began to feed upon itself.

There was a tight feedback loop as increased knowledge enabled us to discover and manufacture more tools, and these tools allowed us to discover and learn more knowledge, and both the tools and the knowledge made our lives easier and longer. The general enlargement of knowledge and comfort and choices — and the sense of well-being — was called progress. The rise of progress coincided with the rise of technology.” (pp.89-90)

“By systematically recording the evidence for beliefs and investigating the reasons why things worked and then carefully distributing proven innovations, science quickly became the greatest tool for making new things the world has ever seen. Science was in fact a superior method for a culture to learn.

Why didn’t the Greeks invent it? Or the Egyptians? Science is costly for an individual. Sharing results is of marginal benefit if you are chiefly seeking a better tool for today. Therefore, the benefits of science are neither apparent nor immediate for individuals. Science requires a certain density of leisured population willing to share and support failures to thrive. In other words, science needs prosperity and populations.” (p.91).

He is not saying that every technology is positive, but the collection of all technologies — the technium — is positive and compounds improvements for society over time. Some his ideas seem so obvious in retrospect... but I had not heard them crystallized in this way...

“Most change in the past was cyclical. For most humans, for most of time, real change was rarely experienced.

And when change erupted it was to be avoided. If historical change had any perceived direction at all, it was downhill.

In ancient times when a bearded prophet forecast what was to come, the news was generally bad. The idea that the future brought improvement was never very popular until recently.” (p.73.) — https://flic.kr/p/8qq2tS

Naval@naval

Science is not a process, a credential, or an institution.

It is the unflinching pursuit of truth, carried out by the few, co-opted by the many.

2:25 AM · Jun 14, 2026 · 8.3K Views

Open Question

Induction falls short of generating fresh theories

One participant notes that everyday observations already carry theoretical assumptions, so simple induction cannot reliably produce genuinely new explanations; testing only discards weaker ideas without proving the survivors.

FYI

A cultural re-assignment of credit unlocked compounding gains

Both sides locate the pivotal change in the moment progress stopped being attributed mainly to divine sources and began to be viewed as the outcome of deliberate human effort, after which knowledge and tools began to reinforce each other.

Sentiment

Users express optimism about future progress through the scientific method as it enables discoveries via outside-the-box thinking and greater technology and wealth.

Pos

100.0%

Neg

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3 comments with sentiment.

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Naval@naval

There is no such thing as a scientific “method” in the sense of a reliable algorithm or repeatable process.

We’re taught in grade school that a scientist tabulates observations, then induces a theory from those observations, and then tests them to get to the truth.

But observations are themselves mini-theories (you never observe anything directly), induction from observations can’t give you novel theories (black swan problem), and testing can only eliminate competing theories, not prove them (error correction).

All you’re left with is creative guesswork and then eliminating the bad guesses to get you closer to the truth, but with no finality. Not much of a process or method.

“Scientists” have no special method or process that they employ. They’re doing what all of us do all day long to navigate the world, hopefully with more rigor and dedication, but it’s the exact same process at its core.

What made the scientific revolution possible was a philosophical shift in which parts of western society created social conventions around rigorous truth seeking rather than continuing to justify the beliefs of the ancients.

See Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity” and Karl Popper’s writing, “On the Non-Existence of Scientific Method."

Steve Jurvetson@FutureJurvetson

“Most change in the past was cyclical. For most humans, for most of time, real change was rarely experienced.

And when change erupted it was to be avoided. If historical change had any perceived direction at all, it was downhill.

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Naval@naval

@FutureJurvetson @seanboisselle True, not blind guesses - that’s what differentiates human creativity from AIs (to date) and from evolution. Humans can cut through the search space and make broad leaps, and nobody knows how. Mysterious creativity… if we can create the algorithm for that, then we have AGI.

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Naval@naval

Fair enough. I was using your post (possibly as a straw man) to respond to everyone in the mentions who believes it’s to be a rote process that scientists discovered and exclusively follow.

But it doesn’t seem novel enough to me to have its own moniker. It’s what we do a hundred times a day in a hundred contexts, naturally.

Popper was unpopular amongst academics because he repeatedly knocked them off their pedestal and pointed out that the plebs and common sense after all. The anti-Malcolm Gladwell, if you will.

One funny quip of his: “As a rule, I begin my lectures on the Scientific Method by telling my students that scientific method does not exist. I add that I ought to know, having been, for a time at least, the one and only professor of this non-existent subject within the British Commonwealth.”

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Brett Hall@ToKTeacher

@naval @FutureJurvetson And that’s what we should seek: better technology (control over our environment), wealth (power to transform it), and our problems solved. We seek truth, but never find it. Which is, of course, a wonderful thing because that implies no upper bound on greater knowledge or wealth.

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Steve Jurvetson@FutureJurvetson

Popper is my fave philosopher. He defined the scientific method through falsification, rejecting traditional inductive reasoning. Instead of seeking to prove a theory true, the scientific method requires proposing bold, speculative hypotheses and subjecting them to rigorous, repeated attempts to prove them false.

I would define the scientific method as a simple iterative algorithm for perpetual learning. Not all grade schools define it the way yours might have.

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Naval@naval

@seanboisselle @FutureJurvetson Right, it’s basically “guess and test.”

1h36171

Naval@naval

@_Nathan_Boyle_ @FutureJurvetson What algorithm? “Guess and test?”

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YYS@naturallaw2017

@FutureJurvetson @naval Principium: Beyond the One-Body–Two-Sides Linear Logic of F_net ≈ dp/dt in AI and Its Ethical Dilemmas—The Conservation of Positive and Negative Equaling Zero of Compounding–Corresponding Trinity https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398923327_PrincipiumBeyond_the_One-Body-Two-Sides_Linear_Logic_of_F_net_dpdt_in_AI_and_Its_Ethical_Dilemmas-The_Conservation_of_Positive_and_Negative_Equaling_Zero_of_Compounding-Corresponding_Trinity

8h4811

boisselle@seanboisselle

@naval @FutureJurvetson Reminds me of when Feynman said the first step in the process of looking for a new law is to guess it.

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Steve Jurvetson@FutureJurvetson

@naval @seanboisselle But Feynman was being humble. It’s clearly not a random guess as the search space would be too large, and progress would accrue evenly across all people making “guesses.”

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Brett Hall@ToKTeacher

@naval @FutureJurvetson Right. The whole “method” thing is propagated by an education system mired in an outdated philosophy of science where it was believed one could simply “observe truth” (the error of empiricism). This led in turn to “Follow this recipe (method!) to find truth”.

1h602

NateBoyle@_Nathan_Boyle_

@naval @FutureJurvetson The scientific method is the pseudo code for the algorithm

1h96

Sci-Fi Si@SciFiSi2

@FutureJurvetson @naval Furthermore, in the past, innovations took decades to embed. Inventors like Nikola Tesla went unrewarded. The flywheel moves so fast now that innovators like Elon get rewarded sooner than is comfortable for many.

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Brett Hall@ToKTeacher

"Why didn’t the Greeks invent it? Or the Egyptians?" Athens almost did. They had a persistent "tradition of criticism" but lacked an appreciation of the importance of experiment. Yet the *purpose* of such trials (cimento) following Galileo, wasn't understood until Popper. Experiments cannot possibly prove, verify or confirm. They decide between good explanations already guessed. See Deutsch (below).

1h261

Steve Jurvetson@FutureJurvetson

@naval @seanboisselle Our “mysterious” simplification of the search space reminds me of the embedded power of deep learning—a resonant homology across diverse hierarchies of iterative algorithms: https://flic.kr/p/LvGhLU

1h381

DMC@DMC4277

@naval @FutureJurvetson And when we stop valuing the truth over feelings that’s when progress stops and we begin to regress.

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Fitz@Fitz_Doud

“Scientific methodology, in turn, does not (nor could it validly) provide criteria for accepting a theory.

Conjecture, and the correction of apparent errors and deficiencies, are the only processes at work.

And just as the objective of science isn't to find evidence that justifies theories as true or probable, so the objective of the methodology of science isn't to find rules which, if followed, are guaranteed, or likely, to identify true theories as true.

There can be no such rules.

A methodology is itself merely a (philosophical) theory - a convention, as Popper (1959) put it, actual or proposed - that has been conjectured to solve philosophical problems, and is subject to criticism for how well or badly it seems to do that.

There cannot be an argument that certifies it as true or probable, any more than there can for scientific theories.”

-@DavidDeutschOxf

https://www.constructortheory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/logic-experimental-tests-paper.pdf

1h351

Brett Hall@ToKTeacher

Another quip: he would begin some lectures with a single word.

"Observe".

After awkward silence someone would ask something like "Observe what, Professor?".

Exactly! We *first* need a theory before we can observe anything. Science cannot begin with observations. It begins with theories...and problems with those theories.

1h301

🫥@jjiouzz

@naval @FutureJurvetson @seanboisselle The human intuition and creativity may be sacred things. “Endowed by God”.

1h261

Nikolias Goninus@nikoliasgoninus

@naval @FutureJurvetson Yes exactly. Francis Bacon himself spoke of this

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