This article is part of a series of articles on the subject of evolution, ethics and spirituality:
Parts: I, II, III, IV, V, VI (1), VI (2), VII, VIII (1), VIII (2), IX (1), IX (2), IX (3), X (1), X (2), X (3), XI (1), XI (2), XI (3), XII
Evolution, Ethics, And Spirituality: Part XIII — The Techno-Scientific Stratum
Introduction: A Peculiar Doctor
It is funny to see a comedy group like Los Rayos Gamma (literally "the gamma rays") make fun of politics. One of my favorite characters is one Dr. Rodas. He was an evil doctor, living like this evil scientist, speaking Spanish with an U.S. accent … with a very Dr. Frankenstein sort of appearance of his lab, damning all those damn Puerto Ricans to hell. And with him, there is a hunchbacked character called Igor (who does whatever Dr. Rodas says, but covertly he is pro-Puerto Rico). In Puerto Rico it was an instant hit, and when Los Rayos Gamma had their show on TV, they showed Dr. Rodas every now and then to criticize Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States.
Yet, what many people don’t know is that this fictional character was actually based on a real person. Let’s meet this person. TIME Magazine dedicated an issue to him. His name, Doctor Cornelius Rhoads:
Why on Earth would Los Rayos Gamma create a character out of him? And why the heck is TIME Magazine showing an inverted symbol of medicine, used as a sword, to trespass one very ugly looking human skull? As it happens, like Doctor Rodas, Dr. Cornelius Rhoads was known for his plan to kill Puerto Ricans. He was a renowned physician who worked in the Presbyterian Hospital of Puerto Rico for a while. He had been sent by the Rockefeller Foundation to do some work here "healing" patients, and also do some research. At that time, it was pretty common for north American doctors to visit Puerto Rico and practice there. But Rhoads was special.
In 1931, when he was about to complete his research, he decided to write a letter addressed to "Ferdie", or Dr. Fred W. Stewart, and in that letter, "Dusty" aka Rhoads, said:
As far as I can see, the chances of my getting a job in the next 10 years are absolutely nil. One is certainly not encouraged to attempt scientific advances when it is a handicap rather than an aid to advancement. I can get a damn fine job here and am tempted to take it. It would be ideal except for the Porto Ricans — they are beyond doubt the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever inhabiting this sphere. It makes you sick to inhabit the same island with them. They are even lower than Italians. What the island needs is not public health work, but a tidal wave or something to totally exterminate the population. It might be livable. I have done my best to further the process of extermination by killing off 8 and transplanting into several more. The latter has not resulted in any fatalities so far. … The matter of consideration for the patient’s welfare plays no role here — in fact, all physicians take delight in the abuse and torture of the unfortunate subjects. Do let me know if you hear any more news.
Sincerely,
Dusty
According to later testimony, apparently "Dusty" wrote this when he was enraged at the fact that someone stole something from his car. When lab workers in the Presbyterian Hospital found the letter and photocopied it, all hell broke lose. The letter reached Nationalist leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, who displayed it for all Puerto Ricans to see. Rhoads had to flee to the U.S., but remained protected by the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as the U.S. government.
You will find more information about it in this book.
Scientific Problems
Science is itself a rational discipline, one of the great proud daughters of philosophy. Yet, some use it for evil. Nazi Germany used scientists extensively to examine and torture all sorts of prisoners in concentration camps. Science was also used against people in the gulags in the Soviet Union. Dom Hélder Câmara, a Catholic bishop in Brazil, thanked Pope Paul VI for his determination against artificial contraceptives in his encyclical Humana Vitae, or else foreign corporations would make all sorts of experiments with Latin Americans. Even in the United States, the government and corporations made all sorts of experiments on Native Americans, minorities, poor white people, among other groups, including members of the military. Eugenics was one of those instances where active discrimination against minorities was disguised as science, and left a very, very dark history. The effects of the nuclear blasts still torment people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Genetics was used to argue against marriage among races in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Science can be terrible in so many ways. It is an amoral discipline too, but its end is not money, it is knowledge of the physical world. In and of itself, science is neither good nor bad. It is good in so far it provides knowledge, but how do you use that knowledge will make it ethically good, bad or evil. Yet unlike CEOs, many scientists do restrain themselves from something they consider to be unethical. Some corporate scientists or some scientists working for the government are not so lucky, though. Many times they are asked to distort a lot of material to suggest the public that certain products are not really harmful, or that climate change is not really happening.
Yet, science in and of itself never asks itself ethical questions. That is not its field. What sort of problems do scientists deal with? They deal with scientific questions … Although this is the sort of truism that could make people stare at me and say "Duh!", it is not all that obvious. Recently there have been many authors such as Sam Harris who actually pretends to go around the naturalistic fallacy, and somehow infer truths of reasons (ethical norms) out of matters of fact. You cannot derive an ought from is, no matter what sort of thorough scientific reasoning you try to use. Science can inform us so that we can make informed ethical decisions, but from particular facts we cannot infer universal ethical norms.
As in the case of the so-called "business ethics", there is always the temptation to reduce the ethical level to another level. In business ethics there is an effort to reduce ethics to "whatever works for society" … especially "whatever works for business". In Sam Harris’ case, as in the case of other scientists who try to do the same, ethics is inferred from whatever operations happen in our brains, or whatever can be biologically "good" for us. Yet, all you will discover in the brain are neural impulses, how neurons and organs in the brain interact … nothing more. In cosmology you can study the special theory of relativity and know how Einstein reached through simple algebra the equation: E=mc². However, we will never find anything remotely resembling duty, honor, respect, dignity in the physical realm, nor do these form part of any scientific equation (physical, biological or otherwise). Again, all of this might be obvious to most of you, but you have absolutely no idea how many times I have argued with intellectuals and academics who want to establish a basis on good behavior on quantum physics. 
…
The problems dealt by scientists stimulate the curiosity on the scientist and enables them to research. Alas! Sometimes their research can involve inhumane treatment of animals, or even their abuse. It might involve things such as ruining forests and agriculture, as in the case with experiments with agent orange. It might involve the abuse of embryos. Although not properly sentient beings, there is a sense of offense or indignity to humanity with the fact that thousands of them end up in the trash can. Sometimes the research could involve experimenting on people without their consent.
Sometimes genuine and good research tends to give results which can have harmful consequences. For instance, recently the human genome was mapped, and many genes identified for what they do. We know that there are genes that predispose us to have cancer or other forms of illnesses. In the future, will we be dropped by insurance companies on that basis alone because of pre-existing conditions in our genes? What about being laid off because of a potential illness that a company or government knows will hinder you from being productive in the future? Should our genome be available to everyone?
Food for Thought: One particular scientist made his DNA sequence, his genome, available in the Internet. Some people have studied it thoroughly and have discovered that there is an 80% chance that during his adult life, this scientist will be bald. Well, this scientist is an adult right now, and practically everyone in the world knows how he looks like. Here is Steven Pinker … aka the scientist who rivals Einstein regarding hair:
Technological Problems
Last but not least, with the advance of science comes technology. Guns, computers, TVs, Nintendo, Wii, and so on are ethically neutral, and it would be drop dead obvious that these are all "good" in the sense that they can be useful. Yet, most people treat them as being ends-in-themselves, rather than means to an end. As in business ethics, and as efforts to reduce ethics to biology, some people define ethics in terms of a technique or a technical process that achieves a result. Yet, as with the economy, and as science, technological problems within itself do not include ethical problems. The matter of technological use is external or outside the technological realm. If your computer crashes, I assure you, no dignity or sense of duty will fix the problem, only a good technician with the right tools will do.
The Techno-Scientific Stratum
André Comte-Sponville conceived a stratum that is purely technical, which he originally wanted to call "economic-techno-scientific order". Yet, this name is too long, so he just called it the "techno-scientific order", or the tecno-scientific stratum. Essentially it is a set of sub-strata operating on their own, having their own problem-solving processes, and in many ways interacting with each other. We could represent our view of them this way.
In this diagram, I essentially use a Popperian version of problem-solving scheme for each sub-stratum identified by Comte-Sponville as being part of the techno-scientific stratum. As we can see, these three sub-strata have their own problems, and their own ways to solve them within their own system. The techno-scientific stratum is solely composed of amoral fields, where their internal problem-solving process do not include anything about ethics or any other stratum. Notice that the way the economic, scientific and technological dynamics are not islands operating completely separately, but they all interact with each other. Each sub-stratum generates an external problem-solving process, which means basically that each sub-stratum can generate problems to other sub-strata.
An example of how one sub-stratum affects another is when scientists find some facts which could be inconvenient for a particular product by a corporation, which would later lead to banning the product and prospective loss of capital. Advances in technology can also affect the speed in which a corporation produces, hence generating more income. If a corporation does not adjust itself to new technologies, it will lose in the marketplace.
Also, this problem-solving relationship among sub-strata help us understand the way they interact. For example, the discovery of genes of the human genome has led to scientific processes to isolate them (through technology), and such way of extracting the genes are patented by a corporation (economy).
The model above implies that the whole techno-scientific stratum can also create external problems to other external strata, as we shall see in future blog posts.
At this stage of the discussion, the question is: should the techno-scientific stratum be limited? If we look at each sub-stratum as we have discussed here and in our earlier blog post, we can infer that the answer is yes. Not to limit the economy in any way, and leave it as a free-for-all sort of behavior will result in many forms of externalities which could seriously harm us and harm the ecosystem as a whole. If some limitations are not placed to the scientific enterprise, then the important sectors of the enterprise may result in researches which require experimentation on humans without their consent, animal abuse, contamination of an ecosystem, undignifying procedures, and so on. The same reasoning applies to technology, because we should decide which technology should be built and how it is used for the benefit of humanity.
The question now is, what will establish the limitations of the economy, science, and technology, in other words, the techno-scientific stratum. And here the laws and the state will limit it externally. This will be the subject of the next blog post.
Sources
Aponte Vázquez, P. (2005). The unsolved case of Dr. Cornelius Rhoads: an indictment. PR: Publicaciones René.
Comte-Sponville, A. (2004). El capitalismo, ¿es moral? Spain: Paidós.
Ferrer, J. J. & Álvarez, J. C. (2003). Para fundamentar la bioética: teorías y paradigmas teóricos en la bioética contemporánea. España: Desclée de Brower.
Popper, K. (1994). Knowledge and the body-mind problem: in defence of interaction. London & NY: Routledge.
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Hawking’s and Mlodinow’s Unwarranted Attacks on Philosophy
A Critical Review on The Grand Design
Replacing Speculation with Speculation
Most of the discussion centered around Stephen Hawking’s and Leonard Mlodinow’s The Grand Design has to do mostly with both authors’ (especially Hawking’s) explicit conviction that God plays no role in the creation of the universe, and that there is no need to suppose that God exists. There have been responses all over the place on this issue, and this concern has been addressed by many Christian scientists such as Alister McGrath (Richard Dawkins’ famous foe), think-tanks such as The Biologos Forums (see this article), as well as many other philosophers and theologians. I agree with some of what they say, some others I don’t, but fundamentally they are right. In this book, Hawking and Mlodinow replace one speculative proposal (namely God) with another speculative proposal (the multiverse), none of which have scientific value, because they are both beyond the realm of science.
As a matter of fact, the weakest claim of the book is the statement that super-string theory (or "string theory" for short), specifically M-theory, somehow has to be the real thing. Yet, not many scientists are as over-enthusiastic about it as they are, precisely because, even when the proposal "solves" the gap between the realms of gravity and quanta, scientists cannot use it to even begin to make predictions nor design some test to find out if it is correct. In Popperian terms, it is purely metaphysical, it plays no scientific role whatsoever, and it will remain that way until scientists can come up with specific predictions which can be tested in some way. Lee Smolin, one of the most renowned theoretical physicists, has complained about this aspect of string theory, and even protested the way funds are now being diverted from other alternative proposals to finance string theory research (see Smolin, 2006).
I think that there is no one in this world who can express better the irony of all of this than the physicist Peter Woit, of Columbia University, who says: "One thing that is sure to generate sales for a book of this kind is to somehow drag in religion. The book’s rather conventional claim that "God is unnecessary" for explaining physics and early universe cosmology has provided a lot of publicity for the book. I’m in favor of naturalism and leaving God out of physics as much as the next person, but if you’re the sort who wants to go to battle in the science/religion wars, why you would choose to take up such a dubious weapon as M-theory mystifies me."
In this review, though, I wish to be fair. When you read The Grand Design, there is a feeling that it is trying to respond to the belief held by many people that Hawking in some way believes in God. For example, Deepak Chopra has been one of those who have abused Hawking’s statements about getting to "know the mind of God", and others similar to it, to show that somehow Hawking infers from his scientific knowledge that God exists. I will write also on Chopra’s huge misunderstandings on evolution, but that is another article for another time.
My quarrel with Hawking and Mlodinow, though, is not only about the issue of God. I think, after all, that this debate will go on and on in the eternal dialogue between science and religion.
The Grand Design and Philosophy
My big problem with the book began precisely with the first two paragraphs of chapter one, page 5, when I read the following words:
We each exist for but a short time, and in the time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. But humans are a curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. . . . How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time.
Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.
My jaw almost dropped to the floor when I read this. In a sense I felt that this was one big backstabbing of philosophers. Why did I feel this way? First, because natural science is philosophy’s offspring; in a sense, it is philosophy’s child (all-grown up right now … we philosophers are proud of our baby). Second, because philosophy is one big rationalistic enterprise to find the principles of truth, while natural science uses much of these principles implicitly in the research in order to propose rational theories and explanations about the empirical world which also help us get us closer to truth and reality. Both are rationalistic enterprises and have truth as the goal. As a philosopher of science, though, I felt especially offended, because the statement that "philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics" is demonstrably false.
I don’t know if these authors are aware that practically most, if not all, serious philosophers of science are paying attention to the latest discoveries in science, particularly physics. Since Kant’s time, we are able to see how closely do philosophers follow science and their discoveries, as well as the impact of science on philosophy. The formulation of the general theory of relativity invited philosophers to rethink the epistemological foundations of science since Kant’s time. This led to the rise of logical empiricism, which, as a matter of fact, was paying very close attention to natural sciences and tried to provide their philosophical foundations. Hans Reichenbach’s works on natural science are nice examples of this: The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge (1920), The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928), Philosophic Foundations of Quantum Physics (1944), among others. See also Rudolf Carnap’s works on these subjects such as Space (1922), and The Logical Structure of the World (1928). Even when logical empiricism fell, these works still remain as examples of the kind of clarity that is genuinely and honestly sought by philosophers when they engage in fruitful dialogue with science. Other more recent examples come from Carl G. Hempel, especially those written after the demise of logical empiricism, Adolf Grünbaum’s works (Geometry and Chronometry in Philosophical Perspective (1968) and Philosophical Problems of Space and Time (1963)), Roberto Torretti’s (Philosophy of Geometry from Riemann to Poincaré (1978), Relativity and Geometry (1983), Creative Understanding (1990), and The Philosophy of Physics (1999)), among many other philosophical works.
I wish to add that there are other philosophers of science who work extensively with other areas of natural science. For example, the founder of philosophy of biology, Michael Ruse, cannot be accused of not keeping up with biology. Neither can we accuse E. O. Wilson of that, nor Robert Arp, Alexander Rosenberg, David Hull, and Daniel Dennett. And talking about Dennett, what are we going to do with philosophers of the mind, who usually keep up with the most recent research and discoveries about the brain/mind? Should we just throw them in the trash can too as promotors of a "dead" subject? Should we do the same with Wilfrid Sellars, David Chalmers, Paul Churchland, Karl Popper, and John Searle? My answer is: Hardly!
And what about ethicists? Most of them are paying attention to fields such as nuclear physics, medicine, neurobiology, zoology, botany, and ecology. They must do this, because of the ever-increasing fields in applied ethics such as environmental ethics, and bioethics.
The True Relationship between Philosophy and Science
David Hume established a distinction between relations-of-ideas and matters-of-fact. Propositions of relations-of-ideas are those whose negation imply automatically a contradiction, while the negation of matters-of-fact do not imply a contradiction. For example, if we negate that "2+2" equals 4, we would incur in a contradiction. If we negate that every circle is round we fall in a contradiction too. This is because "2+2" must equal "4", and all circles must be round. However, if we formally negate that the Earth revolves around, we do not automatically fall into a contradiction, since an Earth escaping from orbit is perfectly conceivable and could actually happen.
Much later, Edmund Husserl categorized analytic and synthetic-a priori propositions as relations-of-ideas, and synthetic a posteriori judgments as matters-of-fact. Part of relations-of-ideas is what we can consider formal sciences: formal logic and mathematics. Formal sciences deal with formal abstract relations and objects: conjunction, disjunction, numbers, sets, and so on. They are a priori, that is, their truths are discovered through reason alone, and as relations-of-ideas theyhave necessary and universal validity.
On the other hand, natural sciences (e.g. physics, biology, chemistry) deal with matters-of-fact, that is, everything a posteriori that can be tested empirically.
Philosophy has a bit of both fields, but in a different way. Although certain aspects of philosophy do seem to fall in the realm of relations-of-ideas (e.g. Husserlian phenomenology, metaphysics, transcendentalism, and so on), some aspects of it can refer to matters-of-fact: philosophy of science, applied ethics, etc. We can functionally define philosophy as that field which uses reason as its basic, but not the only, tool to establish those principles with which we can find what is true, good, and beautiful. I say this is a functional definition, because I recognize that there is no formal definition of philosophy, but this is as close as we can get to something like a definition that will let us present our argument the best way possible.
Given the scenario I just showed above, natural science is not "the" bearer of the torch of the quest for knowledge. There are other forms of knowledge, such as those of formal science, whose practice is vastly different from that of natural science. There is not an iota of reference to protons, mass, mental processes, sociological conditions, or molecular interactions in formal sciences. It may be argued (as some have) that non-euclidean geometry was adopted in mathematics thanks to general relativity. However, such statement is superficial, because non-euclidean geometry appeared due to mathematical problems, mostly having to do with the fact that there was no a priori reason why mathematicians should assume that the rejection of the axiom of the parallels was logically inconsistent. Non-euclidean geometry was developed during the nineteenth century by Bernard Riemann, Nicolai Lobachewski, and Janos Bolyai, by exploring many sorts of geometrical spaces. All that Einstein did was to adopt non-euclidean geometry as the mathematical model which would serve as basis for the simplest theory of gravity possible, given Einstein’s own results of special relativity. So, the validity of non-euclidean geometry in mathematics relies solely in mathematics. Whether natural science will use it or not, that is irrelevant to the question of mathematical validity.
Some epistemology in some philosophical fields are not natural-scientific either. Consider, for instance, epistemology of ethics. Many naturalists will argue that ethics can only be explained neurologically as a result of evolution. Yet, we have to distinguish between ethics and morals. Morals have to do with the uses and customs of a society. Ethics has to do with what is objectively good. Science can explain morals, but not ethics. Unfortunately, naturalism has not been all that good trying to provide objective foundations for what is good, only of why society behaves in such and such manner. But there are behaviors that are socially accepted in society which happen to be unethical, and there are some ethical norms which are unacceptable to societies. What is good (ethically speaking) is not subject to popularity contests, nor "selfish genes". Concepts such as "good", "duty", "dignity", and "values" (in the ethical sense) do not appear nor are they used in physics, in biology, in cosmology, nor in chemistry books. They belong only to the realm ethics, which is a branch of philosophy. Of course, branches of ethics, such as bioethics, deal with biological consequences of certain activities in biology as a scientific enterprise, or certain economic enterprises such as the pharmaceutical industry and medicine. Biology can inform ethicists about the problems it deals with, its conceptual framework, and how it operates, BUT bioethical suggestions and recommendations should rest ultimately on ethical principles, not biological. Furthermore, there is even a branch of ethics which is further away from applied ethics and natural science, called metaethics, which provides the objective foundations for ethical norms themselves (i.e. normative ethics).
Epistemological principles (i.e. principles of objective knowledge) are not found in natural science either. As a matter of fact, epistemology of natural science provides the conceptual foundations of natural science, while philosophy of science uses these concepts to fine-tune on the subject on whether a certain field is science or not. Thanks to epistemology and philosophy of science (two separate, yet related fields in philosophy) we are able to know why physics, biology and chemistry qualify as science, while intelligent design, and Dianetics do not.
Last, but not least, fields such as epistemology, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, philosophy of history, philosophy of the social sciences, philosophy of religion, among many others, have recognized that there is a wide variety of principles of knowledge in fields such as social science, anthropology, history, economy, culture, among others, which are not reducible to biology nor physics. That doesn’t mean that physics and biology are not important regarding these matters, but the reason why there is a market crash in one time period cannot be reduced to quanta or general relativity. Sometimes it is not even reducible to the mere neurological activity of individuals’ brains, but to social structures, ideologies, religious convictions, jurisprudence, political stability, supply and effective demand, etc. Thanks to all of these philosophical fields, we are able to know also why natural science does not have the monopoly of knowledge, because there are other fields that provide knowledge whose objects of study, and the way they work diverge significantly from those of natural science.
Is philosophy really dead? The answer is a resounding "NO!" As the reader is able to see, the enormous amount of questions asked in philosophy are not limited to the questions stated by Hawking and Modlinow in the quote above.
In my next blog post, I will discuss Hawking’s and Mlodinow’s serious foulups regarding the history of philosophy (and science), as well as their serious misunderstandings of some philosophers, particularly Aristotle. I will also discuss the reason why the authors of The Grand Design should apologize to philosophers.
For now, I have said enough to ask the following question: Have Hawking and Mlodinow kept up with modern developments in philosophy? I can say categorically, but with much less arrogance than that displayed by Hawking and Mlodinow: NO!
References
Smolin, L. (2006). The trouble with physics: the rise of string theory, the fall of science, and what comes next. US: Mariner Books.
What is Science?
(c) 2010 Pedro M. Rosario Barbosa
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
The High School View of the Scientific Method
One of the most misunderstood aspects of science, and which is ill-taught in schools, is what people usually call “the scientific method”. No two textbooks agree completely on what it is or how it is done. There is a reason for that.
Before I discuss the reasons, let me make a rough exposition on the so-called “scientific method” that people think about when it is discussed. The “scientific method” is regarded as a set of steps which take you from observations to a theory or a law. In my seventh grade textbook, we see the following steps:
- The first step is a hypothesis: a possible answer or solution to a question or a problem, based on observation.
- The second step is an experiment: it verifies the hypothesis in question.
- The third step is a theory, which is what a hypothesis becomes if it continues to be successful.
Then look at my eigth-grade book:
- The first step is an observation.
- The second step is a hypothesis.
- The third step is an experiment.
- The fourth step is the conclusion derived from the experiment.
- The hypothesis becomes a theory, which means that it is the most plausible explanation based on repeated observations and experiments.
- If verified further by experiment, the theory becomes a law.
Both of these versions of the “scientific method” are simply incorrect. Let me begin by saying that observation is not the first step a scientist should take. With a simple example, Karl Popper explains why:
The belief that science proceeds from observation to theory is still so widely and so firmly held that my denial of it is often met with incredulity. I have been suspected of being insincere — of denying what nobody in his senses can doubt …
Twenty-five years ago I tried to bring home the same point to a group of Physics students in Vienna by beginning a lecture with the following instructions: ‘Take a pencil and paper; carefully observe, and write down what you have observed!’ They asked, of course, what I wanted them to observe. Clearly the instruction ‘Observe!’ is absurd … Observation is always selective. It needs a chosen object, a definite task, an interest, a point of view, a problem (Popper, 1963, p. 61, my bold).
So, we never begin with observation, apparently we begin with “problems”. But what kind of problems? Everything we call a “problem” is always a problem from a point of view. From which point of view? In the case of natural science, all problems are in relation to one theory or world-view that is being held by science or by society.
As it turns out theory always comes first.
What is a Scientific Law?
There is perhaps another deep misunderstanding regarding what a scientific law is. The image that people have when they think about laws is: these theories have been “proven” again, and again, and again in a lab, so it is simply “impossible” that they be false.
However, as David Hume made clear in his criticism towards induction, scientific laws do not deal with relations-of-ideas, only with matters-of-fact. A logical or mathematical principle can be intuitively and self-evidently true, or proven true using logico-mathematical properties and axioms. Theorems and corollaries are examples of the latter. Logic and mathematics belong to the realm of relations-of-ideas.
But scientific laws have nothing to do with relations-of-ideas, it belongs to the realm of matters-of-fact. By definition, the negation of any of these laws is logically possible. In fact, there have been many times in history when scientific laws have been abandoned in order to adopt new ones. A classic example of this is Kepler’s laws on planetary motion.
As we all know, Johannes Kepler discovered that the orbits of planets are not circular, but elliptical, with the sun as one of their foci. He gathered data from his own observations and those of his teacher, Tycho Brahe, and discovered that planets obey certain laws in the heavens. These laws state roughly the following:
- All planets move in elliptical orbits with the sun as one of the foci.
- The distance between the planet and the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal periods of time.
- The square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of a semi-major axis of its orbit.
k = (r³/T²) where k is a constant.
These laws seem to hold with slight discrepancy to all planets involved (possibly with Mercury as the most notorious exception). But later, came Isaac Newton and formulated the following law of gravity: The gravitational force between two masses equals the product of the gravitational constant and the two masses, divided by their square distance. If you applied this law to the orbits of the planets, the outcome of their orbits is almost exactly as those of Kepler’s.
You may say that you do not see any instance of change of law. Think again! Kepler had absolutely no idea why planets orbited the way they did. His laws did not assume at all the existence of gravity in the heavens. Furthermore, Newton developed calculus, which provided mathematical tools that Kepler did not have in his time. Kepler also supposes that these orbits are fixed and eternal. Newton’s gravitational law implied that these were not fixed orbits at all, but changed depending on the gravitational influence between masses in the universe.
To sum it up, Newtonian gravitational law contradicted Kepler’s laws. Furthermore, although Newtonian laws are all that are needed in practice (e.g. you want to send men to the moon), scientists know that strictly speaking, they are false. Albert Einstein did formulate a new theory which posited new relativistic laws that could explain all the gravitational phenomena explained by Newton’s theory, and even what those Newtonian laws could not account for, such as Mercury’s odd orbit, or the way that light “bends” as it is close to massive objects.
But in this whole story, notice a constant here: theory seems to posit these laws! It is not that “theories become laws”, but rather that scientific laws have their root in scientific theories. Some people point out that Kepler is an example of theory or laws forged starting from observation. Not quite! Kepler also had a theoretical framework at the time, where planets had fixed orbits, the sun was fixed in the heavens, and that there were trigonometrical mathematical models to determine if the orbits were circular or not. Then Newton came up with a kinematic theory along with a theory of force, and a theory of gravity. This made him possible to posit a law of gravity based on his theories. Einstein also formulated his general theory of relativity, and posited a new set of laws that, under most circumstances coincide with the outcomes of Newtonian laws.
Then What the Heck is a Hypothesis?!
One of the greatest discoveries made in philosophy, especially when logic was refined and mathematized by Boole, Frege and Russell, is that scientific hypotheses are never considered in pure isolation.
Let’s suppose, for the sake of the argument, that I have a metal ball whose mass is 120 kgs. I formulate the following hypothesis: if I throw it upwards at an angle of 60 degrees at 75km/s, it is going to land at 75 km/s. Now, this seems like a down to Earth, straight out, very clear hypothesis. How come it is not isolated? think about it. It supposes the theoretical concets of mass, velocity, time, gravitational foce, gravitational acceleration, analytic geometry, and so on. In other words, this hypothesis supposes from the outset an entire scientific theoretical body. So, when we test a hypothesis, we are not testing just that hypothesis, but an entire theoretical system.
This was brilliantly discovered by Pierre Duhem in the case of physics, also described by Edmund Husserl and Henri Poincaré, and somewhat grossly exaggerated by Willard van Orman Quine.
And What About Experiments?
Experiments are plagued with theoretical aspects. Even some of the instruments used in labs can only be understood from a theoretical standpoint. Let me quote Pierre Duhem regarding this interesting issue:
Go into this laboratory; draw near this table crowded with so much apparatus: an electric battery, copper wire wrapped in silk, vessels filled with mercury, coils, a small iron bar carrying a mirror. An observer plunges the metallic stem of a rod, mounted with rubber, into small holes; the iron oscillates and, by means of the mirror tied to it, sends a beam of light over to a celluloid ruler, and the observer follows the movement of the light beam on it. There, no doubt, you have an experiment; by means of the vibration of this spot of light, this physicist minutely observes the oscillations of the piece of iron. Ask him now what he is doing. Is he going to answer: “I am studying the oscillations of the piece of iron carrying this mirror?” No, he will tell you that he is measuring the electrical resistance of the coil. If you are astonished and ask him what meaning these words have, and what relation they have to the phenomena he has perceived and which you have at the same time perceived, he will reply that your question would require some very long explanation, and he will recommend that you take a course in electricity (Duhem, 1914/1991, p. 144).
Sometimes, not always, even instruments are built according to theories so they can be tested and observed by the scientist. The theory itself will dictate to you how it is going to be tested.
The Center of Science: Theory
As we are able to see, science is centered on theories. The contemporary problem with the word “theory” is that people take it as being synonymous with “speculation”. When the average person out there uses the word “theoretical” it means that it is just pure speculation, out of someone’s head.
In reality, the words “theoretical” or “hypothetical” in science mean propositions or conjectures that is have not been experimentally tested yet. But, the word “theory” means another thing altogether. A theory is an explanation for observed phenomena in science. Atomic theory is not just the statement that atoms exist, it also includes atomic structure, how atoms are attracted to one another, how do they bond, and so forth. The theory of gravity is not just the statement that gravity exists, but it states the way objects are attracted to one another due to the presence of mass, how it affects motion, centripetal force, and many other aspects.
It is in this sense that the Neo-Darwininan theory of evolution, pardoning the redundancy, is a theory. Evolution through natural selection is an explanation for the phenomena we find everywhere in the living world: from embryos, to fossils, to diversity of species around the world, to the structure of our DNA, and so on, are all explained by evolution through natural selection. This is the reason why people who say that “evolution is a theory and not fact” are simply confused. Evolution through natural selection is a well-tested theory that explains facts.
What Kind of Theory Qualifies as Scientific?
Obviously formulating a theory is not enough for it to be scientific. Of course, not only theory is what science is about, but also, as a field that deals with matters-of-fact, it has to be supported by experience. Natural science is an empirical field of knowledge.
Now, as a good Popperian that I am, I don’t find theories to be “verifiable”, i.e. determined to be absolutely true. If experiments determined that a theory is absolutely true, we would have a problem. Let us take gravity, for instance. The Aristotelian theory of gravity could be “verified” experimentally, since all solid objects tend to their natural place (down on the Earth), but it was later replaced by the Newtonian theory of gravity which was “verified” in this sense, only to be replaced later by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. So, an experiment cannot determine itself to be absolutely true. At best, it can only confirm a theory, but never verify it.
But confirmable theories are not enough to qualify as scientific theories. Rather theories need to be fomulated in such a way that it is possible to refute them. In philosophy of science we call this falsation. It simply means that experiments and tests are attempts to refute the theory in question. If the theory survive these tests, then we say that it has been corroborated.
Now, let us refine a little bit what we mean by falsation. As we have seen, a hypothesis or a theory is not tested in isolation. It supposes in general a whole theoretical system that is itself also subject to falsation. This means that a formulated hypothesis or theory, if refuted, may be wrong, but it also allows for the possibility that if it is refuted, probably the problem is not the formulated hypothesis or theory, but some hidden assumption we are not aware of within the whole logical web of the theoretical system.
Which theoretical system works best for natural science?
- These theories should be methodologically naturalistic. Since the whole idea of natural science is to find natural explanations for phenomena, it cannot admit supernatural or other sort of metaphysical explanation.
- The theoretical system must provide some sort of prediction to be tested. For instance, my hypothetical prediction about how the metal ball will land is one such attempt at predicting it in light of a Newtonian theoretical system. If it turns out to be not as predicted, there may be because of several possibilities: it may be that the experiment was not carried out well, or that there is a variable I have not accounted for, or that the hypothesis was not well-formulated, or even some component of the theoretical system is wrong. In any case the predictive value of a theoretical system should be taken in consideration.
- The more testable the theoretical components of a theoretical system are, the better. This has been neglected too often by philosophers of science. Every theoretical system has components that are confirmable but not refutable. For instance, in the Newtonian theoretical system, the Second Law of Motion is confirmable, not refutable. You can never design an experiment to falsate it. But combined with other aspects of the theoretical system that are indeed falsifiable, the system can be subject to be refuted in some way.One of the problems that Marx and Freud had with their views is that they formulated theories that in the outset were refuted by experience. One problems their followers had is that if the prediction did not occur as they hoped, then they would use unfalsifiable ad hoc hypotheses in order to dilute the predictive character of a theory. These made the theories more metaphysical (in the Popperian sense of the word) rather than scientific.
- The theoretical system must allow puzzle-solving. This is one of the few occasions I depart from Karl Popper, but I think it is necessary to make the point that scientific activity involves much puzzle solving. This puzzle solving must be at least consistent with the other principles I’ve made above, must be consistent with the theory being held, and must be consistent with the data gathered by researchers.We see this everywhere in science. When Newton formulated his theory of gravity in the Principia, many scientists tested them out. There were shortcomings, though. Saturn did not exactly obey the theory as it should have. To somehow explain this discrepancy, some scientists formulated a falsifiable ad hoc hypothesis: there must be a still invisible substantial mass, perhaps another planet, influencing Saturn’s orbit. As it turned out, that planet was Uranus. Uranus’ orbit though was also irregular, so they posited still the existence of another planet, and it turned out to be Neptune and so on.
In biology, puzzle solving is the norm, and it rules everywhere. From neurobiology, to evolution, every aspect of biology depends greatly on puzzle-solving, but in a way that is very consistent with the evidence, which include: half-life of substances on Earth, well-known chemical reactions, genetic data we have of organisms, the laws of physics, and so on.
- Finally, the theoretical system must be the simplest possible. This is the famous Occam’s Razor. It must be pointed out that “simplest possible” does not mean that the theory should be simplistic. It merely means that the theoretical system must be formulated in such a way that it has all the elements it needs to account better for a theory, and not more than that. If we have two or more theoretical systems which can account for the same phenomena, we will only choose the one which is simplest.
There is no “scientific method”, there is no “first step” or “last step”. However, there is a scientific approach to phenomena, and these involve two very important things in scientific activity:
- The scientific enterprise consists in formulating scientific theories.
- These scientific theories must be self-consistent and must be founded on empirical evidence.
Reference
Duhem, P. (1991) The aim and structure of physical theory. US: Princeton University Press. (Originally published in 1914).
Gillies, D. (1993). Philosophy of science in the twentieth century: four central themes. Oxford & Cambridge: Blackwell.
Hempel, C. (1966). Philosophy of natural science. NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Poincaré, H. (1952). Science and method. Dover. (Originally published in 1908).
Popper, K. (1999). The logic of scientific discovery. London & NY: Routledge. (Originally published in 1959).
Popper, K. (2000). Realism and the aim of science. London & NY: Routledge. (Originally published in 1983).
Popper, K. (2002). Conjectures and refutations. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Originally published in 1963).
Putnam, H. (1974). The ‘corroboration’ of theories. In P. A. Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Popper. (pp. 221-240). IL: Open Court.
Quine, W. V. O. (1999). From a logical point of view. Cambridge: Harvard. (Originally published in 1953).
