Towards an Initial Understanding of Science (1)
Ian Johnston
Vancouver Island University
[This document, a slightly revised
and reformatted version of an earlier text, is in the public domain, and may be
used by anyone, in whole or in part, without charge and without permission,
re-released May 2000]
For comments, questions,
corrections, improvements, please contact Ian Johnston
Now, here’s an odd question: What exactly is science? The question is comprehensible enough, but the answer is far less clear. Our life and our thinking are so dominated by science, we have so much faith in science, and we refer so much of our education and our problems to people called scientists or technicians, that anyone would assume we have a clear idea about what this powerful thing is that stands at the centre of our culture. But it doesn’t take much asking around, even among practicing scientists and students of science, or much reading in the local library to discover that there’s a fairly lively dispute going on, some confusion, and a great deal of ignorance about just what we mean by the term.
But the really odd thing is that we (or most of us) are even not
aware of this dispute. We don’t discuss the matter much, at least in general
public forums or the classrooms (not even in the science classrooms). There
seems to be a general assumption that we all know more or less what science is,
and the few things that we might not quite understand are all taken care of by
a consensus of experts or academic philosophers with time on their hands. There
are so many scientists around, and they do so many good things, obviously they
know what they are doing. So we can turn our attention to more disputatious
things like politics, art, or the next basketball dynasty.
In some things it may be the case that ignorance is bliss, but in
this issue that might not be the best solution. Many of most important social
and political decisions involve scientific questions,
we are constantly being asked to evaluate scientific studies of particular
issues, and repeatedly we are required to think about imposing limitations on
science (or at least the technological implications of science). In one way or
another, an understanding of science appears central to the exercise of our
political responsibilities, to say nothing about our desire to know. So, if we
have any wish to understand our world and ourselves better, it might be
important for all of us to explore a little bit more beneath the surface of our
immediate understanding of the term so that we begin to develop, if not a
precise definition of what science is, at least an awareness of some of the
complexities and ambiguities contained within a term that is perhaps too often
misunderstood as something determined once and for all, even if we are not
totally sure just what that determination adds up to.
Science as Fact Gathering
I suspect that most people asked to provide some initial
definition of science would describe it as a means of understanding certain
problems; science, they would claim, is characterized by a set procedure
called, appropriately enough, the scientific method. To practice science
is to apply this method to the analysis and explanation of events. And to the
extent that one applies this method rigorously, one is doing science, thinking
scientifically, being a scientist.
And what does this method require? Well, here again, there would
seem to be widespread agreement that science is the business of carrying out
measurements, collecting data, conducting experiments. Then, once a certain
amount of quantifiable information has been gathered, the process of science
constructs a theory to account for the problem under investigation. On the
basis of that theory, certain predictions are made, which are tested. To be
scientific is thus pre-eminently to concern oneself with the objective search
for quantifiable information about something, constructing theories on the
basis of that information, and then testing the theories with further
experiments, and thus refining an understanding of the world. An important part
of this method, so defined, is that the pursuit of science produces public results
based on replication of quantifiable measurements and thus provides objective
knowledge, free of the biases and subjective uncertainties of other forms of
knowledge.
Now, while it doesn’t take much observation of what a scientist
actually does in his or her daily work to confirm that this description
accurately conveys a sense of a large part of science, it is also quickly
evident that this account of science is seriously inadequate. For no one can
set out to gather data, make measurements, conduct experiments, and so on,
until she is clear about what she is looking for, about what counts as evidence
and what does not, about what to include in the data and what to exclude. And
that information can only be provided by some theory constructed in advance of
the observations. In that sense, theory must come before measurement.
It may well be true that in much of science, and especially in the
education of young scientists, the theory is more or less taken for granted, so
that all attention is focused on the best methods of collecting and presenting
data within the context of that theory. However, it is clear that all such
objective data gathering must be guided by a theory determined in advance,
whether the scientist or would-be scientist understands the full complexity of
the theory or is even aware of it.
Science as Falsification
The logical inadequacy of seeing science as simple fact gathering
has led some thinkers to focus on theory checking as the essence of science.
According to this view, science is an activity characterized by the constant
attempts to prove theories about the world incorrect, to falsify theories. The
concept goes something like this. Science begins with the development of a
theory which contains in itself a means of being confirmed (i.e., tested). The
major work of science involves subjecting such theories to rigorous and
repeated testing, by making predictions based upon the theory and then
conducting experiments or field work to see if these predictions do, in fact,
take place. If they do not, then the theory has been falsified. It must be
modified, recast, or abandoned, and the process begins again.
Science, thus, is not so much a means of discovering the truth as
it is a means of removing error, and its conclusions, the statements which
survive repeated testing, have a progressive character, that is, we become
increasingly certain that they are not false and they become increasingly
sophisticated and secure and, perhaps, closer approximations to the truth of
nature, so long as they have not been falsified.
Now, this view has much to recommend it. In the first place, it
emphasizes a crucial point: science concerns itself only with claims about the
world which can, in fact, be checked independently and objectively (i.e., by
experiment, measurement, and objective fact gathering). Any statement which
cannot be so checked does not constitute a scientific statement and therefore
is excluded from the enquiry. For example, the claim that the old Titan
Prometheus made human beings out of mud is not a scientific claim. It may be
true (please note this point), and the story may well encourage other stories,
cults, poems, prayers, and so on. Many people may derive considerable emotional
satisfaction from it. But this account generates no predictions which can be
tested to confirm it independently by any form of experiment or measurement,
and hence there is no way it could ever be falsified. Thus, that claim lies
outside the realm of science.
By contrast, a claim that an object dropped from a certain height
will fall towards the earth with a standard acceleration or that a set mixture
of zinc and hydrochloric acid will produce a certain amount of hydrogen under
certain conditions are claims that can be checked repeatedly by different
people. If their results differ from the claim, then the statement has been
falsified. Hence, those two claims above are scientific. The key idea here, one
should note, is not whether the claims are true or false, but whether there is
some means of checking them by observation publicly, repeatedly, and
independently.
For this reason, a falsificationist
would insist that the scientific status of many social science theories is
suspect, if not spurious, because they cannot be checked against specific
predictions. Freudian psychology or Marxist political theory,
for example, claim to be based on scientific principles, yet it is
impossible to test them against specific predictions. These theories do make
predictions, but no matter what the outcome, the theories have an explanation.
If class war does break out, that confirms Marx’s theory (the proletariat has
been turned into a revolutionary class); if class war does not break out that
also confirms Marx’s theory (the proletariat is not yet ready). In fact, with a
great deal of social science theory, it is, in practice, very difficult to
imagine an outcome that might not be covered by some detail or, alternatively
put, it is difficult to organize a specific testable prediction which might
serve to falsify the theory. Most scientists object to claims from psychics on
related grounds. Psychics claim to have special powers which enable them to
make predictions. Many of these predictions are scientific claims, in the sense
they can be tested and falsified. But many psychics either refuse to take the
tests under suitable conditions or, when the prediction does not occur, claim
that there must have been some interference.
Incidentally, this notion that science deals only with statements
which are falsifiable is one key to understanding the seemingly interminable
debate between Creationism and the scientific community. This debate often
presents itself as an argument about whether Darwin’s account of how evolution
works or the Genesis account of how the world was made is true or whether they
both deserve to be considered equally. For reasons which will be apparent later
in this essay, framing the issue in this way is extremely misleading, perhaps
even impossible to resolve. In fact, the major focus of the argument in the
context it which it is usually carried out is not
which of these two claims is true, but rather the following question: Should we
teach the Creationist account in the science curriculum of the schools? The
vast majority of scientists answer this question with a resounding negative,
because the Creationist account is based on statements which cannot be
falsified, that is, they cannot be tested. The Genesis account generates no
predictions of the sort generated by Darwin’s theory (2). Therefore, it is not
scientific and has no place in a science curriculum.
Curiously enough, many Creationists, while rejecting the point I
have just mentioned about the importance of falsification, then use that
concept to accuse evolution of not being scientific: since it cannot be
observed (the time periods are too lengthy), it cannot be measured and checked.
In other words, they claim that evolution is not scientific because it cannot
be falsified. This, of course, is not the case. It is possible to make
predictions on the basis of evolutionary theory and to test them against the
fossil record. Such testing goes on all the time.
[Parenthetically, one might also observe here that at attention to
falsification helps to clarify the nature of a scientific proof.
Science does not prove things in the sense most people mean, especially
when they talk about proving evolution. Science as falsification
is designed to prove things wrong, to discredit theories, to locate weaknesses
or anomalies in explanations. A scientific theory is established or
confirmed or, I suppose, proven, if it repeatedly survives all the attempts to
disprove it.]
Falsification theory does accurately describe a great deal of what
scientists do much of the time: they make predictions
on the basis of existing theories, and then seek to confirm or falsify those
predictions. The results strengthen or weaken the case for a particular theory.
A famous example is the prediction of the existence of the planet Neptune from
the theoretical details of Newtonian celestial mechanics. When, on the basis of
this prediction, astronomers searched in a certain portion of the sky where,
according to the theory, the planet should be located, they discovered a planet
whose existence they had not known before. This was a powerful reinforcement of
the value of Newtonian physics as a basis for understanding celestial
movements. A well-known negative example is Weissmann’s
experiment of cutting off the tails of twenty-two successive generations of
mice in order to test whether the shapes of the tails in the new generations
would change. The theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics
suggested that there should be some modification in the length of the tails of
future generations under such conditions. When that did not occur, the result
served to falsify the concept that acquired characteristics could be inherited.
The concept of falsification helps to illuminate also why there
are so many important areas of human life which science cannot deal with, those
areas where we cannot make clear predictions and evaluate them on the basis of
observation and measurement. Our moral and aesthetic and legal judgments
and our religious life cannot be quantified or
framed in a language which enables us to make statements which we can confirm
or refute in the normal scientific way. For about two hundred years (from
about 1660 on) we made a concerted attempt to put such questions on a
mathematical footing, in order to bring these difficult decisions under the
authoritative banner of science, but the attempt failed. Science cannot
tell us what we ought to do, or whether a particular
art work is good or not, or whether a certain person is innocent or guilty, or
whether God is a benevolent and loving presence. That is not to say that
science is irrelevant in such debates, for it can clarify the facts upon which
our decision often rests. But there is no method in science for telling
us what we must or ought to do in the face of such facts. For example,
science can provide extensive details of embryonic development, but it cannot
inform us whether or not abortion is morally justified.
The falsification idea of science, however, also runs into logical
difficulties for two reasons. First, there is the problem of a false observation.
If a scientist makes a prediction on the basis of the theory, seeks to test it,
and observes that the prediction does not occur, the problem may be in the
theory, but it equally may be in the observation which results from the test.
Hence, it would be premature and wrong to reject the theory. A well-known
example is the apparent size of Venus. According to the theory of Copernicus
that the Earth orbits the sun rather than the other way around, Venus must
appear different sizes at different times. But observation did not confirm this
prediction. Copernicus had no answer to this damaging point. Only years later,
when observational techniques improved through the use of the telescope could
people see that Venus did, in fact, change its apparent size. Strict
falsification would have required the rejection of Copernicus’s theory once
observation failed to confirm a prediction. Thus, since science often has no
immediate way of knowing if the failure of a prediction results from an
inadequacy in the theory or from an inadequacy in the test, falsification often
provides insufficient logical grounds for rejecting a theory out of hand.
A second problem with the falsificationist
understanding of science is that a scientific theory may well survive
falsification in some tests and not in others. If it is to be rejected the
first time it is successfully falsified, then virtually no theories would
survive their early stages. Scientists, in fact, often continue to work with
theories some of whose predictions have not worked out properly if they are
useful in other areas, partly for the reason already mentioned (there may be a
fault in the testing experiments) and also because the theory is useful in
other ways. A well-known contemporary example is Darwin’s theory of natural
selection. On the basis of this theory, Darwin himself predicted many
intermediate types indicating the transition stages in the evolution of all
species. Although numerous such transition types have been found, they have not
occurred in the step-by-step fashion and in the numbers that the theory seems
to demand. And it is no longer possible to argue, as Darwin did, that we would
find such evidence with more investigation. Nevertheless, science does not
reject Darwin’s theory because it is so spectacularly successful at explaining
so many other things (and certain modifications in the theory can take care of
some of the problems created by this prediction), and it generates all sorts of
other predictions which scientists wish to investigate. Similarly, modern
physics has revealed important inadequacies in Newtonian mechanics in certain
forms of enquiry. However, Newtonian mechanics is still extraordinarily
successful at explaining and predicting so many things that it has retained
much of its authority in modern physics.
Science as Social Process
The various logical problems encountered in trying to define
science by specifying a universal method of enquiry (e.g., by objective fact
gathering or by falsification) have led some people to attempts to clarify what
science is by focusing on the work scientists do. In other words, science is
defined by the activities of the scientists; what they carry out is what
science, in fact, is.
What does this involve? Well, scientists carry out research in
groups (research teams) usually at large institutions (universities, corporate
research and development centres, and so on). What does that mean? In practice,
this amounts to something like the following. Once he
becomes a member of a research team, a scientist accepts as a working agenda a
particular theory for a natural phenomenon which is shared by all members of
the team (usually he has been specially educated for his position on such a
team). This working assumption defines not only the scientist’s specific area
of interest but also his fundamental theoretical understanding of that area,
which is accepted, for the purposes of the research program, as established and
beyond dispute (accepting the common theoretical assumption is a necessary
qualification for membership on the research team). Science is the activity he
then undertakes to expand, refine, and improve the ways in which the theory
provides an understanding of the particular area under scrutiny.
Such activity does not involve repeatedly testing the core
assumptions which constitute the heart of the theory. To abandon these, the
scientist would have to abandon that research project and join another guided
by a different fundamental theory. Hence, in any one field of enquiry there
might be competing research teams working with different theoretical
assumptions, each seeking, in competition with the others, to establish its
core theory as the most fruitful (i.e., the best source of useful and confirmed
predictions). These research teams might share a common concern with scientific
statements (of the sort mentioned above), but having different theories they
could have important disagreements about what constitutes an effective test of
their theory.
The competition between these different research teams would
continue for as long as they all continued to attract new participants. If one
emerged as richer and more fruitful in useful predictions, it might over time
displace the others by attracting most or all of the participants in that area
of enquiry (especially if it gained a dominant position in the university
science curriculums). In other situations, rival research groups might continue
to exist for a long time.
Consider, for example, two rival theories of inheritance in the
history of modern genetics: one claimed that the reproductive material was
directly affected by the living experiences of the adult parent, and thus the
offspring could display characteristics acquired by the parent during the parent’s
lifetime; another claimed that the reproductive material was independent of the
parent’s experiences, and thus the offspring’s inherited characteristics would
not be affected by anything acquired by the parent.
On the basis of these two very different assumptions, different
groups of scientists exploring inheritance organized and carried out different
research programs. Each member of a particular group enthusiastically endorsed
without question the fundamental assumption of the group’s theory and repudiated
the fundamental assumptions of its rival. They produced different accounts of
particular phenomena, and each continued to prosper so long as it attracted
adherents. Historically, the former theory (of acquired characteristics)
dominated Soviet biology, and the latter theory (no inheritance of acquired
characteristics) dominated biology in the West. The preponderant success of
Western genetics over time led increasing numbers of international biologists
to enter research programs where the basic assumption was that inheritance was
independent of the parent’s experience. And this has now become the dominant
theory in modern genetics.
This emphasis on the sociological dimension of science (that is,
on the ways in which science is essentially characterized by group decisions
made by professional scientists often in a climate of competing theories)
introduces something crucially different from the idea that science is a
universal methodology agreed upon by all or justified by universal rules which
transcend human groups. The emphasis on science as the product of a human
activity makes science something much more complex and ambiguous. For if
science is what scientists say it is, if it is the product of human decision
making in groups of people who themselves determine what the rules are, then,
in some sense, science is a form of knowledge constructed for particular
human purposes in a cultural and social context, rather than a single correct
method independent of individual or group human motives.
If this is the case, it raises important issues. For human beings,
after all, are motivated by many things both individually and collectively, and
we are entitled to wonder just how much these enter into decisions about
research projects, about the fields of enquiry, about the preferred theories
for understanding something, and about what constitutes confirmation or
falsification of a theory. The decided preference in the Soviet Union for a
genetics based on the inheritance of acquired characteristics, for example, clearly
had a direct relationship with the political beliefs of the communist state,
with which such a view of inheritance could be so easily reconciled, so as to
give scientific endorsement for the ideals of communism. Natural
selection, by contrast, has an equally clear affinity with liberal capitalism.
Let us dwell on this point longer. If we see science as a group
activity carried on by professionals requiring adequate funding and dreaming of
fame and fortune, with a large part of the work done in government-funded
universities or international corporate research and development departments,
and the scientists who make up the group, especially at the senior levels,
consisting almost exclusively of men, then we might want to raise some of the
following questions: To what extent are the selected fields of enquiry, the
preferred theories, the methodology, and the results affected by factors which
we thought extraneous, for example, by the political ideology of the government
with large research grants at its disposal, by the possibilities for a quick
market profit for a pharmaceutical company wishing to sell pills which
chemically intervene in ways not yet fully determined, by the gender bias of
men’s perceptions of the really important problems, and so on? To what extent
are theories and the evidence supporting them manipulated, consciously or
otherwise, to provide the sort of knowledge which is most in demand by the
research group or which is most profitable to its employer? What sort of a
hearing do such groups permit rival theories which threaten their prestige?
These questions become increasingly relevant, the more we realize that the
practice of science, what really goes on in the research groups, is conducted
by particular people often receiving generous financial support from
institutions with a large stake in the outcome and surrounded by a professional
culture with its own rules, hierarchies, and prizes.
In recent decades this view of science has sparked a number of
penetrating critiques of the alleged objectivity of science. To take one common
example: Is much of our scientific theory characterized by images of dominance
(e.g., the brain dominating the body, the sun dominating the solar system, the
nucleus dominating the cell) because that is really the best way of
understanding nature, or are these models accepted as initial working
assumptions and evidence found to support them because the image of dominance
fits a preferred model of the western world’s sense of our domination over
nature or because it fits the male way of thinking first and foremost in terms
of power, competition, antagonism, and dominance (rather than, say, in terms of
co-operation) or because it meshes so easily with a capitalist economic and
political ideology?
Similarly much attention has been paid to the way in which the
interests of the human researchers select some topics for study rather than
others (a common observation in connection with criticism of the lack of
research into breast cancer, a serious illness for women). Another problem
which has received much attention from this view of science is the various ways
in which the research groups in a particular area seek to maintain their power
(which can be enormous) by marginalizing alternative research programs or
alternative methods of understanding particular areas of nature, anything which
might pose a threat to an existing power base and the social and economic
rewards it brings (a common objection to the hostility of the medical
profession to non-Western treatments, like acupuncture and naturopathy).
It is not my purpose here to evaluate such critiques. But it is
important to notice how they call attention to the ways in which what we call
science is, in part, a social process, the meaning and methods of which are
shaped by the activity of human participants. To the extent that such an
approach reminds us that science is such an activity, it performs a useful
service, especially for those of us who think that science can be easily and
permanently defined in terms of a single specified objective method and who,
thus, may too easily overlook human agendas (3).
Relativism
What are we to make of this? If science is the activity of
scientists, and if they set the rules in accordance with a professional
consensus in answer to certain cultural pressures, does this mean that science
has nothing to do with the truth, that it is something constructed to meet the
needs of human beings as these arise and that it can change to fit later needs
or other social pressures? Well, some thinkers about such matters reply in the
affirmative. Yes, they say, that is precisely the case. Science has nothing to
do with the truth. It is simply a constructed means of knowing, just like all
other forms of knowledge (e.g., poetry, philosophy, religion), created by human
beings to meet particular needs, including the specific ambitions of those
participating in it or the larger agendas of those encouraging it.
This is the case for a number of reasons, among which we can
include the problem of language. Science claims that it describes reality, but
descriptions require a language, and all languages are culturally determined,
relative, and subject to change over time. Languages, in other words, are made
by human beings, not given to us with the nature of things. A scientific theory
is just another language we have made up. We believe that the Earth orbits the
sun not because that is true, but simply because for historical reasons we decided
we liked the language and imagery of Copernicus’s model as modified by Galileo,
Kepler, and Newton, and gradually began to use it,
until it took over from the old language and images derived principally from
medieval Christian scholasticism. Why did we make the transition? Well, that
had something to do with the accidental shifts of European culture in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Such a view commits us to a complete relativism, namely, to the
view that science has no special claim to the truth, any more than does any
other theory or vision of nature. Furthermore, there is no appeal to some
objective truth of nature which would enable us to approve some theories and
discard others. All systems of belief are relative, that is, they are true if people
believe in them, and we cannot adjudicate between them. People adopt systems of
belief (in religion or science or something else) or discard them for reasons
which have nothing to do with their truth (since they are all equally true and
equally false). There is no firm structure to reality against which we can
check the various fictions we construct in order to deal with the world. If a
society finds a certain system of knowledge useful, it will call that the truth
and dismiss rival theories. Later it will find something more useful (for
historical reasons, which are accidental) and will discard the old truth and
substitute a new one. But this is not progress. It is simply the substitution
of one artificial system for another.
Realism
Such a critique, which disestablishes science’s claim to the Truth
(with a capital T) or, indeed, to any privileged position in comparison with
any other system of belief, while common in many social science departments,
generally is firmly repudiated by scientists themselves. Of course, science has
a social component, they admit, and it is important that we remain alert to the
ways in which that social component can affect what goes on. Nevertheless,
there is a reality out there, it has a permanent structure, and the language of
science does provide an increasingly accurate map of that structure. If there
are mistakes and corruption of the ideals of science, created by the victory of
greed over the desire to know or if we have had different beliefs about that
structure, the process of carrying on the scientific enterprise will correct
the mistakes. We really do know more about nature than we used to, even if
there is still an enormous amount we do not know. The best indicator of this is
our ability to make more sophisticated predictions about nature. These confirm
the growing accuracy of our theoretical models and indicate to us that the
understanding of the world which science provides does give us over time
improved access to or at least better
approximations of the truth of nature.
This claim that science does indeed provide an accurate map of
reality (or brings us increasingly closer to reality) is called realism.
According to such a view, the equations of physics really do correspond with
the eternal laws of nature, the principles upon which God, the Divine
Mathematician, created the world. And our images of molecules, electrons, and
electromagnetic forces are, indeed, accurate depictions of what is really out
there in the permanent structure of nature itself. While the picture is by no
means complete and some parts of it may be inaccurate or still approximate,
scientific realists claim, nevertheless, the project launched in the
Renaissance of mapping reality is still dynamic, and we are gaining more and
more secure knowledge of its details. Hence, it is entirely appropriate to
think of science as a progressive search for and attainment of the truth of
things. Some scientists (though by no means all) will even claim that we are
only a few steps away from a set of equations which will explain finally the
complex behaviour of matter.
Science and the Truth of Things
There are a number of problems with the claim of the realist that
science maps reality (which is conventionally called the Correspondence Theory
of truth, based on the notion that scientific theories and laws correspond
accurately to reality). A major problem, well known to philosophers, is this:
Can we be sure that the act of observing or experimenting with something gives
an accurate picture? Any observation is a perception in the human mind, not an
objective fact outside the human mind. So the reliable relationships our
scientists establish are based, not on external reality itself, but upon
perceptions of that reality (i.e., upon our inner processes of perceiving and
imagining, not upon what is really out there). Since I have no way of
contacting the external world except through my perceptions (which are inner),
I have no certainty about what reality is really like. Even if
perceptions are shared and confirmed by others, they are all still human
perceptions, not the essence of the things being described (which we can never
know in themselves). And the models we construct (like solar systems or
molecules) are pictures in our minds. We have no way of checking them point by
point against reality.
And this problem raises the question about the status of the
regular scientific knowledge I do acquire. Consider, for example, the
importance of mathematics in science. Why does so much of nature always seem to
act in accordance with mathematical laws (e.g., gravity, acceleration, chemical
reactions, planetary orbits, electrical discharges, inherited characteristics,
and so on). There are three possible answers. First,
it might be pure chance. Given the frequency and power of mathematical models,
this seems unlikely, but it is possible. Second, it might be true that the
world is run on mathematical principles and that, thus, mathematical equations
describing the natural world are true, and the realist position is, indeed,
correct: God is a complex mathematician. Third, it may be that our thinking
processes are governed, in part, by mathematical principles. Hence, we can
understand many aspects of the mysterious complexity of the natural world
clearly only in mathematical terms (or at least that is the only method of
securing wide agreement about how the natural world works). So far as I can
see, there is no way of deciding between the second and third options, since
there is no way of perceiving the world outside myself. If I wear red
sunglasses, everything will appear as shades of red. If I am unaware of those
glasses, does this mean that the reality is, in itself, shades of red?
Then, there is the famous uncertainty principle. It is impossible
to know anything scientific about nature without observing. But how can I be
sure that my act of observation does not change the natural phenomenon I am
observing? How do I know what really happens when I am not observing? This is,
of course, the famous problem of the refrigerator light. How do I know with
certainty that it really goes off when I shut the door? If I cut a hole in the
door or hide in the refrigerator, then I have changed the situation, and I am
no longer observing the process I am making conclusions about (the refrigerator’s
normal operation has been changed so that I can observe). This example may be
trivial, but there are more serious possibilities. For example, to see
something very small under high magnification, the scientist has to put a
powerful energy source (e.g., light) through the object (e.g., a slide) and
often introduce various dyes. But how can the scientist know that the high
energy now passing through the object or the dye which enables her to see it
clearly has not changed it in some way? Or, to take another example, if I put a
measuring device into a river to study the river flow, I have, in effect,
altered the flow of the river. What is it really like when the measuring device
is not there? I have no way of knowing. If the very act of observing something
means that I have changed in some manner what I am purporting to study, then,
once again, I have no access to reality in itself (i.e., independent of my acts
of observation, which change the situation).
Well, if, because of our perceptions and status as observers,
science cannot deliver the truth of things, does this mean then that science
is, as the relativists claim, just one more fiction about the world, one more
story human beings have invented about nature, with no more claim to the truth
than any other story from myth or folk tale? As mentioned above, some thinkers
frequently make such claims. But this is a dangerous idea and misrepresents by
oversimplification the status of science.
To raise some doubts about this relativist view, let us return to
the question of mathematics mentioned above. Mathematics is central to the
claim people make in defense of the privileged position of science, for it
often serves to counter the argument about descriptions having to be framed in
language which is always culturally determined and hence relative to particular
cultural groups. Mathematics, many scientists claim, transcends culture
differences. Equations, unlike poetry or prayers, remain the same in different
parts of the world and in different translations. And mathematical explanations
hold in any part of the world; there is not one equation for acceleration in
North America and another in Asia.
Thus, an understanding of the world which expresses itself
mathematically does not carry the same culturally determined and limiting range
of meanings relative to very particular social contexts. Furthermore, the fact
that a mathematically based understanding so often generates useful predictions
strongly suggests that, even if it does not describe reality exactly, it give
us a means of apprehending it which is more accurate (and certainly more
useful) than other systems. Whether the universe really is exactly like Newton’s
model of it, we cannot know. We do know that Newton’s mathematical model gives
us access to that system, enables us to make predictions about it, and suggests
all sorts of other things to look for. Hence, the language of mathematics has a
universal quality unknown in other forms of description. Hence, the relativists
are incorrect. To the extent that science relies upon the language of
mathematics as the basis of its theories and predictions and tests, it occupies
a privileged position among systems of knowledge.
To make this claim about mathematics is not therefore to establish
that science must be true in the sense that a Correspondence Theory might
demand. This cannot be the case, for science cannot deliver a map of the world
which it can prove matches details of reality in itself. Nor does it make much
sense to talk about getting closer to the truth or approximating the truth of
things. We have no access to the truth by which to measure such progress in any
public system of knowledge. Hence, questions about the relationship of science
to the absolute truth of nature are, as mentioned before, meaningless. On the
other hand, science does deliver some means of picturing reality, an
understanding of things about which we can agree and upon which we can act
without reference to particular cultural restrictions. Science enables us to
grasp aspects of nature (whether they are really like our models or not), to
make predictions about those aspects of nature, to confirm, abandon, refine—in short, to enlarge our knowledge of the world
and our power over it (intellectual and practical power).
Furthermore, science achieve all these things in a way that
enables us to conduct many of our arguments about the world in a context free
from the immediate limitations of any single culture and to base our decisions
together on a shared understanding of the world. To say this is not to deny
that sometimes science is abused and manipulated, consciously and
unconsciously, for various reasons or that scientists
can often be arrogant, ambitious, and misleading. Nor is to
deny that the wholesale application of science to the understanding of and
solution to human problems has created special difficulties. It is,
however, a reminder that science is a uniquely privileged way of understanding
the world and that the best way of dealing with the various problems occasioned
by the pursuit of science is not a rejection or a demotion of science but
rather better science. And the first step toward that worthy goal might be a
better understanding of what the activity is and is not.
So Where Does that Leave Us?
This essay began with a question: What is science? It has not
fully answered that difficult issue, but on the basis of the above review, let
me suggest some characteristics of the activity we call science. These I offer
here as items to discuss, rather than as confirmed certainties free of any ambiguity.
First, science involves formulating theories about the world and
framing those theories in statements which yield predictions which can
repeatedly, publicly, and independently be tested by observation. Any theory
which cannot be so tested, which cannot, that is, potentially be falsified in
this way is not part of science. Science teaches us to be very skeptical about
any system of knowledge which cannot meet this criterion.
Second, science is carried out by scientists working in groups,
often in competition with each other, in a cultural context. This cultural
context plays a large role in all aspects of their work. We need, therefore
always to be very skeptical about science itself, assessing as best we can how
a particular theory or test may be shaped by the self-interest or the bias of
the scientists or their employers, a human motive lurking beneath the
disinterested language of the theory or the results.
Third, attempts to evaluate theories by some appeal to the truth
of nature are inherently pointless. Such evaluations should carried out on the
basis of how rich, coherent, and productive a theory is (how many useful and
reliable predictions it generates, how comprehensively it explains what we wish
to know about, how much it stimulates potentially interesting or useful new
research). On this basis, we are entitled to evaluate science, to rank
theories, and to discard old ones. It is not that case that all theories are
equally good.
Fourth, at its best, science should be open ended, that is, always
ready to test new theories which meet the criteria mentioned above. The public
nature of scientific testing requires as much access as is practically possible
for new challenges. This, in fact, is the best remedy for some of the most
important problems arising out of the practice of science. It should be clear
that this point does not mean that we should consider all theories equally
valuable.
Finally, we should devote far more time than we do in our public
education system, especially at the post-secondary level to making sure that
all students, including especially students in science, have some introduction
to these issues, rather than continuing on as we do now, for most Arts students
simply ignoring the issues and, for most Science students, plunging them into
the approved methods with no reflection on the wider implications of and
justifications for the activity.
Notes
(1) Details of this essay are drawn from a number of sources,
particularly the excellent book by A. F. Chalmers, What is this thing called
Science?,
Second Edition (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994). Anyone wishing to pursue some
basic ideas about the nature of science at greater length and in more complex
detail should read this well-known and justly popular introduction to the
topic. The present essay deals with some very complex issues in a necessarily
cursory fashion. [Back to Text]
(2) This claim is not quite true. It is possible to generate at
least one very specific prediction on the basis of the Genesis account, namely,
that if all the species were created at once, then we should find their remains
at every level of the fossil record. The growing (and eventually overwhelming)
evidence against this prediction was a major reason why the doctrine of the
fixity of species was abandoned by virtually all biologists. [Back to Text]
(3) An amusing and instructive example of the ways in which social
and political processes can interfere with scientific and technical work
occurred in July 1975, in the link up between the
American Apollo 18 and the Soviet Union’s Soyuz space vessels.
Normally such link-ups were made with a coupling rather like an electric plug, with a “male” component being inserted into a “female”
component (the terminology is standard in electrical appliances). Both
nations had used such couplings before in their own space programs. In
this instance, the engineers had to design an extremely expensive and complex
interlocking system, because (in the words of F. Gwynplaine
MacIntyre, “on that historic ‘first date’ between the
two rival space agencies, neither participant was willing to take the ‘female’
role, which would require its spaceship to be penetrated by the other nation’s ‘male’
hardware” (Letter to the Editor, Atlantic Monthly, February
2000).
A similar story concerns rival interpretations of behaviour in a
primate group. The male researchers described the group in terms of “competition,”
“dominant males,” and so forth. The female researchers, observing the
same primate group, described it in terms of “cooperative behaviour,” “sharing,”
“assistance,” and so forth. [Back to Text]