A favorite quote of mine by H.L. Mencken goes like this: “For every subtle and complicated question, there is a perfectly simple and straightforward answer, which is wrong.”
Of all the subtle and complicated questions to which Mencken’s quote could apply, perhaps none is so fitting as this: What is science?
We say the word all of the time. Most of us think it is a good thing. And yet, we have no idea what it actually is. Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions wrestles with this question and uses case studies from the history of science to support his conclusion: paradigms, not facts, define science.
The “perfectly simple and straightforward answer” to the question (What is science?) could be any of the following:
- Science is a search for truth.
- Science is the dispassionate application of the scientific method to the physical world.
- Science is a gradual accumulation of learning that incrementally builds upon itself.
Of course, there are more answers we could put forth, but these three account for the vast majority of perfectly simply and straightforward answers, all of which are wrong.
Kuhn would state those three propositions as their opposites:
- Science is not a search for truth.
- Science is not the dispassionate application of the scientific method to the physical world.
- Science is not a gradual accumulation of learning that incrementally builds upon itself.
Thomas Kuhn, who was a professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (for those who need an argument from authority) and who studied the history of science, argues in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that paradigms define science, not facts.
About paradigms, Kuhn writes, “These I take to be universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners.”
So paradigms define problems and solutions. Paradigms determine what is an acceptable question to ask. Questions that do not align with a paradigm are considered to be non-scientific. For example, turning lead into gold is considered to be alchemy, a pseudo-science. In earlier times, the most eminent scientists, including Isaac Newton, very seriously pursued this goal. At that time, chemistry’s prevailing paradigm allowed that such studies were appropriate. Today, the goal of turning lead into gold is not allowed in the scientific community because the prevailing paradigm does not allow it.
Another example of a paradigm (and also a paradigm shift) is the Earth-centered view of the solar system:
In early times, humans notice the movements of stars and planets. They assume that the Earth is the center of these revolving celestial bodies. Astronomers/astrologers/scientists continue to observe the heavens and to work their explanations of celestial movements into the paradigm of an Earth-centered solar system. This works pretty well. They are able to make somewhat accurate predictions about the movements of the stars and planets. Unfortunately, there’s one small problem: the Earth isn’t the center of the solar system.
These early scientists find more accurate ways to “measure” celestial movement. They find more discrepancies between what their paradigm says should happen and what actually does happen. Some scientists begin to question whether the paradigm is accurate. They are ignored by the rest of the scientific community. More discrepancies emerge. More scientists defect. A scientific crisis emerges surrounding the old paradigm and the emerging paradigm. The heliocentric paradigm emerges and is eventually accepted by the scientific community at large.
After the acceptance of the heliocentric paradigm, scientists go back to what Kuhn calls “normal science,” which is further refining details of an existing paradigm. “Normal science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like,” Kuhn writes.
It’s important here to note that scientists are not operating with a blank slate. They are operating within paradigms, which are, by definition, restrictive.
Think back to the famous Earth-centered versus heliocentric paradigm clash. For early scientists to do work, they had to assume that they knew that the Earth was the center of the solar system. They weren’t doing experiments to see if the moon was the center, or if Jupiter was the center. After all, had they done so, perhaps they would have tried to figure things from a heliocentric perspective. This did not happen until the Earth-centered paradigm broke down.
So there are two important points here:
- Normal science seeks to reaffirm existing paradigms.
- Normal science ends up tearing down existing paradigms.
Incidentally, we can pause here to recall our earlier claims. First, science is not a search for truth; science is a search to reaffirm entrenched worldviews (paradigms). Second, science is not the dispassionate application of the scientific method to the physical world; science is the passionate search for further refinements to an existing paradigm. Third, science is not a gradual accumulation of learning that incrementally builds upon itself; rather than accumulate knowledge through increments, scientific revolutions define scientific “advancement.”
The ironic thing about normal science, which seeks to reaffirm and further refine existing paradigms, is that it ends up bringing existing paradigms to a state of crisis, which allows a competing paradigm to assert itself. This is a result of the feedback loop that emerges between an established paradigm and normal science.
Paradigms restrict what is accepted as scientific (remember alchemy?). Since the scope of studies is restricted due to the paradigm, researchers focus their time, energy, and funding on a relatively narrow band of problems. These problems are all defined by the paradigm; in other words, the problems only make sense through the paradigm and are only expected to have answers due to the paradigm. Normal science seeks and finds answers to many of these problems; however, some stubborn problems remain. Perhaps in the course of the research into these problems, scientists find a few anomalies: things that do not make sense in the scope of the paradigm. Due to the inertia of the scientific community, these anomalies tend to be ignored until enough of them emerge to create a crisis in the scientific community over the paradigm, and a paradigm shift is underway.
In this way, the continued progress of normal science, seeking to reaffirm an existing paradigm, unearths anomalies. Some of these anomalies end up being explained within the context of the prevailing paradigm; however, others do not. Furthermore, paradigms are not necessarily accurate; they just need to be more accurate than other paradigms.
Going back to our earlier example, the Earth-centered view of the solar system worked very well for a very long time. Men could sail ships around the oceans by the stars. Scientists could make some predictions based on the movements of stars and planets. It was not accurate, but it was good enough. Once it became not good enough, the anomalies that had built up over the years were too much, and the paradigm was forced to shift.
So we can sum this up as follows:
- Paradigms define the way that scientists see the world.
- Paradigms are not necessarily accurate.
- Normal Science is the bulk of work that scientists do. Normal science seeks to reaffirm established paradigms, regardless of the accuracy of such paradigms.
- Normal Science discovers anomalies that do not match with the established paradigm.
- These anomalies are ignored until they cannot be ignored.
- Anomalies can cause a crisis by bringing the prevailing paradigm into question.
- New paradigms emerge in the crisis that seek to more accurately represent physical phenomena.
- A paradigm shift occurs when a new paradigm is accepted, which gives scientists a new way of seeing the world.
Kuhn uses many more examples of paradigm shifts in his book; however, I have focused on the Earth-centered versus heliocentric paradigms because they are the easiest for lay people to understand.
This is quite different from my experience with science. I agree that ‘normal science’ operates within existing paradigms … paradigm shifts are hard! My primary point of contention is that normal scientists are absolutely thrilled when they discover something that seems to poke a hole in the dominant paradigm. There can be friction between different groups, but I dislike the idea that scientists do science in order to prove other people right.
Dr. Feynman defined science as the belief in the ignorance of experts. I’m happy to go with that, although quoting an expert to prove this point feels wrong.
By the way, turning one type of atom into another used to be known as alchemy. Today it’s known as nuclear engineering 🙂 Lead can be turned into gold, it just isn’t commercially worthwhile. Converting uranium into energy on the other hand …
Thanks for the response, Charles! You have the all-time record for comments on my blog!
Now to my response to your response:
Paradigms exist in different states of stability.
Here’s an example of a very stable paradigm: old Earth and old universe. When a paradigm is that established, people are not excited to poke holes in it. An obvious response to this is that there are no holes to poke in that particular paradigm, but let’s just use this as a thought experiment for the time being.
Anyone who tries to use “science” to poke holes in such a paradigm is called crazy: https://creationmuseum.org/
So if you are a scientist, and if you find something that sort of points away from the old Earth and old universe paradigm, and if you want to get grant funding and tenure and all of that other stuff, you probably assume you made a mistake. Or you simply file the results away, like these guys did here: http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2016/04/13/a-decades-old-study-rediscovered-challenges-advice-on-saturated-fat/
A post at my other blog (https://mypaleojournal.com/2016/09/10/this-is-what-a-paradigm-shift-looks-like/) shows a paradigm that is crumbling: just call it the standard food pyramid. Once enough people start to look away from a prevailing paradigm (after the early adopters of the new paradigm have died in ignominy and poverty 😉 ), then scientists start to be “absolutely thrilled” about poking holes in the old paradigm.
By the way, I certainly did not know that lead could be turned into gold! That’s pretty cool.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to respond! I was initially worried about ‘lecturing in your classroom’ … I’m glad that you welcome the dialogue.
The Creation Museum is called crazy because they start with the conclusion that the standard model is flawed and that they know what the answers will be. They are definitely not open to the possibility that their paradigm needs modification, and they would not consider any data which would open that possibility. Can you imagine any evidence that would make Ken Ham admit that he was wrong?
The scientific argument for the age of the Earth comes from a lot of fields, but if I wanted to attack it I would investigate if radioactive decay rates are changing over time or at different locations. This would make radioactive dating much more difficult, or even impossible if the changing rate were random. People would have already noticed if the rates had changed to a large extent, so I would try to get funding to examine the rate with as much precision as possible, to be compared to other precise data measured elsewhere and elsewhen. You could similarly try to get funding to see if the speed of light is changing over time, or by location. Again, a significant change would have been noticed already through GPS malfunctions and the like, but precise measurements are their own reward. These sorts of studies to add a few decimal places to the end of the number happen frequently.
Perhaps you would say that these attempts to poke holes in the theory are too indirect. I can’t think of anything more direct! We may be able to compromise with this – I agree that funding is less likely to be given to studies which are deemed to be less likely to find an interesting result, and that the scientists who make that decision can be biased and can make mistakes. I do not agree that scientists would intentionally avoid any study which would lead to changes in the standard model … that’s literally the sort of result that wins Nobel Prizes.
A quite similar story to the above is with the comparison of inertial mass (the resistance of mass to be accelerated by a force) to gravitational mass (the attraction of mass to other mass). Isaac Newton assumed that these were equivalent, and an enormous amount of physics has been based on this assumption. Scientists have been running increasingly precise experiments on this for centuries, trying to disprove one of Newton’s fundamental assumptions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%C3%B6tv%C3%B6s_experiment
You should absolutely check your equipment when you get a strange result! This doesn’t mean that you should assume that you’re wrong, but it’s just common sense to check your results. Do you recall the result from a few years ago in which a group found particles that went faster than light (which would disprove part of relativity)? They posted their results, asking for help in determining what was going on. It was eventually determined that they had a technical malfunction, but they didn’t hide it, even though journalists around the world published their initial results as proof Einstein was wrong and buried the malfunction story in the back of the paper. I recall that Mr. Leeper was impressed by the first story and didn’t hear the second one, specifically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly
Just for fun, I ran across this quote earlier. “When a pamphlet was published entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein, Einstein retorted “If I were wrong, one would be enough.””
I’m going to try to do justice to you response without getting out of my depth in terms of hard science…
You write, “The Creation Museum is called crazy because they start with the conclusion that the standard model is flawed and that they know what the answers will be.” I will argue that the scientific community (if not all scientists) start with conclusion that they know what the answers will be. As much as the general public thinks that scientists are completely objective and far removed from emotion and bias, it’s simply not true.
To stay with the whole “young Earth” subject (which, by the way, I am not secretly arguing for here – just using as an example because it is extreme), results that point in that direction have ramifications far beyond “objective” results. I think you can see that it is reasonable to expect a scientist to shy away from such results, but we might have to agree to disagree there.
Getting back to Ken Ham, the issue Ham and his cohorts have with the scientific community (SC) is that the SC operates in some sort of parallel world that doesn’t have to explain where matter comes from. All of the physics in the world (correct me here if I am wrong) cannot say how matter emerges from nothing. This is Aristotle “Prime Mover” type stuff. Where does the “energy” for the “Big Bang” come from?
So we end up with talking about “Big Bangs” and other stuff that is really in the area of faith, and we end up back in the world of paradigms. See this article (which I think I texted to you when I first read it) for more info: http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/-why-science-should-stay-clear-of-metaphysics
I mean, nuclear bombs explode. No one really disputes that (I think?). And “science” is really good at describing things that can be observed. But there are lots of things that cannot be observed that the SC is happy to call “science,” and those things that cannot be observed are not as settled as people like to admit. See the link above.
Finally (for now – because I am out of time), the media does just as much cheerleading for accepted scientific views as it does for splashy things, such as your faster-than-light topic.
For example, I never read things that imply the standard model of evolution isn’t the bedrock of reality unless it is in reference to “crazy religious” people who think otherwise. However, a cursory dip below the surface (and yes, I have read Darwin) shows that the issue is far from settled. This book (https://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0060556579/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1474281004&sr=8-7&keywords=red+queen) was unsettling in how little we really know about the role that sex plays in a evolutionary model. And anyone who has read Darwin knows that the human eye terrified him in its complexity.
But anyone who says, “Hey guys, maybe God made us all about like we are now?” is considered a simpleton. This just doesn’t make sense.
That’s all I have now, so I’ll let you respond if you wish.
I do not believe that scientists are completely objective, but I think that they strive towards objectivity. I do not believe that Ken Ham gives a damn about objectivity.
“Where did the energy of the Big Bang come from?” seems like the beginning of a God of the gaps argument, which I’ll assume that you’re already familiar with.
There is a great deal of mystery about the Big Bang, and I don’t think that you’d find an astronomer who would say otherwise. When I was teaching about the Big Bang at CCHS, I would tell students that they had to know the evidence for the Big Bang theory whether they agreed with that particular conclusion or not. I would describe the current expansion of the universe, which implies that the universe was once much smaller. I would describe how the Hydrogen/Helium ratio throughout the universe implies that the universe was once all fusing at the same rate, and that the equations of fusion (which I wouldn’t get into in a high school class) when applied to a Big Bang-type expansion provide a result which exactly matches the ratio which is observed. Finally, I would describe the microwave background radiation throughout the universe, implying that an energy burst was once released everywhere at once. I would then say that no one has any evidence for what might have started this process, but the process itself has quite a bit of evidence for it. I would use the analogy of walking into a room filled with shrapnel, heat, and smoke … you might not know what happened, but you know that there was an explosion.
This strikes me as fundamentally different from claiming to know what happened in the Big Bang. It strikes me as very different from claiming to know what caused the Big Bang.
I have no issue at all with using inserting religion here … I believe that this topic is beyond the (current) scope of physics, and it’s one of the big reasons that I describe myself as agnostic and not atheist. Still I don’t think that it’s productive to limit the research of others. Stephen Hawking, for example, has publicly mused about black holes each being a Big Bang for another universe. He actually has some mathematical ‘evidence’ for this and he knows far more about black holes and Big Bangs than we do, but I think that even he would agree that he’s not presenting this theory rigorously. He’s not going to live much longer, but he may be able to point someone else in an interesting direction. I don’t see why this is a problem. I absolutely agree that astronomers can embarrass themselves when they start to pontificate about philosophy (or anything else, really).
https://xkcd.com/793/
I don’t know nearly as much about evolution as I do about astronomy, but I believe that the eye has been studied fairly extensively since Darwin’s time. I think that you’re right in that there are open questions there … I’m sorry that skeptics are frequently considered to be simpletons. I’ll try to draw an analogy to politics. It is entirely possible to make a rational case that immigration is too high and that America would be better off by restricting it. Trump is not interested in making that argument – he is more likely to talk about how immigrants are going to kill your children. If you let people like Trump make your argument for you, then you risk being grouped with him.
If I recall the Bill Nye/ Ken Ham debate correctly, Mr. Ham was happy to apply your “things that cannot be observed” criteria to anything that was inconvenient to his point of view, like radioactive dating and bacterial evolution.
I don’t think that the media knows much about science or religion.
Thanks again. I’m just now realizing my self-inflicted burn about physicists pontificating, so I think I should shut up now.
1. In regard to Ken Ham, I don’t know if he is more or less objective than “scientists.” He’s probably more objective than some. He’s probably less objective than others. We’re really just saying words here without rigorous definitions, which is reasonable since rigorous definitions take a lot of work, and this is a conversation in the comments of a blog.
2. Without looking it up, I’m guessing that that “God of the Gaps” argument is where we use God as an explanation for whatever we currently do not know. For example, “primitive” peoples would say that the Gods control the winds or that a demon causes people to get sick. We “moderns” use “germ theory” or whatever to explain things.
However, I think that the question of where the “energy” for the Big Bang came from is a different sort of question. How does something emerge from nothing? Or, if the “energy” or whatnot has always been “here,” what does that even mean? Without getting into the weeds, I think we can agree that this is a bit different than a “God of the Gaps” argument unless you mean that it is never appropriate to conclude that “God” is the answer to some sort of question, which would show that there are indeed biases in that worldview.
In other news on this point, I remember reading that many theists were the ones who were initially excited about the Big Bang theory because it seemed to point to a “beginning” of the universe. Another model, let’s call it “stuff has always been here,” didn’t need any sort of “beginning” or “creation.”
Let’s fast forward to the model where the universe repeatedly Bangs into existence, expands, and then collapses back into itself, only to Bang into existence again. This was “bad” for theists (but it still doesn’t explain where the energy/matter originally come from) because it explains how something so unlikely as sentient life or complex life or whatever can emerge. I’m sure you are very familiar with all of the odds and arguments about how unlikely such things are.
Now let’s fast forward again to today, where (please correct me if I’m wrong) the prevailing model is that the universe will entropy and end up cold and dead with no further Bangs. This good for theists, who can now say, “This crap is very unlikely, and it looks like we only had one shot at it.”
Which brings me to addressing your next point:
3. I’m sure you are correct about all of the science that implies there was a “Big Bang” of some sort. Or, at least, that things sure look like there was one.
A similar argument is made by theists, which I’m sure you are familiar with, called Paley’s Teleological Argument, or, more commonly, the Watchmaker Analogy: http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/paley.shtml
I’ve never really bought the whole argument, but my point here is to show that we can’t just look at stuff and KNOW what happened in the past. We can assume, but we cannot know. You can assume that there was a Big Bang, but you cannot know. Just as Paley and friends can look at the world and say, “Wow. This place is so complex! A Creator must have made it!” They are assuming based upon reasonable evidence. I mean, seriously, go to an amusement park and tell me that you aren’t even a tiny bit skeptical that all of that complexity began in the primordial soup.
4. I agree that this topic is outside of the scope physics, but physics is relevant to this topic because some physicists make truth-claims that are religious/philosophical in nature. For example, when a physicist says that the Big Bang happened, she is making a similar claim as Paley made with his Watchmaker Analogy.
A physicist who says, “Well, this is our best guess, but we really don’t know,” is staying in the realm of physics.
This is the point where people get ticked off and say, “Yeah, but physics deals with facts! It deals with things we can see!” I agree. As long as physicists are working with things that can be observed and replicated, they are practicing physics. When they stop working with things that can be observed and replicated, they are not practicing physics, so they should not act like they are. Btw, none of these are jabs at you. I am not claiming that you do these things.
5. The whole thing with Darwin and the human eye (I think) has to do with (I think) irreducible complexity. You know, for “evolution” to work, each “stage” of evolution has to be beneficial to the organism, thereby providing a competitive advantage.
My main beef with evolution is that people act like everything is settled, when, it’s really not. Seriously, Red Queen starts off by asking why we don’t just asexually reproduce. No one has a great answer for why we don’t. Anyway, that’s a tangent…
6. I really respect Nye for debating Ham. Lots of people were saying that he shouldn’t debate Ham because it made it seem like Ham’s arguments had credibility when they really didn’t. Seriously? That’s what a debate is for.
I haven’t watched the entire debate because there was a lot of “talking past each other,” which is probably a lot of what we are doing here, which, brings me back to paradigms, which I won’t talk more about here.
7. Don’t worry about pontificating and looking stupid. That’s why I made this blog. I pontificate and look stupid on here all the time.
8. As you know, I am a Christian, and I used to be an agnostic (http://carlroberts.us/?p=287), and before that, an atheist. I think it’s possible to be any of those three things and believe in evolution and the Big Bang or to not believe in evolution and the Big Bang. I don’t really see how they are mutually exclusive (which you are not claiming).
As for me, I don’t know what I actually think happened (Big Bang or whatever). I think I need to do a whole post on that in the future…
1) I claim that Ham lacks objectivity because there is no possible data or argument that would change his mind – his faith in the literal truth of the Bible is absolute. I believe this because he has said so. I can’t find a source for this, though, so I might be misremembering.
2) The standard reply here is to ask where the energy for God came from. I’m not particularly interested in rehashing that one … I’d rather say that I will never accept our current ignorance of how something might work as a proof of God. The boundaries of knowledge have shifted too frequently for that to move me. I don’t expect to have a good answer for the origin of the Big Bang in my lifetime, but I also don’t know if that info might be taught in middle school in 200 years. In other words, I do not believe that we are able to calculate the probabilities of a Big Bang or of the origin of life, because our only available data is 1 for 1.
I believe that this is a point upon which we can agree … I believe that you are saying that physicists should humbly claim ignorance when data cannot be obtained. Religion or philosophy may have more to say here, but I do not.
3, 4) When you look at your computer screen, you see what it looked like roughly a nanosecond ago. The past is a sticky wicket.
5) I believe that the rudimentary proto-eyes have been shown to be evolutionarily interesting at lots of different levels of complexity. Even a simple unfocused light sensor can have value.
Once upon a time, I asked my biology-major roommate about why asexual reproduction wasn’t more common. He seemed to think that it was a settled question in the 90s … he said that if an entire species has roughly the same genetic code then they are at much more risk of all falling prey to a problem, when one invariably arises. He’s a really smart guy, but I don’t know how equipped he is to answer about the level of debate on the issue.
6) There was a great deal of talking past each other. Unlike Nye and Ham, I would like to acquire consensus where we can. I think that we can agree that:
a) Scientists should be humble when they reach the limits of what they know (as should priests).
b) Science is a human enterprise run by flawed individuals (as is religion).
c) Science is never settled on any topic, and that science should match observed results.
I think that we will disagree about:
a) The degree to which scientists are inclined to defend the status quo.
b) The degree to which faith-based science is objective.
c) The degree to which extrapolation in science is appropriate.
Please add to either list as appropriate!
I approve of your two lists, with the exception of this: “The degree to which faith-based science is objective.” I do not claim that faith-based science is objective.
I like your summation here of our points of agreement and disagreement. I guess we can disengage on this topic for the time being.
I have really enjoyed the discussion, but I will agree that Ham in no way presents the best argument for a created universe. I saw the debate between Ham and Nye, and quite honestly was not impressed with either Ham’s science or Nye’s philosophy.
If you really want to examine views about the creation of the universe from someone whose science and theology are both rock solid, read the works LeMaitre http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/scientists_lemaitre.html. He knows a thing or two about the Big Bang since he is the scientist and mathematician whose theory of an expanding universe was derisively referred to as “The Big Bang” by those who rejected his proposed paradigm shift. He also happened to be a Catholic priest.
I agree that priests and scientists should humbly accept the limits of what they know, but priests like Lemaitre know quite a bit about both the scientific and theological “heavens.”
Another current Jesuit priest with extensive knowledge about astronomy is Fr. Robert Spitzer. Check out the Magis Center for Faith and Reason for more informed discussion http://www.magiscenter.com/about-fr-spitzer/.
Hey, Jeff! Sorry, I just saw that I needed to “approve” your comment.
I will add both of these sites to my reading list. Thanks!