The second lecture of The Two Cultures Initiative, titled "Does Science Need Philosophy?" was opened by Dr. Syed Moeez Hassan. In order to encourage more interaction between speakers and audience, there was a slight change in the format. Before the presentations of the speakers, a sheet was handed out to all the participants and they were asked to write down their own answers to the above question. Dr. Moeez then invited Dr. Basit to the stage.

Dr. Basit began his talk by decrying the "creationist conception of science" - the belief that science as we know it emerged fully formed and spontaneously in the 19th century (or some other point in history). He argued that it is the product of historical evolution. He supported this claim in two ways. First, he summarized Max Weber's description of science in his classic essay "Science as a Vocation." Weber argues that science is composed of three elements: a) the "idea" - which is rooted in the intuitive imagination, b) the "abstract concept" - which is a discovery of philosophers (more specifically Plato), and c) the "controlled experiment" - which was pioneered by the artisans (more specifically the piano makers) in Renaissance Europe. Building on Weber's observation, Dr. Basit described science as "a unique constellation of non-scientific elements that emerged at a particular time and place in history." Second, he described the intellectual background on "science." At its earliest stage of development, science was indistinguishable from philosophy (with Aristotle being an example of a philosopher-scientist). Then within philosophy "natural philosophy" emerged to distinguish a particular type of philosophy from others (with Newton using this term in the title of his classic "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica"). The term "scientist" (as we understand it today) came into use around the 1830's after being coined by William Whewell. Then he noted that the process of historical development does not end with the emergence of "science" and two trends become notable in the subsequent development. First, scientists develop an arrogant and self-satisfied attitude towards their roots - coming to see science as being independent of philosophy and completely self-sufficient. To describe his point, he used the analogy of petulant teenagers (or young or old adults for that matter) who come to see their parents as nothing more than an embarrassment, burden, and liability after having attained what they imagine to be "autonomy" and "independence." Secondly, science begins to discover splits within itself. This second development was explained using the work of Gerald Holton who distinguishes "public science" from "private science" (this distinction was further clarified during the Q&A session as being equivalent to the distinction between the "context of justification" and "context of discovery" respectively.) While public science shows science to be a linear, coherent, and strictly "objective" undertaking, private science shows it to be a non-linear activity in which many "subjective" elements play a critical role - without which it is impossible to bring coherence to the messy, inconsistent, and contradictory data. Holton emphasizes that it is a gross mistake to look at these two aspects of science in isolation.

Moving towards Peirce, Dr. Basit now explained where science stood most in need of philosophy. Using Peirce's essay "Notes on Scienfitic Philosophy" as the starting point, he noted that every special science is underpinned by certain assumptions or axioms which it is unable to test or validate - let alone "prove." Consequently, every science must begin by taking these assumptions (or axioms) to be self-evident. Peirce notes that philosophy alone is equipped with the tools and methods to test the validity of these assumptions and help us to determine how much confidence can be reposed in them. On this point, Peirce gives the example of geometry, one of the simplest sciences, which mankind has been in possession of for more than two thousand years. In his Elements, Euclid notes that geometry is based on five postulates (four of which were already known and he added a fifth) which the geometer must beg the student to accept as being "self-evident" (or without any evidence.) Consquently, geometry (and all of mathematics) is based on assumptions that cannot be proven mathematically (or "scientifically"). This has far-reaching implications for the question "Does Science Need Philosophy?". If science wants to attain "objective" knowledge of these assumptions/postulates/presuppositions then it will always need philosophy.

When Dr. Bilal took the stage, he began with his answer to the question which was "sometimes yes, and sometimes no." He fully agreed with Dr. Basit that in its developmental stages, science did stand exclusively and necessarily in need of philosophy. However, he argued that this was not the case anymore. Philosophy in modern times continues to be a major source of scientific ideas, though not the only source. He further clarified that even now examples may be given in which a scientist draws inspiration from philosophy, the moon, or even dreams such as Kekulé who inferred the structure of benzene from the dream about a snake eating its own tail. Yet these examples are not very common, and hardly justify a relationship of "need" as framed in the question. "I am against the necessity/dependence," he argued, which is implied in the question. The kind of necessary relationship implied in the question holds true only for a branch of philosophy - philosophy of science. Science needs philosophy of science in the form of conditions for science and for its external view. In short, Dr. Bilal supported an affirmative answer to "Does Science Need Philosophy?" but in a very qualified sense.

The presentation and response generated a great deal of interest among the audience. There was an extensive question and answer which lasted almost one hour. One audience member questioned what the isolation of either science or philosophy from the other, and the confusion which resulted, implied for the general mental health of the individual. He proposed that perhaps this debate needed a third party i.e., psychology. Both speakers recognized the importance of the psychological perspective and responded that it would require a separate sitting to discuss the relationship between science and philosophy from this particular vantage point. Another member questioned the relevance and usefulness of terminological divisions such as "science" versus the "scientist" in probing this question, arguing instead, for a holistic approach. Another member of the audience shared his own field's example, economics, which rested on some broad assumptions such as the perfect rationality and self-interestedness of the individual to call into question the argument that science no longer needs philosophy. The event concluded on a note of appreciation.