The Fallacy of Scientific Truth – Part Two

The underlying purpose of all science is the search for scientific laws.

In order to qualify as laws, they must not simply be theoretical ideas, often expressed in mathematical terms, but must also conform to actual experience and be supported by empirical evidence obtained by experimentation.

It is quite possible for a law to be valid theoretically, yet fail to be a true representation of the physical universe. So for example, the Greek mathematician Euclid claimed that it was a mathematical law that the sum of the three angles of any triangle would always amount to 180°, or two right-angles.

But as Einstein subsequently discovered, this did not match the results of his own experiments, because space-time was actually found to be curved and not flat. Euclid’s law therefore could not be accepted as an empirical law, nor could it be regarded as scientific truth.

Prediction and Science

Scientific laws are thus derived from actual observation. They represent a summary of past experience. Nature is believed to operate in a manner which conforms to these laws because this is what scientists have consistently found to be true, in terms of their experiments.

Because science is founded upon reason, it is assumed that what was true of natural behaviour in the past will equally well be true of all natural behaviour in the future. The limits of future possibilities tend, therefore, to be interpreted in the light of past-experience.

Yet historical observation has seldom proved to be a true guide to future possibilities. There have been numerous instances where new developments and inventions have initially been rejected on the grounds that they conflicted with the known “laws of nature”.

For example, when the incandescent light bulb was first invented, a scientific commission was formed in Britain to evaluate its future possibilities. This commission subsequently reported back to Parliament in 1878 that the light bulb was:

“…unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men. It is impossible to adapt electrical lighting to households. Any attempt to do so is futile for it would flaunt the laws of the universe. On this the most eminent scientists agree.”  1 

We may be amused today at the ignorance displayed by this Parliamentary Commission. Yet it was composed of scientists who were all highly respected people within their various fields of specialisation.

It is worth recalling too, that at the beginning of the 20th century it was considered impossible to travel at fifty miles (eighty kilometres) an hour, or to fly above the ground in a vehicle heavier than air. The explanation given in both of these two cases was also that to do so would contravene the “laws of nature”.

Scientists have, in fact, been poor prognosticators of the future. Even Einstein rejected the idea that nuclear energy would ever be utilised by humanity, when he declared in 1932 that “there is not the slightest indication that (nuclear) energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”  2

As it happened, scientists succeeded in shattering the atom at will a bare decade or so after these words were spoken. In another momentous statement which has since become famous, the British Astronomer Royal, Dr Richard Woolley, announced in January 1956 that “space travel is utter bilge“.  3

The reason why scientists have traditionally been poor prophets is a legacy of the classical age of science, when the universe was regarded as being a giant machine, operating according to certain basic principles which were presumed to have already been discovered.

These “laws”, according to which Nature was considered to operate, were the product of past observation. When the “new” physics of quantum mechanics exposed the shortcomings of the Giant Machine, and challenged the accepted belief that it was possible to examine the universe in any objective or neutral way, these laws in turn became more vulnerable.

Once the status of the observer gave way to the idea of the participator, the experimenter who actively influenced the results of each experiment, past observation could no longer be accepted without question as acknowledged truth. The universe became at once a far more dynamic place, and one that was filled with new subjective possibilities.

The Search for Facts

In its pursuit of meaning in this universe of experience, the fundamental ingredients of science are “facts”. Facts may be different things or different circumstances. They may be objects or portions of objects, or they may be events or patterns of events.

Whatever each datum happens to be, it does not become a scientific fact until a measurement of some sort is made. Science does not present itself as art. It is not a pursuit whereby one individual relates to his or her environment in an individual and unique way. Science represents a body of knowledge that is based on the experiments of vast numbers of individuals.

It is a necessary requirement of science, that what is regarded as a fact by one scientist must be equally recognisable as such by another, albeit with the requisite education and experience. Again, facts only become facts when they are measured.

The temperature of boiling water only becomes a fact when it is observed according to a system of measurement. Furthermore, this measurement must be capable of being replicated by anyone else. It is out of countless such observations made by successive generations of scientifically trained observers, that the corpus of scientific knowledge has been acquired.

Now facts are meaningless by themselves. The temperature of boiling water carries no meaning when compared to the colour of a tortoise shell or the speed of an approaching taxi. Although these are legitimate facts in themselves, they only acquire scientific significance when they can be linked together in a meaningful way.

Facts only become of interest to a scientist when they can be combined in the form of a theory. As the physicist W. F. Barrett has pointed out, “without a theory facts are a mob, not an army“.

It is only when facts can be grouped together in a significant way, either as a pattern of similar facts, or in comparison with others, that they assume meaning to a scientist. It goes without saying that a fact is not significant unless it is recognised to be significant.

The level of mercury in a thermometer is an important fact to a chemist who is conducting an experiment involving heat, but is meaningless to an aboriginal forest dweller who has never seen a thermometer and has no idea of its function.

All facts, therefore, only become facts in relation to a particular attitude of mind. It is the mental outlook of the individual that determines which facts are significant and how they may be linked together in a meaningful way.

The Early History of Science

The early scientific investigators of the sixteenth century had no precedents as to what was significant and what was not, and they proceeded according to their own inner curiosity and conviction.

These scientific pioneers communicated the results of their investigations to others, and did so in ways which made it possible for others to duplicate them for their own satisfaction. In due course, people of similar theoretical persuasions banded together to form schools of common interest.

Although the early history of science was characterised by independent and localised research, with no general consensus between members of different schools of thought, there appeared certain scientists who were men of such towering intellectual ability, and who were able to coordinate facts in novel ways of such brilliant ingenuity, that they were able to dominate the science of their day.

These men of genius were able to explain nature in ways which transformed the previously accepted habits of thought.

The first of these men in the history of western science was Copernicus. Copernicus did not discover facts which were unknown to astronomers trained in the Ptolemaic school of astronomy. What he did was to explain these facts in a completely new way.

It was his brilliant and revolutionary insight which enabled subsequent generations of astronomers to add a wealth of information about celestial objects, and to explain this information in ways which overcame the problems inherent in the Ptolemaic system of astronomy.

Other examples of these intellectual giants were Sir Isaac Newton, the British physicist James Maxwell, and Albert Einstein. These men revolutionised the theoretical constructs of their times, in ways which had profound implications for future scientific research and development.

Science and Revolution

In referring to such men, the scientific historian Thomas Kuhn wrote that each “transformed the scientific imagination in ways that we shall ultimately need to describe as a transformation of the world within which scientific work was done.”  4

Kuhn called these transformations scientific revolutions, and he used the term “paradigm” to describe them. He defined a scientific paradigm as “the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by members of a given community.”   5 

Paradigms according to Kuhn, were scientific revolutions which altered the entire perspectives of their times, being “universally recognised scientific achievements that for a time provided model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners.”  6 

In tracing the history of the scientific adventure, Kuhn noted that progress was far from linear, in which one scientific discovery led naturally to another. Instead, he found that scientific development followed a somewhat similar course to the social and political upheavals of those years, in which steady development was punctuated by outbreaks of sudden violence, leading to dramatic changes in the nature of those societies.

In between these outbreaks of violence, there occurred periods of relative stability in which progress was again able to follow its normal course. In dissecting the nature of these scientific revolutions, Kuhn found that, like their social counterparts, each tended to display a common character, and to develop in common ways.

He found, for example, that each new scientific revolution did more than build upon the theories of its predecessors, for each completely changed the foundations of the past. As each new paradigm became entrenched, it was necessary not only to reconstruct past theory, but also to re-evaluate past fact.

A new paradigm was not just an incremental advance on what was already known, but demonstrated a complete revision of the past. It also provided new avenues for solving the anomalies of the past and opened up new vistas for potential exploration.

Although Kuhn found that no paradigm was able to explain all the facts with which it was confronted, each new paradigm came to be accepted by the scientific community as being clearly superior to the one it superseded.

According to Kuhn, once a paradigm became universally accepted, it became possible for scientists to operate within a designated and expressed body of belief, and to apply these beliefs in novel ways. Kuhn referred to the science practised within any paradigm as “normal” science.

Under an accepted scientific paradigm, it was no longer necessary for the individual scientist to re-evaluate the entire history of science. He or she was able to work within a framework of belief that was universally acknowledged.

It was an inevitable result of the success of each new paradigm that textbooks came to be rewritten, in order to incorporate these new beliefs. The new generation of textbooks then presented the new paradigm in the light of historical perspective, in a way that suggested that it was a simple and logical outgrowth of the past.

But Kuhn found that this was seldom the case, for like all revolutions, new paradigms succeed by convulsively shaking up the accepted order of the past. As he explained:

“From the beginning of the scientific enterprise, a textbook presentation implies scientists have striven for the particular objectives that are embodied in today’s paradigm. But that is not the way a science develops. Many of the puzzles of contemporary normal science did not exist until after the most recent revolution. Very few of them can be traced back to the historic beginning of the science within which they occur.”  7

New generations of students learn from a new generation of textbooks which suggest, not only that the history of science has been linear and cumulative, but that new answers have been found for old questions. Antiquated science is presented in the form of out-of-date beliefs based on inadequate information or limited understanding.

To the historian of science, however, the scientific theories of the past are as intrinsically scientific and sound as any that are current today. Because of this it seems likely that those theories which are today accorded the sanctity of scientific “truth” will one day be replaced, and in due course will be regarded as equally unscientific, in the light of a new framework of belief.

The Foundation of Belief

The validity of any scientific theory rests therefore upon its underlying foundation of belief. When the structure of that belief changes, then the theory which had previously seemed to be entirely adequate, comes to be recognised as being scientifically deficient.

For as long as the scientific paradigm prevails, normal science conducts a vigorous campaign to force nature into line with those conceptual beliefs which characterise the new paradigm, motivated by the conviction that this new paradigm is able to reveal nature “as it really is”.

Within the limitations of the paradigm, this normal science at first succeeds brilliantly in solving problems which could hardly have been imagined in the past. The range of technological achievements and practical utilisation grows apace.

The paradigm does, however, exert a subtle restraining influence upon the practitioners of this normal science. It inevitably determines what scientific problems are valid within that paradigm, and which are to be ignored as being unscientific.

Kuhn also points to another subtle characteristic of each scientific revolution which he calls the “invisibility” of the paradigm.  Those practitioners of normal science who have been trained within a specific paradigm, and who have acquired its underlying philosophy of belief, seldom see the limiting pressures of the paradigm itself. They remain unable to extricate themselves from the limitations of their paradigm, for they are generally unaware of its existence.

Normal science works within a paradigm and, as Kuhn points out, is at first spectacularly successful in resolving problems that arise within the framework of that paradigm. As the body of data generated by normal science grows, however, certain anomalies appear which cannot be explained by the paradigm.

Initially these anomalies are small in number, and can easily be dismissed as being of little consequence in the overall scheme of things. As they grow more numerous, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore them and the prevailing paradigm becomes increasingly unwieldy or contrived.

It was precisely this state of unwieldy complexity in Ptolemaic astronomy, which was reduced to explaining the motion of celestial objects by means of an increasing number of epicycles, that led to the breakthrough of understanding provided by Copernicus.

Changing Paradigms

When a scientific paradigm is overburdened by anomalies which it is unable to explain, it becomes ripe for revolutionary crisis. These crises have generally been resolved in the history of western science by lonely men of genius, who have been able to present an entirely new way of evaluating past data.

Founders of new paradigms are invariably young men who have, in one way or another, escaped the conditioning of their colleagues, and who have not yet become entrenched within their professions.

They are thus able to bring a new vision to their fields of practice, and to link past data in revolutionary ways which are successful in explaining most of the unexplained anomalies of the past.

These revolutionary purveyors of new ideas have traditionally met with a wave of resistance from “normal” scientists who have been conditioned in the old habits of thinking. Not surprisingly, this resistance has been particularly marked among those scientists whose status and reputation have been built upon the old ideas, and therefore have the most to lose by an overthrow of the old regime.

Each scientific revolution proceeds therefore very much like its social or military counterpart. It is led by a young and bold leader, who is successful in drawing to his or her side recruits, who then do battle with the old guard who have become entrenched in the traditional ways of thinking.

Success, however, does not come easily or immediately. It often takes several generations before victory is complete and the old paradigm is successfully demolished.

As Max Planck, who was himself a progenitor of new ideas, sadly reflected: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”  8

Planck had good reason for this comment, for he was able to draw on the harsh criticism and initial rejection which greeted his discovery of the quantum. But he was in good company, for it took almost a hundred years for the ideas of Copernicus to become generally accepted, while Newton’s theories were not adopted in his own lifetime.

Einstein’s theory of relativity, arguably the most explosive theory in the history of science, and which daily dominates our lives in the form of the nuclear threat, was met with initial disbelief and to this day has failed to merit the Nobel prize for physics.

False Assumptions

We have seen that science concerns itself with “observables.” As scientists have penetrated ever more deeply into the secrets of matter, they have come to examine more closely this question of observation.

Under the paradigm of classical physics dominated by Sir Isaac Newton, matter was considered to be something inert which had definite substance, and which existed and moved in empty space.

In the 20th century matter has been discovered to be something far more subtle. We have found that we can never, even in principle, learn anything about the actual nature of matter directly. All we can ever know about the world is what our senses tell us.

The nuclear physicist who charts the path of an electron through a cloud chamber is not in direct contact with reality. All he or she can say with certainty is that what was taken for an electron interacted with the cloud chamber and revealed itself to his or her senses in a particular way.

All of physical science rests ultimately upon the evidence of the senses. Even the instruments of science are simply extensions of the senses. The evidence that reveals itself to the scientist is never an objective reality which exists independently of the mind.

The new view of reality, as indicated by the new physics, is that the “observer” of classical physics has had to be replaced by the concept of “participator”. A person who sets up an experiment inevitably influences the result of that experiment by virtue of the act of participation.

According to this new view of reality, it is never possible to examine nature “as it really is”, but only through that particular filter which characterises each individual mind. The outcome of any experiment will thus inevitably be dominated by the contents of that mind.

The very essence of the scientific enterprise has been an attempt to reduce all human experience to certain fundamental principles which are true for every person. In undertaking this pursuit, science has operated under certain subtle assumptions which have seldom been recognized, let alone challenged.

The first and most important assumption is that the phenomena with which it deals form part of a physical universe that is both “real” and exists “objectively” in space.

Secondly, science has assumed that this “real” universe is experienced equally by everyone alike. That being so, scientists have logically concluded that any result obtained by a trained scientist in any one discipline, will automatically match the result achieved by any other scientist in that discipline who follows the same protocol.

Thirdly, the entire scientific quest is based upon the assumption that the universe is both rational and consistent, and that all phenomena can ultimately be reduced to a single set of rules. Within the boundaries of these overall assumptions scientists have set to work to identify those rules.

Yet the irony is that, because each of these three assumptions has now been found to be false, all of the so-called “laws” deduced by scientists from this data over the last four hundred years, must necessarily be false as well.

(Continued in Part Three)

References

1  Quoted in “Future Science“, edited by John White and Stanley Krippner, Anchor, New York, 1977, pp. 344-345.
2  C. Cerf and V. Navasky, “The Experts Speak“, Pantheon Books, New York, 1984, p. 215.
3  Ibid, p. 258.
4  Thomas Kuhn, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970, p. 6.
5  Ibid, p. 175.
6  Ibid, p.viii.
7  Ibid, p. 140.
8  Max Planck, “Scientific Autobiography“, translated by F.Gaynon, Philosophical Library, New York, 1949, pp. 33-34.

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