Science- I'm not impressed

Great Debates
1

I might be missing something, but I just don’t think science is as useful, true, or important as it is cracked up to be.

Of course I appreciate medical science’s ability to allow me to live a longer, healthier life. And I do think it is pretty nifty that they got a man on the moon. I even think that looking at the world in a somewhat rational way is genrally a good idea. I don’t believe in fairies or unicorns, and I am as big a skeptic as you’ll ever see. I’m not religious in any way. But I have a hard time accepting that the scientific method is infalliable and that science provides us with a pure understanding of the world.

First off, for most of human history, science has been just plain wrong. Science has been around for quite a while, and if you had asked someone a couple hundred years ago how to treat a sick person, they would have handed you a couple of leeches and told you to bleed them. Isn’t it pretty darn possible, even likely, that a lot of what we accept as science now will eventually turn out to be wrong. And scientific truth is a little circular anything, because anything that isn’t true (or at least doesn’t seem coherent in context of the rest of science) is tossed out. Of course everything is going to make sense together!

But time and time again, I have been told that modern science isn’t capable of being wrong. A recent study showed evidence that Prozac and similer drugs may not have an actual chemicle role in treating depression. The SDMB thread regarding that study was a pretty heated one. Quite a few people stated that because FDA testing is based on the science that cannot be wrong. Another disturbing idea that pro-science people tend to espouse is that science is politically and culturally neutral, and that the pursuit of science in whatever form is justified and perhaps even a moral requirement.

But it atomic bombs are a pretty good argument against that view. Are there some things that we just shouldn’t know? Shouldn’t we at least take culture into consideration when we persue science? I think almost each and every one of us can think of an instance where medical science failed someone we know because it refused to take anything into consideration other than medical science. It seems like the scientific worldview is sorely lacking in a lot of ways, and for all the truth and beauty it can uncover, science alone will not make our lives objectivly better.

I think science is a valuable human pursuit. But I also believe science is a paradigm like everything else. It’s a pretty coherent paradigm and has brough a lot of positive things into humanity, but it does not have any particular exclusive access to “truth”. Furthermore, I think it is dangerous for us to become too enamoured of this paradigm because science can be (and indeed has a history of being) warped for the purposes of human evil.

Am I way out on left field here? I’ve talked to a lot of scientists and soon-to-be scientists about this, and they (surprisingly) agreed with, or at least seemed somewhat sympathetic with, a lot of what I’ve said. Then again, many of these scientists were otherwise religious (I’m talking Christian mathmeticians and Hindu chemists here, not Christian creation “scientists”). But the general view on the SDMB seems very counter to my ideas. Thoughts?

2

Wow, you’re so far out in left field that you’re not even in the ballpark.

Putting aside the irony of using a computer to express a distrust for science, the scientific method is not infallible, and no-one is (reasonably) claiming that it is. The method is just the simplest and most accurate way to draw conclusions about how the universe behaves. We have as much “science” as we need.

As an example, I live on the island of Montreal. If I never left this island (I rarely do), would it really matter if I believed the world was round or not? I never travel far enough in any one direction to be bothered by disappearing horizons and I don’t need the stars to navigate, so why bother working out the shape and/or rotation of the Earth? If I needed to expand my knowledge because I was travelling, or making deals with people who travelled, only then it would be in my interest to have some idea of the shape of the Earth. Isaac Asimov makes this point in one of his Relativity of Wrong essays, using the shape of the Earth as an example. An anti-scientist had claimed that science was always wrong because it once claimed the world was flat, than it was spherical, and now (i.e. ~1970 ) that it was pear-shaped. Asimov described the practical differences between the three beliefs:
[ul][li]If the Earth was flat, its curvature would be 0 inches to the mile. If you never left your village, this would suffice.[/li][li]If the Earth was pefectly spherical, with a circumference of ~25000 miles, its curvature would be 8 inches to the mile. This is not a HUGE difference from 0, but it explains why ships disappear over the horizon in any direction. This doesn’t mean the previous observation was wrong, but that it was incomplete. To go beyond your village, you have to take curvature into account.[/li][li]If the measurements made by the Vanguard satelite were correct, the Earth wasn’t perfectly spherical, but the curvature varied from about 7.9 to 8.1 inches per mile, with the southern hemisphere being slightly 'bulgier" than the northern (i.e. a pear shape). This is an even smaller refinement than going from 0 to 8. This doesn’t mean that the previous estimate was completely and totally wrong, but if you wanted super-accurate measurements, this variance should be taken into account.[/li][/ul]

Describing science as a bunch of exploded fallacies is illogical. Theories that are accepted are rarely wrong (if they were easily demonstrable as wrong, they wouldn’t be accepted at all), but they are often later shown to be incomplete or inaccurate to some degree, and this evidence is typically supplied by better instruments than were available at the time of the initial theory. One can theorize that the Earth is the center of the universe, and the apparant movement of the stars and planets lend support. It was only with the advent of Copernicus’ observatory and Galileo’s telescope that good evidence to the contrary could be brought to light and the old theory changed as being no longer adequate to the needs of humanity. A sun-centered model is ultimately simpler and more useful than an Earth-centered model. If one were navigating ships across large oceans (and major intercontinental trade was just beginning at around this time) then the better model is the one that gives you the best chance at survival. The scientific approach works. The up-to-then religious belief that the Earth was center of the universe does not.

Asimov wrote glowingly about the 20th century as the century in which humanity was finally starting to get the basics of the universe correct. Quantum theory and relativity are 20th-century discoveries, and although we don’t yet know completely how they work, we know that they do work, and will work consistantly. The explosion in scientific knowledge in the last century is due largely to improved communication between scientists, allowing them to exchange theories and results freely. Prior to this, major advances made in isolation would require an uber-genius like Isaac Newton. There’s no telling how much he could have accomplished if he’d had access to e-mail. The computer as a research tool has only come into play in the last 50 years or so. It’s made serious study of human genetics possible.

Isaac Newton’s laws of motion weren’t proven wrong by Einstien’s relativity, but were simply shown to be incomplete. Newton described perfectly the behaviour of a normal object moving around on Earth, but you need Einstein when you go beyond that sphere, describing how stars shine or what happens to objects moving at 0.999…c. Relativity is a refinement, not a replacement.

As for things we are not “meant” to know, (i.e the A-bomb), I feel compelled to point out that religious or pseudoscientific beliefs (i.e. Jews are genetically inferior, or communism can ensure prosperity for all) have caused many millions more deaths than nuclear fission. A scientist could, conceivably, create a genetically engineered virus that does comparable damage, but another scientist could develop a cure for cancer. Putting extreme restrictions on science to prevent the first would also prevent the second.

If you find the views on the SDMB contrary to your own, it may be because we don’t panic over the worst-case scenario, but are optimistic for the best. A scientist who expresses concern over the negative directions research can be taken is no more “anti-science” than a gun-owner who uses trigger locks is anti-2nd-Amendment. It’s an expression of responsibility and trying to reduce the chance of accident or misuse. I find it to be a logical and mature attitude to take, and since a smidgen of risk-adverse behaviour doesnt stifle science that much, I’m in favour of it.

3

Let me give you a bit of food for thought:

Do you value education? I do. Yet, during the span of a lifetime, even if one gains multiple PhDs, it’s likely that they’re going to make a variety of mistakes and misinterpretations over time, ranging from using fingerpaint over the edges of the paper in kindergarten to using bad footnote format in a thesis. These mistakes, however, are intrinsic to the learning process. Do the mistakes make the education a waste of time? If you know more than you did, and knowledge is good, then why should the mistakes of the past damn you? In the same way, it’s not fair to damn science in general because scientists 100, or 500, or 2,000 years ago didn’t understand the universe as well as we do today, nor even that scientists 100, 500, and 2,000 years from now will know more than we do.

You might want to consider studying a history of science and medicine. Science in the ancient and medieval worlds wasn’t nearly as backward as we tend to think that it was. Look at how much ancient astronomers knew without modern tools! Ancient science wasn’t all leeches. I found it truly amazing what the ancient Greeks and medieval Muslims were able to do without the telescope, germ theory, and so on.

I’m sure it won’t be long before what we know is considered backward and foolish. Yet, that’s ok – you don’t get a PhD without going to grade school first. You can’t get to the moon without understanding gravity, and so on.

You say science has no particularly unique avenue to truth. What does? Do you have a better way to test theories than the Scientific Method? What is our alternative? What has been more successful? I submit that other avenues to truth (certain religions / philosophies) are not unique in their success but rather different than science in that they claim greater success.

Be unimpressed if it makes you feel better, but science is never going to attain perfection. Anyone who says that modern science is infallible is a fool and downright unscientific. Scientific thought needs to be scrutinized and tested.

4

For most of human history, science either didn’t exist or was completely ignored or unknown to the general populace.

Leeches? Bleeding? Those were notions that were based on superstition, and the conclusion to bleed someone to cure their disease was not arrived at via the scientific method.

Undoubtedly, no. The nuclear bomb was not the only product of the discovery of atoms and atom-smashing techniques. It’s just that nukes are the scariest.

It’s the only paradigm that I can think of that has been able to objectively examine and experiment with the very fabric of reality. What other field can claim the same?

Science has led to not only spiffy discoveries, but also a new way of thinking. Superstition and supernatural once dominated the layman’s thought processes, but no more (granted, the average person is still pretty stupid, compared to what he could know). Science also showed how logic, reason, and experimentation could explain seemingly supernatural forces. A thousand years ago, people thought lightning was God’s anger.

5

Yep, Moon, Stars, Planets and Comets and Meteors.

science: What’s up with all that celestial stuff?
science: How can my clan use it to thrive in a comfortable fashion?

So even before science was capitalized, science had to be practical. “Show me a better way to hunt.” Numerous flora and fauna (say, Horseshoe crabs, Sea Turtles, Terns, Penguins) have long adjusted their lives to be in synch with Moon, and tides.

Science - unlike art (cave-painting) - has always been required to have a current basis and application.

Multi-dimensional string-theory? Unified Field Theory? All good. Here’s 100 grand. Nuclear Fusion as a source of power for Magnificent LASERs or RAIL guns? Welcome to Area 51! Your budget is *ntold *illions!

August 21, 2017, a Total Solar Eclipse will cross the US from Oregon to South Carolina. The ability to predict the eclipse was a skill the Egyptians, Mayans, Druids and whatevers in England and Ireland had a thousand years ago.

Moon is the only satellite amongst hundreds in our solar system that can fully eclipse Sun. There’s no mathematic reason for it. And I daresay by 2017 Science can still not explain why the Corona - only visible in Total Solar Eclipses - burns at temperatures into the millions of degrees.

6

Science is good not because of the answers it provides, but in the installation of a way of thinking, of a methodology. Science is a way to see nature, an approach to unravel the mysteries of nature.

Science is not the words of an omniscient being. Science can only become more correct as knowledge accumulates, as tools are improved, as one generation builds upon the foundation layed down by the previous.

It is a slow, step-by-step process.

7

The goal of scientific theories is not “to be right.” Rather, each theory should explain more phenomena than the one before it, or explain the same phenomena better than the previous theory. There’s no right or wrong–just better approximations to the way the world works.

8

Science did not bring us the atomic bomb. Human beings brought it. Aggressive, warlike, human beings – the same ones who brought us clubs, spears, rifles, and rocket launchers. If you blame science for that atomic bomb, you might as well blame language for “Mein Kampf”.

Science is only as good as the human beings who practice it. In and of itself, science is simply a formalized method for gathering and sharing information about the world. As a tool, it can be used to accomplish tremendous good or great evil.

9

Even Sven, you have some deep misconceptions about the nature of science.

For one thing, science is not “infallible.” In fact, one of the virtues of the scientific method is that is is self-correcting. For example, in 1912, Alfred Wegener introduced the theory of continental dfrift. Geologists at the time dismissed his ideas, but after decades of observation and study, Wegener’s theory has been demonstrated to be correct. Over and over again, theories are tested and checked, refined and changed as observations bear them out or refute them.

The thing you must realize is that nothing is proven absolutely correct in science. Ever. Every scientifc idea can be refined and changed as testing and observation warrant. Some theories, like evolution, are taken to be correct because 150 years of testing has shown that it is a useful description of the way traits are passed on in a given population. But it is always possible for it to be falsified, say if you found human remains in a trilobite bed. That such a thing has never been found only helps to bear out evolution’s utility and truthfulness. but there is no such thing as 'The Truth in science, just what models of the universe appear to work.

You need to do a lot more reading on the nature of science and clear that postmodernist nonsense out of your system. I recommend that you pick up the following books from your local library:
Voodoo Science by Robert Park

Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont

Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science by Paul Gross and Norman Levitt

Yes, We Have No Neutrons: An Eye-Opening Tour through the Twists and Turns of Bad Science by A.K. Dewdney

Heavenly Errors: Misconceptions About the Real Nature of the Universe by Neal Comins

10

Sven, as others have pointed out, your view on science is at odds with what science actually is. Leechcraft wasn’t science. Science invented the medical ideas which replaced leeching.

Science admittedly developed the atomic bomb. But science didn’t use it. You can blame politics and war for that. So why not abolish them instead of science?

I won’t even go into other issues your post raised like the difference between science and technology or the meaning of truth or cultural relativity.

11

Well Sven, that explains your statement in the math thread. why is it ok to be bad at math?

You’ve been here at SDMB since 1999, and have over a thousand posts. So I give you credit for sticking with it. But I really don’t know how to respond. gobear and other posters have responded nicely, and I hope you’ll take a look at some of the suggested reading.

It’s all about trying to get a truer understanding of life, the universe, and everything.

12

Hmmm…okay…so far I’ve got lots of stuff to think about, but I’m not totally convinced. Like gobear implied, a lot of my issues probably comes from fashionable leftist/intellectual rejection of the notion of a single objective truth. I’m sure it also comes from my artistic free spririted annoyance at too much logic and rationality, and a certain sour-grapes mentality at my complete inability to do math.

The ideas that I am thinking of come from two places. One is the book The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down, which is the story of a Hmong immigrant girl with epilepsy. She ends up brain dead, pretty much because of her family’s inability to understand modern medicine, and her doctors’ refusals to consider her culture when treating her. This book is pretty much targeted at medical professionals and advocates that culture should play a role in medicine.

I’m also coming from a pretty strong background in cyberntic theory and post-cybernetic theory. Norbert Wiener’s The Human uses of Human Beings explains a lot of the ethical issues I have with science. Katherine Hayles’s How we Became Post-Human shows how scientific paradigms can change or be rethought and cause massive social changes without sacrificing the pursuit of truth.

I’m not all that commited to this position, nor am I really an anti-science girl or anything. I am just trying to work through some sneaking suspicions and shifting ideas that have recently shown up in my understanding of this cultures predominate world-view.

13

My reservations about science have been voiced in other threads, most notably Mr Svinlesha’s thread about rethinking the definition of science. (can’t get the search engine up for me for some reason or I’d link… its title is "What’s wrong with this definition of science?)

To me, there seem to be some inconsistencies about how science is portrayed as meta-science (nothing is ever proved, we are always learning, etc) and how science is spoken of when it is challenged (the highest authority). This sort of bothers me; I always feel that people pay lip-service to Popper’s philosophy of science without actually believing it.

14

To the suggested reading list can I add: The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. Which addresses, almost point by point, all of your reservations and makes attempt at explanig why such misconceptions exist.

15

I like you even sven, but I think you’re quite wrong.

Any scientist who tries to tell you that science is infallible is not representing his or her profession truthfully. Nowhere is it written that the scientific method is the end all, be all. Science is just one way of knowing. I learned this not from a humanist, but a scientist.

The science hasn’t been with us for very long. At least, science as directed through the scientific method.

Secondly, while scientists have come up with wacky hypotheses in the past, so have other folks. Namely, theologians and philosophers, who have been around a lot longer than scientists. I would vehemently argue that being “wrong” is hardly something that’s isolated to science. It wasn’t scientists who gave Galileo a hard time, now was it?

Guess what, hon. They still do! Yes, medicinal leeches are still used for some ailments. Why? Because they work. While someone’s religion might proscribe the use of such vile invertebrates, science allows us to try out the strange and unusual.

Of course. But the cool thing about science is that it allows for shifts in conceptual frameworks or paradigms. Other ways of knowing aren’t nearly as flexible. Many people still hold on to the idea that the Earth was created in 6 days, despite much evidence to the contrary, because their ideology is very inflexible.

Educated scientists would never make a claim.

It is disturbing and a very rampant misconception. And I’m all for science that rejects notions of objectivity in order to maintain fairness (Sandra Harding coined a term for this, but I can’t think of it). But rejecting science wholesale isn’t what’s called for.

I practice science all the time. I’m several months away from earning my Ph.D, but I consider myself a scientist. And I have to admit, it bothers me a lot when people–especially people who are perched self-righteously on the ivory towers of the liberal arts and humanities–tell me what’s wrong with MY profession. Scientists don’t try to bumrush the English and history departments or speak about them in blatant generalities, so it irks many of us when folks in these areas do it to us. I know when you think of science, you think of the glamorous, sexy stuff like atom bombs and contraceptives, but you nonetheless paint all of us nerds with the same brush when you denigrate science.

Sometimes I wish I could just emerse the science-haters in my laboratory for a few weeks and show them that the stuff they brand as evil or meaningless is really fun, cool, and fairly innocuous.

16

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Depending on how broadly we want to define science we could say man wouldn’t be alive without it. Figuring out new ways to make tools, new ways to grow food, even ways to breed animals to serve whatever needs we have. All of that takes some sort of understanding of how the world works. Science.

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It is possible.

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Actually if it isn’t understood they don’t toss it out they tend to attempt to explain it.

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I don’t know who keeps telling you these things.

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What shouldn’t we know? And F.Y.I. they do take into account culture that’s why we have medical ethics and people seriously questioning things like human cloning.

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Most of the so called alternative medicines are little different then sugar water or alcohol sold by snake oil salesman of the 19th century.

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Objectively better by what standards?

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So can philosophy, history, literature, and just about anything else humans do.

Marc

17

Even selling ice cream.

18

If I may muddy the waters slightly, it is my contention that everyone is to some extent a scientist, free spirited artists included! Science is not some intellectual exercise practiced by people in white coats - it is a way of looking at the world and a tool for interacting with it. It has also been absolutely integral to human day-to-day life and survival since our simian ancestors came down from the trees.

An analogy to science is mapmaking. The map itself is analogous to a scientific theory, and checking the map against the territory is analogous to observation and experimentation. A couple of important points about mapmaking:

  1. The first map of any area doesn’t have to be very good, or “true”, it just has to be better than no map at all.

  2. Later maps of an area don’t have to be “true” either, they just have to be better than the older map, in that they tell you everything the old map does and something that the old map doesn’t.

Have you ever let an object fall a short distance because you knew it would survive the fall (e.g. a suitcase full of clothes, hauled off an airport baggage carousel to the ground)? If so, you have done something “scientific” - used your own, personal mental model of gravity to make a prediction about the world! You knew the direction of gravity, and that the further something falls, the harder it hits, you had a concept of how tough the suitcase and its contents were, and you made a prediction. You would not have subjected a box of fine china to a similar fall, and you would not have allowed your case to fall six stories as an alternative to taking it down in the hotel elevator.

A mathematical, white-coat-wearing scientist pulling her case off the carousel would use exactly the same model or “map” of gravity that you would, because it is good enough for the job. If she were designing a bridge she would use a mathematical model of gravity with g=9.81m/s[sup]-2[/sup], because that is good enough for that job. If she were calculating the orbit of a weather satellite she would use Newtonian inverse-square law gravity because it is good enough for that job. All are valid, scientific models that can be used to make predictions about the world. All are also in some sense “wrong” in that Einstein’s Special Relativity can make predictions that they cannot.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you would sling your case out the hotel window.

19

More precisely, we first attempt to explain it in terms of something we do understand. And when everything else has been exhausted, then we go for the “unusual” explanation: but even then, yes we do expect it to make coherent sense in the context of the new discovery, and the whole new paradign to make sense in the greater context of all science. Because even a magical, mystical universe should be internally coherent.

And add me to the crew who is wondering who the heck are the yo-yo’s who told ther that science is infallible…

20

Annoyance with logic and rationality isn’t in any way artistic but is ironically a popular notion among art students. How is creativity illogical or irrational?

I disagree that science is the basis for this or any culture’s predominant world-view. What support do you have for this idea?

-fh