A Blurb on Science
Friday, June 25, 2010 at 1:44AM If you know me a little, you would know I have an aversion of the use (or rather, misuse) of this word – Science. I can suffer from almost an allergic reaction whenever I hear someone say something along the lines of: “Science has proven that XYZ”
Sometimes I feel that people are referring to science, as if they are referring to God Almighty. As if quoting the results of some scientific research, makes a statement true or false.
But I’m jumping ahead. Let’s understand what science is all about.
According to Wikipedia science is a systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the world and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories.
Which actually means science can answer a lot of questions about how the world works. But does it really convey how the world works? No. It merely explains how we PERCIEVE the world to be working. The questions we ask are limited by the way our mind works. And the answers we get are limited both by our mind’s perceptions, and by the capacities of the tools that we are utilising.
So really, science can only give answer to questions of how the world APPEARS to us.
Which is a beautiful thing really. Through scientific observation and experimentations, we were able to move our society forward and to achieve some magnificent results. For example, the research of electricity led to the invention of the light bulb, which made it easier for us to deal with darkness. And our world is by far more comfortable for us these days because we were able to make practical use of the knowledge we have gathered about how the world works. And this is truly beautiful!
The problem starts when science becomes our new religion. And what do I mean by that?
First, we tend to believe what scientists are telling us. Example.
;)
I believe that the earth evolves around the sun. I truly do believe that. Why? Let’s face it, if I look at the sky and see the sun moves across it, the most logical conclusion I should come up with, is that the sun moves across the sky. However, since ever I can remember myself everyone told me otherwise. They told me that one scientist or another (let’s settle for Galileo) did some observations, calculations, etc, and they came to the conclusion that the earth moves while the sun is stationary. And this conclusion made room for further development. So it’s a fact now. But how do I know? Did I make any observations and calculations myself? No. However I BELIEVE it is true. I believe that if I did those observations and calculations myself, I would reach the same conclusion. The key word here is BELIEF. Hence, science is my new religion.
Second, science doesn’t really prove anything. Let me explain.
Apart from the field of mathematics, where you can prove a statement to be right or wrong, any other scientific field cannot prove a single hypothesis. And it works like this: Scientists look at the world and come up with a question. Then they usually will conduct a thought experiment and try to find an answer. This answer is the hypothesis. Then they would try to find a method to observe and measure which will enable them to conclude whether their hypothesis is valid or not. If many observations and measures have been conducted, and most of them led to the same single conclusion, then we get a result. If the result supports the hypothesis, then this hypothesis becomes a THEORY. If the results do not support the hypothesis, usually the hypothesis will be abandoned. At least until a further point in time where the tools have been improved and then it might be re-examined. In both cases, the hypothesis is not proven or disproven.
;)
Example. Up until the 18th century, most scientists believed that light is made of light-particles. That was the theory back then. Sometime during the 19th century, it became widely accepted that light is made of waves, not particles, as scientists found tools to observe behaviours of light that could only be explained if light was, in fact, made of waves. So the ruling theory changed and now light was regarded as to be made of waves.
These days we improved our methods of observations even further, to reach the conclusion that light has a nature of being both a wave and a particle at the same time – a concept that is indeed sometime difficult for our minds to grasp – and yet, it is the widest accepted theory today. That is, until a new theory will replace it.
My point is, science can only explain how the world appears to us at a certain time.
Theories are not proven. They can be accepted by the majority of the scientific world, which doesn’t make them TRUE. Accepted theories can have a huge impact when we apply them to our lives, like our understanding of the wave-particle duality of photons that could be utilised in the construction of quantum computers. And yet these are still only temporary theories. And when people tend to cling to them and try to justify them even when a different theory seems to be explaining the world better – then it becomes religion, not science.
The third problem I would like to address is the scientific research.
Even if we assume that for every hypothesis we can find a perfect mean to examine, observe and measure, so that we can come to a distinctive conclusion, so many small details can go pear shaped while actually conducting a research, that it’s scary. From human error (and even huge teams of engineers and scientists can overlook a major miscommunication as in this case from 1999 where NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter)
to politics (where the body that sponsors a research actually has as interest in getting a specific conclusion, so they might alter the results in order to suit their agenda).
And most of us only read a headline in the news, or watch a short segment on TV that summarise the research, so we don’t have enough information to be able to judge whether the research was up to standards. We just read the conclusions that someone else has made for us, and then we follow the advice blindly. And lets not forget that for almost any research done, that concluded one thing, there usually is at least one other research that concluded the exact opposite: “According to the latest research, eating red meat is good for your brain”; “Scientists have found that eating a raw vegan diet will heal all your diseases” – so which advise do we follow? Who do we trust?
My personal view?
Trust your intuition. Follow your gut feeling.
We are all pretty much biased, and we hear only what we are ready to hear.
So yes, follow scientific progress and enjoy the applications that are moving us forward, just don’t let it rule your life. Use your brain and logic to conduct your own research wherever applicable.
And with this I conclude.
Reader Comments (3)
MAYA!
This is the most inspiring post i've read in sometime. Keep up the blogs, Your totally in the right direction and your speed is amazing! I like!
Love ya! XO
Daryl
Here I am finally! I wanted to respond to this post back at the end of June but I could not find the time. Babies, sleep deprivation and a mad scramble to get a truckload of assignments finished for uni will do that to you.
Your article is insightful and teases out many philosophical problems that continue to plague philosophers and intellectuals alike. I like how you structured your thesis (a caution against placing absolute trust in science) by introducing a definition of science and commending its merits. You then present a problematic surrounding science and form your own position (read; thesis). Following that, you defend your position by way of supporting claims and examples.
If I am to understand correctly (and correct me if I’m wrong), your main argument is as follows:
1. People place too much faith in science as a be all and end all.
2. Science is flawed.
3. It is flawed by way of human perception, temporal theory, and agenda setting
4. These flaws debunk science as a claim to truth
5. Therefore, as we’re all biased, we should trust to our intuitions and enjoy the fruits of science while retaining some level of skeptical inquiry.
You are probably wondering why I am summarizing and parroting back (in a possibly patronizing manner) the process you undertook in establishing the point of your post. Let me assure you that I do it for my own benefit. It helps me make sure that I understand what I am reading. It also aids me as a form of reference when I come to compose my response - which is what I shall do now!
I mentioned earlier that your piece (imo) teases out philosophical problems that are yet to be resolved. To list a few: science, truth, perception, ideology, religion, logic (rational thought?), intuition, belief, right & wrong. I will not expound on all of these because to do so would require a comprehensive and concise response well beyond the scope of my intellectual aptitude. That and I don’t sleep any more than three hours at a time, so my brain is forever in blergh mode - at least until my daughter reaches an age where she sleeps uninterrupted throughout the night. I will however, address science and truth at the very least, because I believe they are integral to your thesis.
First things first, while Wikipedia is a convenient and expansive resource to draw upon for knowledge, its credibility is questionable. Who are the authors of the content, and what credentials allow them to speak with authority on the matter? Wikipedia entries such as the one on science can be made by anyone. Wikipedia employs thousands upon thousands of editors to review those entries and assess their accuracy. More often than not (in my experience), much of that reviewing process allows for many inaccurate and sometimes grossly erroneous entries to fall through, mainly because the editors in question may not possess the level of expertise to confirm the authenticity of that which they assess. Sure, there are safeguards that allow editors to underscore any claims within the entry that do not have citations, but it places a lot of trust that Wiki’s editors are competent and apply integrity and conscientiousness to their work at all times (it almost begs the question, who edits the editors?). Wikipedia is an unusual beast in that anyone can contribute and make a claim to expert knowledge, endorsed by the ‘brand’ of Wikipedia (I wouldn’t be surprised to see academic papers on authorship, ontological discourse and power in respect to this), which can revised over and over and over again, especially if the content is highly contentious. A wonderful example is the Howard government back in 2007 who were found editing revising entries on its members, history and party. And now to bring it all into relevance. I started this long-winded spiel on Wikipedia by questioning its credibility (watch for this recurring word). I did so because you quoted a definition of science from Wikipedia that to my knowledge has yet to be conclusively formulated and agreed upon by all the epistemological communities.
Now, I’m aware that you may have just applied Wiki’s definition of science as an expedient way of bypassing the necessity of making a post on science and ways to define it, allowing you to be able to get on with your argument and get your points across. In my consideration of this, you may be asking me ‘why the hellish paragraph on Wikipedia then?’ to which I would say that I plan to use the above paragraph as an analogy for the forthcoming points that I will raise. Rest assured I’m not doing this just to be argumentative, or am I…? *Kim casts a questioning look upon his dark half while dramatic music thunders over the scene*
Much of your blurb on science makes assumptions that rest on the Wikipedian definition of science, and as I’ve said, there isn’t to my knowledge a universal definition of science yet. Popper, Hume, Kuhn, Lakatos, Thagard, Hempel – theorists and philosophers whose work on what is science and how we define it are still being debated about today. There are methodological, social, historical and practical approaches to this definition, but with no real end in sight. What you are describing however is a traditional view of science. That is, the view that science is derived from the facts and those facts are claims that can be substantiated by confirmation of the senses. Facts rendered through the senses provide a secure and objective basis for science, free from opinion, belief, expectation and imagination (pure thought). Logically sound reasoning renders laws and theories that are derived from these facts are thus equally secure and objective. At least, that is how the traditional view of science goes.
As you’ve astutely pointed out in your post, facts drawn from observation don’t necessarily imply truth. We are limited by the faculty of our senses and by the technologies we have available on hand at the time. Science derived from fact derived from the senses makes claim for sensory experience as the claim to all knowledge. To some degree, I agree with this (seeing is believing?). Yet for all the trust in the senses I ask, ‘senses belonging to whom?’ What does a person who has been blind for all their life make of the claim of sight as a confirmation of fact? What difference in observation can be drawn when two people, one colour-blind and the other with normal vision, view traffic lights? The corollary of this line of questioning posits that fact borne of sensory experience is a subjective once, and hence loses its power of claim to (absolute) truth.…which brings me to the headache of all philosophical conundrums: truth.
Ignore for now a common problem that when we talk of truth, we are asking if there is such a thing or if there are multiple truths, and how we define it such a concept. Ignore for now that whichever answer I provide, I could be positing a truth upon a truth (e.g. if I claim that there are multiple truths, then I am claiming a truth of that claim that there are multiple truths, ‘it is true that that there are multiple truths’ - and so the recurring dilemma continues. Ungh.). Ignore for now the question of essentialism vs subjectivism, and aaaaaall the domains they prop up (e.g. gender, good, evil). Let us just assume, for the sake of my sanity, that the claim to truth is a claim to what is. There. *cleans himself of dirty philosophical deliberation*
Truth waves a challenge. Enter science. Enter Wikipedia. Now fight!
How do we know what is? What is ‘what is’? I’ve mentioned before that there a good number of intellectuals who’ve tackled the issue of science: its definition, aims, its demarcation and so on. In one hand, science is a systemic method of inquiry that collates a finite number of ‘truth’ statements observed of an event into one generalized truth that is applicable to of all events of the same nature. This is called inductivism. I’ll use your sun example, an age old example. For all your life the sun has risen. You have experiential sensory evidence of this fact. Yet, how can you be sure it will rise tomorrow? How do you know it will rise tomorrow? Can you know, or do you make a predictive inference based on prior experience and thus guess in all probability that it will rise tomorrow? A better example: You stand on a cliff over a sea, your palm is outstretched facing the sky with an apple upon it. You flip your palm upside down and the apple drops. You understand that it will drop because of gravity. You infer that all apples will fall from you palm if you flip it upside down. But how do you make this assumption? Have you tried every apple on the planet to back this hypothesis? How many times must you perform the act before you come to a generalization? Suppose a scientist does an experiment and gets a particular result. He repeats the experiment a few times and keeps getting the same result. After that he will probably stop, confident that were he to keep repeating the experiment, under exactly the same conditions, he would continue to get the same result. This assumption may seem obvious, but why assume that future repetitions of the experiment will yield the same result? These are inductive inferences, not a belief, and much of science is based on this. If scientific knowledge is understood to be derived from the facts, then ‘derive’ must be understood in an inductive sense. Therefore, inductive inferences, or inductive arguments, make an appeal of what is probably true, not an absolute truth.
Then there is the other hand, and by golly, I’m starting to run out of steam on this. Anywho, inductivism is no guarantee of certainty, and is rejected some theorists because inductive arguments are not logically deductive arguments. Nevermind that while logic has truth preserving properties; it relies largely on the truth of each premise being made in order to reach a conclusion that is true. Therefore logic can simply reveal what follows from, or what in a sense is already contained in, the statements we already have in hand (e.g. All cats have five legs. Kitty is my cat. Therefore, Kitty has five legs. This logically deductive argument is valid, despite the obvious fallacy that cats do not have five legs. But you get my drift).
And so the debate of the demarcation criterion of science continues. Oh, I forgot to mention that observation is guided by and presupposes theory. It’s not just one way. With Galileo and the apple (as a crude example), observation led to theory. With Einstein his hypothesis that starlight would be deflected with the sun came to be observed as true: theory then observation.
You’re going to have to forgive me, but I’m about to butcher my response by wrapping things up prematurely. The above spiel on Wikipedia serves as an analogy for science and other epistemological communities as they vie for authorship based on credibility on a claim to truth. Credibility. Credibility at the moment is dominated by the discourse of rational thought, rational thought being drawn from what can be observed, logically deducted, or inferred. Science attempts to explain how and why our world exists as it does through this discourse. Because rational thought is given value (which I might add, is evident by the very means by which we’re both trying to get our point across), we tend to give science more credibility than someone who claims that the earth is flat or that babies aren’t born – they’re delivered by storks. Science is by no means an absolute truth, and while its limitations rest on time and technology, it is probably (in my opinion) a far better credible source of ‘truth’ in its current manifestation (by way of what we can experience and sense, than not at all). Far better than to place trust in some deific figure to which we have no means to verify (prove) through our senses. It is not to say that a god does not exist, but nor does it imply that just because we have no means to detect a god, that it does exist. You’ve heard of the flying spaghetti monster, right? i.e better to pursue something tangible and detectable than something intangible and non-falsifiable. But enough on that.
I agree that science should not be the be all and end all of truth. Science afterall is the domain of humans, and being the humans that we are, are subject to fallibility. Your conclusion heralds my point of departure. What is intuition? What is this gut feeling? How do we know these things exist? How does using our brain and logic come into proving the existence of intuition and gut feeling, and how are they any more real than destiny, numerology, feng shui, or chakras? Why is it that academia and scholars berate Wikipedia as a terrible and erroneous source of knowledge? What claim to knowledge do academics have over the layperson that contributes to Wikipedia? What does this say of power? Why does one plus one equal two?
P.s. Short version re differentiation between religion and science: religion is mostly inflexible, whereas science is a constant process of revision supposedly based on verifiable evidence. See Dawkins talk about this @ http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawkins.html
That's it, comment over. I recommend reading a book called "What is this thing called Science?" by A.F.Chalmers. A wonderful introduction into the issues you raised and expounds a great deal of ideas/theories explained in a clear, concise and simple manner (which is what I crave! )
Oh and my reply totally fails having read over it. And baby is awake. And I must sleep. Night!