Science is Not Truth
SPOTLIGHT: As the influence of religion has waned, we’ve placed science on a pedestal – mistaking it for an oracle of truth.
BIG PICTURE: Richard Harris has written a startling book about the state of medical research. The preface to Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions
Most of science is built on inference rather than direct observation…Science progresses by testing ideas indirectly, throwing out the ones that seem wrong…Gradually, scientists build stories that do a better job of approximating the truth.
But at any given moment, there are parallel narratives, sometimes sharply at odds with one another. Scientists rely on their own individual judgments to decide which stories come closest to the truth…Some stories that seem on the fringe today will become the accepted narrative some years from now. (italics added)
During the years I’ve spent examining the climate debate, I’ve tried to communicate precisely these ideas. Millions of people think there’s a climate crisis because ‘science says.’ But in addition to being hazy and incomplete, that science relies on indirect reasoning and judgment calls.
Scientists, being human, are susceptible to bias, groupthink, self-interest, and tribalism. We often hear that 97% of scientists think climate change is caused primarily by human beings. This, let us be clear, is an opinion.
Ideas championed by the greatest minds of one era are frequently tossed into the dustbin by the next. Google eugenics. Or continental drift. Or germ theory. Or stomach ulcers.
For decades, Pluto was a planet. Then it wasn’t. As a non-scientist, I once thought such matters were straightforward. I was naive.
TOP TAKEAWAY: In Harris’ words, scientists “are groping around at the edges of knowledge.” This means we need to be careful, indeed, when basing laws and government policies on scientific findings.
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jerry krause
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Hi Donna,
You wrote: “But at any given moment, there are parallel narratives, sometimes sharply at odds with one another. Scientists rely on their own individual judgments to decide which stories come closest to the truth…Some stories that seem on the fringe today will become the accepted narrative some years from now.”
What you wrote condones the practice of recent science. Is the earth moves or the earth stands still parallel narratives? Are bodies fall at a constant rate which depends upon their mass or all bodies fall at a constant rate of acceleration parallel narratives? Do carbon dioxide molecules absorb certain photons of longwave infrared radiation according to its intensity and nearly immediately by the phenomenon of induced emission emit the photon according to its intensity, according to Einstein’s idea, or do these molecules convert the energy of the absorbed photons into sensible heat of the atmosphere according the idea of other scientists? Maybe you consider the jury is still out on these two different ideas but one fact should be clear: they are not parallel narratives. Is matter endlessly divisible or does there come the point where any further division cannot produce the same matter parallel narratives? No, issues are being compared which are opposites.
Science is not fuzzy. When there are opposite possibility there must be some test which will prove an idea false but there is no test which will prove an idea correct. Hence, science has the same problem as religions; there is belief but no absolute truths.
And to write: “Some stories that seem on the fringe today will become the accepted narrative some years from now.”, implies that stories on the fringe today will likely become the accepted narrative in the future; just because the narrative is on the fringe today. More likely, based on history, an widely accepted idea, based solely upon rational reasoning and established by argumentation of some authority is likely to be found false by observations (reproducible observations)
As Einstein stated: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
That is the science I know and believe in.
Have a good day, Jerry.
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tom0mason
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Science and scientists should be drilled in the basics of their philosophy, and recite everyday —
“Gradually, scientists build stories that do a better job of approximating the truth.”
And that is their only one real truth!
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jerry krause
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Hi Tom,
Better is that all people with any interest in Science, begin at the beginning and read Crew and de Salvio’s translation of what Galileo wrote.
Have a good day, Jerry
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tom0mason
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I think we’ll have to agree to disagree there Jerry.
Science is about our understanding of how the universe functions. Our understanding of it come only from our measurements of that universe. Humans can only measure with their (faultily) human constructed instruments, and as such these measurements will have errors. Only good science will assess and define the range of errors (+/- x%) in an experimental, or observational measurement. The science is usually poor and probably wrong when measurement errors are not properly assessed. Given that errors are inbuilt to our measurements, our understanding of the universe and all of our scientific facts are only approximations. That is not to say that our approximations are inaccurate, they are the best we can do at the time, they just lack absolute precision. Our knowledge is fuzzy, if it were not then no reanalysis in science would be needed — we would know our universe absolutely. We do not and we can not know absolutely. (It is THE only absolute we have! 😊)
We can however continue to refine our methods to bring better and better accuracy, precision and understanding to our scientific knowledge and endeavors. We can progress!
Jerry, your example “Do carbon dioxide molecules absorb certain photons of longwave infrared radiation according to its intensity and nearly immediately by the phenomenon of induced emission emit the photon according to its intensity, according to Einstein’s idea,…”
In bulk and overall yes, but only within certain restriction, any one CO2 molecule may not be in the correct alignment, or in the correct quantum state, to absorb the photon. Also of note is that CO2 may rapidly give up its photon gained energy through collisions with other molecules. At the quantum level each CO2 molecule has a range of possibilities, see William Happer’s work on the range of spreads he measures.
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jerry krause
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Hi Tom,
I evaluate what people write by what I might know what they have done relative what others have written and done. I have no idea of what you or Donna have done. I have a good idea of what I know Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Boyle, Brahe, Kepler, Feynman, Bohr, etc. etc. have done. Therefore, I have a tendency to consider that what I know these people of known achievements have written has more validity than what either of you try to tell me about the science with which I have some experience also.
I really do not know a scientist who studied the BIG universe. The ones I know focused their attentions on the small part of the universe which interested them.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Zoe Phin
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Galileo never dropped objects from a tower to see how they fall. It was a hypothetical experiment written in a book. I don’t think objects of different weight fall the same. There probably is a difference based on their density.
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Damian
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“Do carbon dioxide molecules absorb certain photons of longwave infrared radiation according to its intensity and nearly immediately by the phenomenon of induced emission emit the photon according to its intensity, according to Einstein’s idea,…”
Energy is not quantized, photons do not exist in this context.
Dirac invented the concept of “energy photons” as people had difficulty visualising electro-magnetic waves. Like Dark Energy/Matter, the Roche limit, Black Holes, these entities with no basis in the physical Universe get inculcated into peoples brains throughout their formative years to the point where they can only imagine the Universe through this prism.
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