Oh science, when will you learn?
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Last Modified: December 30, 2007 Issue: December 2007 |
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I’ve been watching a History channel series called The Universe. Apart from the horrible dramatisation of ’sinister’ stars and ‘evil’ planets, something about the series has been really bothering me. It’s the arrogance with which the scientists who appear on it present their theories. In particular, one episode titled ‘Alien Galaxies’ included a lengthy discussion of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy.’ The existence of these mysterious entities was presented as the absolute Truth. However, far from enjoying such a status, these are theoretical concepts that essentially serve as placeholders because the empirical data does not match the theoretical expectations (watch the documentary Most of Our Universe Is Missing). Yet, the scientists, maintaining the pretense that science is Truth, spoke with absolute conviction. I’m not sure if this is a public facade or if they are self-deluded. Either way, you’d think that these people did not belong to a tradition that once maintained the existence of ‘the ether’ in order to make sense of the empirical observations, only later discarding the concept when other observations put its existence in doubt.
This is a small story that illustrates the ’surprises’ scientists keep stumbling upon just when their arrogance has them believing they’ve got it all figured out.
Note: Apart from the aggravating arrogance of their positions, I think the pretense to ‘Truth’ denigrates what it is that makes science exciting: the search for theories that work to explain phenomenon. These theories are constantly being challenged by new observations that then require new explanations.
D. T. Cochrane is a new father who thinks about business, power and social economic change. His profile picture is of the Crab Nebula. It is the remnants of a supernova. Current scientific theory says that they seed the Universe with the ingredients of life.
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The whole notion of ‘laws’ within science is being questioned. The well-known conflict between relativity and quantum mechanics is just one example. One of the outcomes of trying to resolve this conflict may be a metaphysical crisis that causes the practitioners of science to re-examine their unquestioned foundational assumptions, particularly the supposed eternal, universal nature of the ‘laws’ they devise. Ilya Prigogine anticipated just such a need when he referred to physics as the ‘clay feet’ of the sciences.
This is a good point. I would add that some recent research in genetics, specifically with RNA, is calling into question previously held “laws” of evolution. Apparently some RNAs respond to environmental factors and notify our DNA which genes to activate or deactivate. If the scientific ‘laws’ governing biology are in turn dictated by social ‘laws’ (which aren’t laws at all) your metaphysical crisis is sure to come quite soon, coupled with an identity crisis for many [insert official font]scientists[end]!