“Nature of Science and the Scientific Method” offered perspectives that were quite new to me, a “non-scientist.” The line “Most scientists would not say that science leads to an understanding of the truth. Science is a determination of what is most likely to be correct…” was especially compelling to me, since I had thought that science was, indeed, an “understanding of the truth.”
The author’s claims about theories were also interesting and reminded me of a line from either Friends or The Big Bang Theory (I can’t quite recall accurately) that gravity was also a theory–hence, “the theory of gravity.” Also, in Friends, the scene where Phoebe refuses to give in to Ross’ attempts to convince her of the theory of evolution as he carries around a big suitcase of fossils that show the evolving animals really does stand by the claims the author makes about what science is really about. When Ross persistently and stubbornly tries to prove the theory of evolution to Phoebe and make her change her opinions about how the theory is invalid, Phoebe responds by asking him if he is unwilling to admit to even a tiny possibility of the theory being incorrect, mentioning the way the idea that the Earth was flat was once established as a known fact.
The article opens with a couple introductory paragraphs that were functionally informative and enlightening to me. The concept of falsifiability was especially intriguing. I had first really become conscious of the idea during a cognitive psychology course I took last semester. When we discussed and studied logic, and the different modes of logical reasoning, the professor stated that we, as humans, tend to seek out for and are more sensitive to evidence that confirms our beliefs and assumptions rather than evidence that falsifies our beliefs. This idea came up when we examined the famous Wason four card task, as well as a task that presents a sequence of numbers and requires us to find a rule that that the sequence follows. The latter task teaches us that in order to find the correct rule, we must seek for cases that defy and falsify the sequence, while most people tend to find ones that confirm the sequence, which is basically useless in completing the task. I remember being dumbfounded by this idea. I think this is the first time I ever realized that this idea also applied to science, which, in hindsight, is absolutely sensible, given the role that logic must play in science.
The statement that science does not prove nor disprove religious or spiritual beliefs befuddles me. I always believed that science and religion worked almost against each other; the validity of one would disprove the validity of the other. The premise behind such a belief was the theory of evolution. While the Bible clearly states that God made humans and everything else out of his hands, the Big Bang Theory offers a completely different alternative. Things that now exist in our natural world could not have originated from both the hands of God and from the accumulation of the debris that came about after collisions of stars. Even when I encountered the famous Martin Luther King Jr.’s quotation about science and religion that did, indeed, made me gravely question my belief more than anything ever had, I remain true to it:
“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. Science and religion are not rivals; they are complementary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.”
I think this debate transcends the sphere of science into philosophy. I honestly still do not know if I am right to believe what I believe and am really interested in hearing from you guys.
In any case, a couple other claims made in the article exploring the same idea that concerned me were:
“Science is a determination of what is most likely to be correct at the current time with the evidence at our disposal.”
“Scientists seek to develop theories that are logically consistent with other well-established principles; explain more than rival theories.”
“One fascinating aspect is that hypotheses may fail at one time but be proven correct at a later date.”
I am puzzled by the author’s alleged “fascination” by the idea mentioned in the last quotation and am almost led to believe that the author carries a sense of unwarranted optimism. I thought it was quite terrifying that the article established the reception and consequent acceptance of a theory as such a relative and contingent concept. Like the famous geocentric theory, Pangaea, and the Earth not being round, many theories are dismissed and neglected simply for their anachronism. They merely had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I assume that the people of the respective era were doubtless about the theory that the Earth was not round. Who knows which of the “well-established” theories of our age is actually absolutely absurd? The thought of this makes me shiver.