Truth in Science

 

Science today implies knowledge collected by following certain rules, and presented in a certain way. Scientists are realists: they believe in the existence of an external reality which philosophers have never been able to prove. The point is worth stressing. Science attempts to make a sharp distinction between the world out there, which is real and independent of us, and the individual's thoughts and feelings, which are internal and inconstant and to be explained eventually in terms of outside realities.

Scientists therefore look for external testimony: they study those aspects of knowledge where there can be overwhelming agreement. And that knowledge they group under laws, which are invariable relations and regularities. The social sciences do not have the precision of the physical sciences, of course, and the part played by chance and irreversible processes is being increasingly recognized in all areas of science.

Must science have strong logical foundations? Probably not. Much in quantum theory is contra-intuitive. Randomness enters into relatively simple systems. We deduce consequences from theories so as to check them. And we induce theories from observations, which Aristotle called generalizing. Scientific laws are often best expressed in mathematical form — giving them precise formulation and prediction — but mathematics does not rest on logic.

Many problems were noted long ago. How much evidence needs to be assembled before a generalization becomes overwhelmingly certain? It is never certain. David Hume pointed out that no scientific law is ever conclusively verified. That the sun has risen every morning so far will not logically entail the sun rising in future. Effect is simply what follows cause: laws of function are only habit.

But if induction is the weak link in science, why not remove it altogether? Science, claimed Karl Popper (1902-94), proceeds by guesses that are continually tested, i.e. by conjectures and refutations. That is the real essence of science, not that its conclusions may be verified, but that they can be refuted. Metaphysics, art and psychoanalysis can not be so falsified, and they are therefore not science.

An admirable distinction, but is it true? Are scientific theories really formulated so as to expose their potential grounds of weakness? Are they ditched when contrary evidence appears? And is the scientific enterprise conducted this way? The answer to all three questions is generally no.

Science, postulated Thomas Kuhn, employed conceptual frameworks, ways of looking of the world which excluded rival conceptions. These paradigms, as he called them, were traditions of thinking and acting in a certain field. Anomalies, even quite large anomalies, are accepted for the sake of overall coherence. But when the anomalies become too large, and (crucially) make better sense in a new paradigm, there occurs a scientific revolution. The old laws, the terminology and the evidence all suddenly shift to accommodate the new paradigm.

The second challenge to Popper came from Imre Lakatos, who grouped theories into "research programmes" and made these the deciding mechanism. Each such programme possessed a hard core of sacrosanct information established over a long period of trial and error. Round the core was a protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses and observations that were being constantly tested and modified.

Paul Feyerabend took a sociological and anarchistic line, arguing that true science was being stifled by the scientific establishment, an institution as self-serving and undemocratic as the medieval Church. He has been scathing of the philosophy of science, remarking that "almost every journal in the philosophy of science deals with problems that are of no interest to anyone except a small gang of autistic individuals."

Kuhn's views, and more particularly Feyabend's, were seized upon as evidence that the scientific world-view was simply one paradigm amongst many. Despite its prestige and practical triumphs, science was as much a myth as art or literature or psychoanalysis.

Scientific observations may be theory-laden, but those theories are tested in a communality of practice. If once depicted as mechanical and predetermined, science appears less so now that quantum and chaotic processes have been more widely recognized. Science does bring great operational efficiency, and its findings cannot be called myths in the sense understood in anthropology or literary criticism.

A much fuller version, with references, can be found on TextEtc.

 

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Truth in Science

 

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