ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights some of the issues besetting a scientific approach. From unavoidable, simplicity has become a guideline for modern science. Science must inevitably proceed through a series of approximations. When science can clarify the maps, it suggests new ones, which in turn will be left aside for less inappropriate ones as a result of observation-based reasoning. In short, mathematical assumptions, namely the selection of parameters and relations they satisfy, tend to be made for the sake of mathematical convenience, not for any justified scientific reason. Quantitative theories cannot claim to speak for all time and space since chaos is an inherent consequence of the current mathematical understanding. Unpredictability has for example “inspire[d] new experimental techniques”, allowing one to prudently continue the investigations despite the havoc chaos creates. However, there is no idea to what extent uniformity holds because of unpredictability, which should make one prudent concerning any assertion about distant phenomena.
