This page is a compilation of posts in the argument about the relationship between science and truth to date.
This article is not about scientists; it is about science. And it is not about whether or why scientists actually do or don’t tell the truth; it is about why it is impossible for science to tell the truth. There is no way even to broach this subject effectively in a single post–a fact discovered through many vain attempts. So instead, here is a very brief setting, and three very brief paragraphs leading to a very brief, albeit accurate, conclusion. Later posts can address each of the pieces at somewhat greater length, including the issues in parentheses at the end of each.
Setting: this opinion is not Luddite. It’s neither anti-science nor anti-technology. Indeed, both science and technology are amazing results of the scientific-empirical or hypothetico-inductive method. The power and practicality of engineers and the acumen and creativity of scientists have changed the world and continue to provide societies which respect individualism with a functional advantage over the rest of the world. (the ethics of technology; the rise of scientism; freedom and science)
But.
There is a huge difference between making things work and getting to the truth. Anyone approaching this question must take three steps: defining what science is, understanding what it does, and either understanding or defining truth. Taking those three admittedly gargantuan steps ought to be a solid enough base from which to evaluate the relationship between science and truth.
Step 1: defining what science is. Science is defined both by how and what it studies. “How science does” is the easy part of this question, and the basis for the other part too. Science is only science when it uses the scientific (or empirical, or inductive) method. Defined with a variety of terms and structures, it amounts to observation, hypothesis, experimentation, repetition, and finally theorizing. If it does not use that method of defining the issue and studying it by contrived experience (experimentation) then it is not science—by definition. But the requirement to use that method limits the subject matter available for study. For instance, the scientific method can easily be applied to physics, chemistry, or biology. But it can also be applied to any phenomena (a phenomenon is anything that appears, or is experienced.) So while God cannot be the subject of science, religious practice can be. (John Stuart Mill, inductive method; Karl Popper, falsificationism, objective knowledge, the three worlds; Jean Baudrillard)
Step 2: understanding what science does. Science solves practical problems. Many people seem to have the impression that science randomly ranges to and fro in the world of all possible facts and objectively discovers truths in a gradual approach to comprehensive truth. Not one bit of that description is accurate. Science does not range randomly. Scientists subjectively choose either a particular domain or a particular problem within that domain for one of two reasons: an anomaly or a practical problem. If the Earth is believed to be the object around which all other objects in space revolve, yet there appear several moons revolving around Jupiter, then a scientist begins to hypothesize about why that observation is inconsistent with the current theory of the solar system, and then follows the rest of the method to its end. Or, if people are constantly dying of bacterial infections and a scientist notices a particular mold which kills a variety of bacteria, then he begins to hypothesize about how that mold might be used as a generic anti-biotic, and the rest of the method serves to provide a solution to a long-time human problem. In the former case (geo- and helio-centrism), the scientist might conclude that there are giant ovular raceways along which the planets race around the sun, or that a newly defined force, gravity, is responsible for their newly-understood-as-consistent motion. Either way, the conclusion of the method is simply a successful integration of theory and experience. Similarly, in the latter case (penicillin), the scientist may conclude that the penicillin makes a toxic byproduct which kills the bacteria, or that the penicillin actually eats the bacteria. But once the fact that malignant bacteria are destroyed is established, the path to practical treatment of infections is inevitable. Again, once theory and experience successfully merge, the method is finished. That is, the scientific method by definition does not provide an ultimate statement about reality. Rather, it solves problems. That fact makes science both extremely powerful and profoundly limited. Since the method concludes when theory successfully accounts for necessarily limited observations (no one anywhere has universal experience), the method is instrumental rather than capable of making metaphysical claims. (classical realism, critical realism, and instrumentalism; Thomas Kuhn, puzzle-solving, and paradigms)
Step 3: understanding or defining truth. This step is not about the content of truth (e.g., what is true), which would be about particular claims, or even about a particular person, as John 14:6. It is about the concept of truth itself. One very basic misconception about truth is confusing it with fact. Facts are simply realities. Truth, on the other hand, is an evaluation of claims about those facts. That it is raining is a fact. For a person to say it is raining when it really is raining is truth. So whenever there is a correspondence between what a person is thinking-and-saying (so presuming sincerity) and what actually is the case, there is truth. (Of course, there is much more detail required about justification and such, but the general description is right.) In Aristotelian terms, to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is truth. Because access to “what is” is so severely limited, many theorists have argued for other definitions of truth. But none of those definitions succeeds at satisfying both the requirement for internal consistency–a weakness of pragmatic “truth”–and for the exclusion of contrary truth claims–a weakness of coherence theory. (correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories of truth)
Conclusion: science’s exclusion from truth and ethics. So ultimately scientists are stuck on the horns of a dilemma. Either there is no truth (because correspondence theory fails) or truth is about factual realities to which subjects do have access (because correspondence theory succeeds). If the former is the case, scientists have no more claim to truth than anyone else—a sad state indeed. But in the latter case, scientists are in an oddly binding position. While a subject has immediate access to the content of evaluative and rational claims, the same subject absolutely cannot have that same access to the objects or content of empirical or inductive claims. Evaluative and deductive claims are what they are because of their immediacy and certainty. Inductive claims are what they are because of the repetition required to make purely instrumental claims. So there is a classically realistic relationship (or even identification) between rational claims and rational facts. Because of that correspondence, rational and evaluative claims must deal with the issue of truth. But there is a purely functional or instrumental relationship (and not even the theoretical possibility of identification) between empirical claims or conclusions and empirical facts. Without that realistic correspondence, truth is excluded from science’s domain. (Occam’s razor; necessity and contingency; Bertrand Russell, knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description)
A truth is an end. An instrument is a means. While science cannot tell anyone where they ought to go, it can get them there. And while science cannot say what is right, it can do it, and it ought to be limited to practices so defined. So enough with science as king. Science is the greatest butler ever—but can never be more than just that.
The original post about science is here. In that post, there are four sections, all requiring background and filling. The first one is setting:
this opinion is not Luddite. It’s neither anti-science nor anti-technology. Indeed, both science and technology are amazing results of the scientific-empirical or hypothetico-inductive method. The power and practicality of engineers and the acumen and creativity of scientists have changed the world and continue to provide societies which respect individualism with a functional advantage over the rest of the world.
The issue in this post is the one touting science’s strengths and benefits for culture. Once it is acceptable to use reason and nature rather than simply revelation in order to arrive at the “truth” about any particular issue, all bets are off on where the culture will go. In the West that transition took place over a period of about four hundred years, beginning somewhere around Averroes and Aquinas in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, maturing through Occam, and culminating in men like Bacon, Galileo, Newton, and Descartes in the Seventeenth Century.
People do not like change. To change even one significant element of a culture requires deep and persistent pressure over decades at the least. But the change brought about by the rise of science is both as deep and broad as the culture (or worldview, in this case) itself. There is no higher compliment to pay to science than to acknowledge that it has been powerful enough to lead an entire hemisphere and soon the rest of the world, with almost no kicking and screaming, into a worldview defined by its dominance. This dominance of science–its hegemony in culture–can be called scientism.
In this new worldview observation trumps theory. In the middle ages, who would care about observing a fallen world with fallen reason in order to learn about what would not persist anyway? During the enlightenment, who could trust faulty instruments to overrule universal laws of nature such as Newton’s? But by the Twentieth Century the only question is: who would adhere to any theory no matter how fundamental if not supported by practically all the observational data? Observation had become more fundamental than reason. The basis of the transition is simple. Observation deals with inescapable (for the moment) material realities. It is hard to pretend the grape and grapefruit hit the ground at different times when they don’t. (Suggested reading: Ian Barbour’s Science and Religion, originally called Religion in an Age of Science.)
Subjective theories give way to objective data. Of course data is also subjective in many ways, but it takes time to realize that fact. And objectivity as it is perceived at the time becomes the power to solve real problems. Before, when either revelation (originally) or reason (later) is still supreme, vested interest in certain interpretations and theories motivates the enhancement of supportive data and the diminishment of unsupportive, contrary (anomalous), or even contradictory data. Such enhancements and diminishments foster a toleration of material discomforts and problem-solving shortfalls in favor of the maintenance of comfortably traditional or ideologically non-threatening interpretations and theories. People will live with a headache if they believe caffeine is demonic. But when a person comes along who is not vested in the interpretation or theory, and that person eliminates a discomfort or solves a persistent problem (maybe even a problem people had not recognized as such until it was solved) then that person’s approach is itself revelatory and liberating.
In that new liberation, theory becomes only a tool of problem-solving, not an end in itself. For most people it means learning how to plug in a refrigerator and use it, rather than learning about Freon, electricity, compression, and thermal transfer. For scientists it means observing similar phenomena often enough that the results become predictable. Real causes are not at stake. Predictable function is. For instance, it does not matter whether gravity is little hooked particles called gravitons running from one body to the next pulling things together, or if it is a curvature in the “space-time fabric” (spoken with deep vibrato). All that matters is that objects are predictably affected by it and productive of it. To someone who is hungry it is much more important to know that an object will dependably relieve his hunger than to understand its chemistry. That sentence understates the significance of this distinction, though, because to a chemist it is also much more important to know that an element will act in a certain way than to understand whether the Bohr model of the atom is the metaphysical truth about atoms (which is not only unlikely because of known anomalies but also impossible because of the overall argument of this set of posts).
Regardless, since what gave science its power to change culture was culture’s receptiveness to its problem-solving ability, it is that power alone which gives rise to science as king of the hill in Western culture. Theorizing about things that “make no difference” is a waste of time in Western culture. And in Western culture, if it does not improve material conditions—solve material problems—it makes no difference. In fact, scientists who slip into what are perceived as esoteric disciplines (like cosmologists studying the origin of the universe) must either justify their work in terms of what problem of everyday life they might be able to solve or slip into the same kind of obscurity or disdain faced by non-scientists. Soon every discipline needs to become scientific—not because it is the best way to approach every issue, but because its practical, problem-solving power pushes aside the value of reason and revelation. The social sciences rise with Dewey under pragmatism. Even the study of the human soul (psyche) becomes a discipline designed to do nothing more than help people function from day to day (psychology). (My tone constantly reveals my bias, but my intention is simply to demonstrate that science has succeeded at what it does.)
So science’s power is that it can ignore metaphysical realities (in fact, cannot address them at all) and can instead focus on whatever works to solve a problem. Obviously then if an ideology commandeers science in a particular setting science will lose all of its advantages. An ideology will need science to give up the very thing which empowers it. If Soviet scientists need to demonstrate that refrigerated grain will produce cold-tolerant wheat plants, they will not be free to pursue what all their observations are already telling them about the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
So it is inevitably true that when the only imposed ideology is that of liberal individualism (simply respect of individual rights) science can flourish at what it actually does, solving material problems. But whenever that respect for individual liberty is compromised it is absolutely predictable that science will progressively wane in its success until it no longer serves its only purpose to the advantage of that society.
It will take another post—next upcoming in this series–to address the issue immediately coming out of this awareness, the moral value of technology.
The last post on science touts the material benefits of science for societies which respect liberty. But because that argument makes some people think science should operate without restriction, this post deals with the moral value of science’s product: technology. (This post is a necessary excursion on the way to defining science, which is next.)
Scientists regularly lament the restrictions imposed on them by moral, religious, and other value-laden sects of society. A few years ago an ABC news analyst/physician complained that since scientists had given the McGaugheys the ability to conceive their septuplets, scientists should be the ones to decide whether selective abortion was necessary for the health of the children. (The McGaugheys are pro-life and were the focus of Christian pro-life public activity at the moment.) But her argument is based on a poor understanding of liberty.
It is impossible to respect liberty without restricting it. Maintaining liberty with rational consistency requires separating negative rights (good ones) from positive rights (artificial ones). Negative rights preserve the interests (particularly life, autonomy, and property) of individuals against the intrusive interests of others. In other words, negative rights keep a bully from taking a would-be-victim’s iPod. Positive rights, on the other hand, claim entitlement for those who currently are doing without something. In other words, the claim that a person is entitled to medical care is a positive right. Obviously, positive rights inherently lead to a violation of negative rights. A doctor has a right to work only if it is worthwhile to him, and even neglect work altogether if he no longer cares about income. To say a patient has a “right” to that doctor’s care obviously violates the doctor’s liberty. No system with positive rights can survive—it will devour itself because of the practical contradictions built into it.
The ABC analyst mentioned above confused scientists’ libertarian (negative) right to study and learn in whatever direction the empirical data takes them with the contradictory (positive) right to impose the product of their research or the values they associate with it on either their clients or the public. It may be correct that intellectual freedom is essential to valuable scientific progress—as the last post argues. But it is equally correct that moral constraint is essential to the implementation and application both of scientific research itself and of its products. For instance, scientists may be compelled by the empirical track they are on to study undifferentiated human cells. But their empirical pursuit has no intrinsic right to the materials they wish to study—in this case particularly, immature human beings. A scientist may have a compelling empirical interest in knowing exactly what kind of growth is in person’s cerebral cortex, or what will happen if he removes or disables a particular part of a person’s brain (as in a lobotomy), but he has no right to that person’s body; and indeed, society has an obligation to protect the right of the individual from whatever violation such a scientist would perpetrate.
Of course most scientists, being life-, liberty-, and property-loving persons like everyone else, would never dream of crossing such lines. But some do. And some do not know they are doing so. Because scientists typically are not focused on value-laden questions, they do not know how to evaluate the proper limits of their own work. Hence come ethicists, particularly the kind described by Paul Ramsey as serious:
A man of frivolous conscience announces that there are ethical quandaries ahead that we must urgently consider before the future catches up with us. By this he often means that we need to devise a new ethics that will provide the rationalization for doing in the future what men are bound to do because of new actions and interventions science will have made possible. In contrast a man of serious conscience means to say in raising urgent ethical questions that there may be some things that men should never do. The good things that men do can be made complete only by the things they refuse to do.
Ramsey’s statement not only serves as a perfect check on unfettered scientific sycophancy but also a pretty harsh indictment of arguably most ethicists.
One question remains for scientific work in that persistent realm where its moral value is uncertain. Is technology inclined to virtue, vice, or neutrality? Or, put a different way, should society generally trust science, distrust it, or regard it with the same neutrality as, say, mechanics? In an unduly abbreviated form, here is how the argument progresses. First, there is the Luddite approach, claiming that technology is inherently dangerous. Automation robs jobs. But it is not very well thought out and leads to a knee-jerk reaction.
So next, science and technology are presumed good. Technology is the face of progress, and progress is inherently good, so what problem could there be? Of course, it could be abused. But generally, this view holds, wherever there is advancing technology there is progress, civilization, and the general advantage of being impartial and intelligent.
Then there is the synthesis of the two views which recognizes that science and technology may be something like education—fairly neutral in its moral worth. In education, the argument goes, what matters is not simply that students are taught but rather what they are taught. Educating about the fundamental value of life, freedom, and private property may be morally praiseworthy, but teaching Aryan supremacy is hardly so. In the same way, perhaps science can be used to cure diseases with no cost to personal liberties. But it can also be used to develop tools for killing people or even taking away their privacy without their knowledge. So it is not that science produces technology which gives it moral value, but which technology science produces that matters morally.
However, there is also a substantial reason to move through all those arguments and still come down in the position that science and technology are morally dangerous at best, and maybe even vicious when used without restraint. The argument is simple. In a world where people are good (virtuous) even morally neutral activities and pursuits can be valued optimistically. Good people will surely tend to produce good things with neutral tools. In a world where people are neutral, neutral tools could be regarded with neither presumption. But in a world where people are fundamentally flawed, whether by the taint of evil (in the Christian worldview) or simply by egoism (for the naturalists), a neutral tool must be regarded with suspicion. It is, after all, simply a means for expanding the domain and increasing the power of the one who holds it. Just to be as chicken-little as possible: in an optimistic society—one where people have a Pollyannaish trust in the good will of those in whose hands they find themselves—neutral tools will go unchecked with the assumption that their users are well-motivated. So the most dangerous of all possible scenarios is that a tool would tend to vice but be regarded as one which would tend to virtue. Such is this society.
Hence the need for strong ethical constraints on the practices of scientists, engineers, and technicians everywhere; not because they are motivated differently from anyone else—they certainly are not—but because just about anyone can do a decent job of inflicting damage on those who are around them with the rhetorical, legal, financial, and personal tools they have. But scientists, engineers, and technicians have a much bigger tool.
Trust science to do the right thing and not step outside its moral cage to devour those standing around gawking at and even praising it? OK. But keep a padlock on the door of the cage, and check it every night—just in case.
