Militant Moderate
WF: I would like to again waste your time and degrade your eyesight on another long, meandering post; this time, an alternative view of science.
“I believe that it’s possible to determine THINGS scientifically provable beyond ANY doubt whatsoever. Not just functional certitude (reasonable doubt), but indeed certainty.”
If we were having this discussion pre-Copernicus, the prevailing model of the universe of the day was geocentrism, and Ptolemaic Model was generally the most accepted. Wikipedia has a whole page on this (in case you’re not familiar with it … you probably are …), but if you’ve previously seen a representation, you’ll remember that the known planets were depicted orbiting the Earth, along with these crazy loop-de-loops.
As bizarre as this model seems now, it was the product of the best minds of the day, and it had *predictive* power … the Ptolemaic Model could tell you where to find Mars in our night sky, several years out. I mean, Ptolemy was no dummy!
Eventually, observations ceased supporting the geocentric model; Galileo peering through his telescope at the moons of Jupiter helped lead science into an acceptance of heliocentrism.
Another example … early models of the atom, from J.J. Thompson’s “Plum Pudding” to the Rutherford–Bohr model depicting electron orbits, have given way to today’s probability clouds of quantum mechanics. Even right now, the atomic model is being tweaked as science learns more about known sub-atomic particles, and discovers new ones.
And there are countless other historical examples: Aristotelian physics >>> Newtonian physics >>> Einstein’s relativity; genetics; germ theory; etc.
The point: If science is capable of PROVING things beyond a shadow of a doubt, then how do we explain what appears to be science getting things wrong?
I alluded to this yesterday, but one possible answer is to give up on the idea that anything can completely, utterly, with zero doubt whatsoever be proven … confirmed … by anything, including science.
Rather, science is the only tool that humanity truly has for obtaining information about how the universe works. It gives us the best possible picture, but that picture might be flawed or incomplete, and it is *always* subject to change.
And we accept that.
Scientific theories, models and laws continue to be accepted … up to the point that models and laws cease being predictive, the observations warrant changes, etc. A new model is put forth, the evidence *corroborates* (not confirm … that’s the vile language of induction!) … rinse … repeat … wipe hands on pants.
(Sidenote: “Theory” is the strongest word in science for describing an idea, and I cringe whenever folks misuse the word. “That’s just a theory …” ugh …)
And this adherence for going exclusively where the evidence leads is the most the awesome thing (besides the toys) differentiating science from other human constructs such as politics, religion, etc.
Science has a built-in mechanism for changing its mind! (Try doing THAT in politics, or in front of a congregation!) Sometimes the mind-changing occurs slowly, often messily; but given enough time, it gets it as right as it can.
This idea (philosophy) of science is the one put forth by Carl Popper (VERY interesting guy), but there have been many others over the years. In watching Neil deGrasse Tyson’s ‘Cosmos’ (and in numerous other sources), I get the impression that he subscribes to another view of science. He seems to freely use that “language of induction.”
And who am I to argue with a man that awesome???
So why is splitting philosophical hairs like this a big deal? In my opinion, it sets up false expectations of science, or makes science easier to slander and discredit. There are people out there who’ve developed a mistrust of science, and they fall on all sides of the political spectrum (anti-vaxxers, adherents of homeopathy and alternative medicine are a few examples).
Another example: People who don’t believe that anthropogenic climate change is occurring frequently cite previous supposed-scientific proclamations as rationale for discounting climatological research. These people will bring up a time a couple of decades ago in which the danger was allegedly “global cooling,” or that models thus far have been wrong.
Therefore, since science was (allegedly) wrong then, it’ll be wrong again. Ignore those “alarmists” who hate America. Drill baby drill!
(insert cryingeagle.jpg)
Anyhoo … If you’ve (anyone) made it this far and you’re still awake, thanks for your time. Quite clearly, I love talking about this stuff. And there’s a huge issue with Popper’s idea of science that could be considered a fatal flaw; so who the heck knows!