I defend science against an unfair attack

I enjoy reading every comment posted on my blogs. Even those I strongly disagree with.

Hey, especially those, in this sense: When what we value is attacked, our reaction tells us a lot about ourselves.

Before I read the comment that Jayme posted yesterday, I knew that I loved science and the scientific method. But experiencing what I felt when I read his unfair attacks on science made me realize this more deeply.

So, thank you, Jayme. I respect the passion with which you ripped into science and scientists. Now I'll exercise my right to respond with some of the same energy.

Some key quotes from Jayme's rather lengthy comment on the post "Science bashers, read this before you comment" (which I hope he did!) are indented in italics. My responses are un-indented plain type.

According to Brian's theory of scientific truth (as best as I can understand) the mainstream science is de facto true until changed on the rest of us by those given (or who have taken) authority to change it. Most of us who do not agree with mainstream scientists are, by definition, wrong.

No, not "by definition." By practice, by evidence, by observation. Since the Enlightenment science has made great advances in understanding the natural world -- especially in the past hundred years or so.

Mainstream science is humankind's most valid and complete repository of facts about the outer world of shared reality (as contrasted with the inner world of private reality that is an individual's conscious experience alone).

Given all the effort that has gone into gathering, analyzing, testing, and debating these facts, it is unlikely that any single person is going to come up with a fresh finding that will immediately make scientists jump up, clap, and yell "Bravo! What an amazing discovery!"

Everyone has the ability to change the truths of mainstream science. But this doesn't come just by saying "Believe me." That's how religion operates, by belief. Science demands evidence.

If you've got it, almost certainly science eventually will say "You're right." Until that proof is provided and run through the skeptical grinder of the scientific method to test its solidity, you'll be met with a "Show me."

It forces others who don't believe in the mainstream to meet in secret and discuss these fringe topics out of earshot of the mainstream who will cry "HERESY!" and seek to destroy their opposition through science education camps, studies, ridicule, and interactive museums designed to indoctrinate the youth.

Wow. Jayme, you make science sound like a Hitler youth camp. Come on.

As noted above, scientists are open to new ideas. But they'll remain in the category of Mere Idea until evidence is provided that indicates an idea reflects how the natural world really is, or functions.

Scientists love debate, controversy, arguments, and such.

However, the scientific method demands that this game of Show Me proceed under certain rules. Seemingly what you consider a cry of heresy is science calmly saying, "Interesting notion, but what's the evidence in support of it?"

Most mainstream science is fairly predictable within a prefabricated theoretical architecture of known principles and experiments. But science on the fringe is where the breakthroughs and new phenomena are discovered or explained. Many professional careers are ended when leaving the mainstream for fringe areas at the end of the world. UFOs, paranormal research, antigravity, perpetual motion, big foot, crop circles, psychedelics, alternative cosmologies, etcetera - are interesting places to kill a career while making a living by selling to a popular fringe audience.

There's a lot not to agree with here. Prefabricated theoretical architecture? I assume you mean such things as electromagnetism, gravity, relativity theory, quantum mechanics, cellular biology, neuroscience, and all the other facts science knows about the world.

Your computer uses this science, so your ability to post a comment on my blog testifies to the non-theoretical nature of the scientific method.

I disagree that breakthroughs in science occur on the sorts of "fringes" you cited. Einstein didn't leave pre-existing science and mathematics behind when he came up with his theories of relativity. Rather, he took what was known and extended it into new territory.

All of the subjects you mentioned are legitimate areas of scientific inquiry. So far, most have come up empty on the evidence front. It isn't that science considers these areas taboo. Rather, they just are nonproductive fields for a scientist to focus on.

Believe me, the first person to come up with a genuine perpetual motion machine won't have any trouble being accepted by mainstream science. A Nobel Prize almost certainly awaits him or her.

Most science tells a good story but mostly science is like any collective belief system bent on self preservation: only, with science, the priests tell a much more potent truth about a consensus reality supported by abstract facts and obscure causal relations. They can explain to you ad nauseum why you are wrong to think what you do.

Priests? Oh, you must be referring to scientists.

This is such a specious non-argument, which I encounter disturbingly frequently. "Science is just another religion." No, it isn't. Religion is religion. Science is science. 

Jayme, I don't understand what you mean by "abstract facts and obscure causal relations." Again, science leads to discoveries that actually change the way humans can do things.

Like, fly in an airplane. Observe what is happening inside a brain. Communicate over the Internet. Talk on a cell phone. All this isn't abstract or obscure at all. You've got things backward.

Religion is the field that specializes in abstractness and obscurity, not science. As to scientists explaining why you're wrong, may I suggest: listen to them. You probably will find that indeed you are wrong. 

To say that we have to wait for the "truth" science has to offer before we can call it truth is giving one's own authority away. Any scientist who is pushing a theory is simply making up a good story that seems to fit the facts. It is only true because other scientists who are popular with their peers have agreed it is true and it seems to fit the facts.

False. My Taoist sensibilities lead me to explain the situation this way, Jayme. You're confusing two separate, but interrelated, things.

(1) There is what's happening in the world, cosmos, universe, whatever you want to call life's playing field. (2) There is how we make our way through, around, and within what's happening.

Broadly speaking, (1) is the domain of science, while (2) is the domain of philosophy, spirituality, religion, mysticism, and such -- including the arts.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, in science or the scientific method prevents anyone from embracing any darn way-making they choose. What turns you on, meaning-wise, go for it.

Nobody can take that away from you. And certainly science has no desire to.

What seems to bother you is that the scientific method demands evidence before a new understanding of "what's happening" is accepted. This is as it should be, because the playing field of life belongs to everybody.

It's shared territory, while your private form of way-making or meaning-making is yours alone.

You are way off base when you claim that scientific theories are accepted only because popular scientists have gotten agreement from their peers that such and such is true. Your statement "and it seems to fit the facts" is much more accurate.

Yes, to be accepted, a truth has to fit the facts. If this bothers you, I can understand why you dislike science.

Comments

[Roger]

"To say that we have to wait for the "truth" science has to offer before we can call it truth is giving one's own authority away. Any scientist who is pushing a theory is simply making up a good story that seems to fit the facts. It is only true because other scientists who are popular with their peers have agreed it is true and it seems to fit the facts."

---Well, a true scientist would not need to "push" a theory. I can see "presenting" a theory. The presented theory, would be such, any representation as "being the truth" would come from the reader of such presented theory. So, how are we defining facts and truisms?

[+Ao]

testing, testing...

what happened to the "recent comments" section? it has all but vanished, along with all the comments.

[Brian]

+Ao, you're right: comments disappeared; I put in a help ticket to TypePad; now they're back. Thanks for pointing out the problem. I wasn't aware of it until I saw your comment about comments.

[Jayme]

Roger,

I agree that a true scientist that is true to facts and not the ego doesn't push facts but scientists do have egos and so there is inclination to push for specific research to get funding. In the worst and humiliating cases, data has been fabricated or conversely witheld.

It is a good question you ask. What is a fact and a truism? A fact isn't necessarily a thing. And "truth" is often an just an ism. When we get stuck in the practice of science and forget about the method of science, I think that truths become isms when this happens. The standard process of science works through truisms and is blind to truths.

I'll try to give a qualitatively "better" response to this blog topic when I get more time.

Respects,

[Brian]

Jayme, you're criticizing science because it is blind to truths. So it's pretty clear that you feel you have an eye to see truth that science doesn't. Do you think this is an egotistical viewpoint? Or just the truth?

If the truth, then how is it that it's OK for you to claim that you know truths (even though there's no proof of them), while science can't make the same claim -- even with proofs?

What I'm pointing to, Jayme, is what seems to be a fallacy in your outlook. You hold your viewpoint out to others as true, while that of science is false. Yet you also seem to be saying that subjective experience is the only really true truth.

Huh? Why are you going to such lengths to try to convince people that your view of truth is truer than that of science? Isn't this an effort to claim that, objectively, your perspective is correct? How does this jibe with your apparent assertion that "ism's" can't be genuine truth?

I mean, you seem to have a well developed philosophy that you're doing your best to convince people of. How is this not Jaymeism?

[Roger]

Jayme,

You stated,

"I agree that a true scientist that is true to facts and not the ego doesn't push facts but scientists do have egos and so there is inclination to push for specific research to get funding. In the worst and humiliating cases, data has been fabricated or conversely witheld."

---Yes, there are examples of scientists with egos, that push specific research to get funding. Likewise, in the worst cases, data has been fabricated and withheld. However, this issue has been stated, again and again, so let's move on to other issues.

[Jayme]

Hi Brian,

I don't think my comments are unfair. Life is Fair, after all. (The title reminds me of the rich man in "Waiting for Godot.")

"Jayme, you're criticizing science because it is blind to truths. So it's pretty clear that you feel you have an eye to see truth that science doesn't. Do you think this is an egotistical viewpoint? Or just the truth?"

-- I think it IS an egotistical viewpoint I pose. In my present state of mind it would be egotistical for me to deny that. As for just the truth, I don't think it can be spoken of (but this remains a concept of mine).

"If the truth, then how is it that it's OK for you to claim that you know truths (even though there's no proof of them), while science can't make the same claim -- even with proofs?"

-- I don't think that truth is a separable object from what is. But again - I can't speak of truth as you seem to be meaning.

What I'm pointing to, Jayme, is what seems to be a fallacy in your outlook. You hold your viewpoint out to others as true, while that of science is false. Yet you also seem to be saying that subjective experience is the only really true truth.

-- No. What I am saying is that both the subject and the object are not separable. Science merely treats one facet and unduly places itself in a higher position of importance within society. A kind of sophism through its sophisticated theoretical arguements. Conversely, the individual touting a solipsist view presents the same problem when the truth of science is denied in service of the opinion of self. I don't have enough formal knowledge to build very good arguements but this is the model I'm conceiving.

Huh? Why are you going to such lengths to try to convince people that your view of truth is truer than that of science? Isn't this an effort to claim that, objectively, your perspective is correct? How does this jibe with your apparent assertion that "ism's" can't be genuine truth?

-- What I present is a counter arguement to the assertion of the truth of science as somehow good and right but the perspective of self as somehow less right and less good. The point being that science (or the truths of science) are neither good nor bad. If one looks at a person, there is certainly a truth about that person. Their existence is truth and they have their own value and their own beauty not quantified through the truths of science. Likewise, the truth of science is of value to itself and may or may not be of value to others. It is inherently neither good nor bad but has its own value; its own beauty; its own truth. Isms are as true and beautiful as anything. I can't argue against what is, even when it kicks me in the teeth. That would be foolishness. Whether it is science or religion or isms. The only thing I can do is offer to do what I can with the greatest awareness that I can. If this has any relation to the notion of karma, it is that right action will leave little or no thoughts of the past nor the future. At present, I'm not deeply in this state of mind as there is still karma within my arguements but I am less attached to these ideas than I used to be when I held science as my gospel. This is just my personal perspective.

"I mean, you seem to have a well developed philosophy that you're doing your best to convince people of. How is this not Jaymeism?"

-- I don't think I'm convincing too many people. I can hear the shuffling shoes and the crickets chirping in the blogosphere when I start ranting on science. Brian: you, Roger, and tAo have been kind enough to give feedback but most here seem to prefer other more practical or even esoteric matters. Personally, I think this is good. Science was my god at one time but it never really provided a completeness in itself, imo. What is life all about, except being alive and living while you are alive? It is just good to step back and revel in the wonder rather than seek truths or some purpose and sense of control through science of defense of ego. You seem to do a nice job at this, Brian. I commend you. I just happened to have more science background than Tai Chi so that is what triggers my little brain. It certainly is Jaymeism. Not a very interesting branch of study. It has a following of exactly 1 and I'm trying to kick him out of the class-lol.

I still use science as a tool. It is very handy and even good for keeping drinks cold, too!

Roger,

Good point.

Kind Regards,

[Jayme]

Andy Goldsworthy 1:42

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqADi52xqE4