In my most recent post I suggested that no worldview can be regarded as “the truth.” It is always and only a construction of our minds. The best we can do is fashion a tentative framework of meaning, acknowledge that it isn’t written in heaven, and bet our life on it nonetheless.
But what about a scientific worldview? Rather than speculate about questions that are fundamentally unanswerable or cook up explanations based on no firm evidence whatsoever, why not stick with what we know scientifically to be true. From such evidence-based truths could we not construct a worldview with which any reasonable person in our global community would agree? It seems an attractive option.
But before we hail science as the bearer of all truth, we should remember what science is. It is not a set of ideas, true or false. It is a method of inquiry – a hugely successful method that involves learning by experience, remaining ever open to new ideas, and striving to remain value-free so that we can see what is rather than what we want to see or think we should see. As such, it could not be more different from systems of belief based on speculation, wishful thinking, or some unchanging truth thought to be revealed from on High.
Science looks closely at the world, searches for the simplest possible description of what’s happening, proposes possible explanatory hypotheses or educated guesses, and then decides between them on the basis of careful measurement and controlled experiments. In essence, it asks nature to decide which is the better hypothesis. Those that can be confirmed by repeated experiments gain the status of theories and may be expressed as laws – i.e. concise statements that express a causal relationship between two or more elements. But even these are not regarded as “the truth.” Theories regularly change and laws are broken by new evidence for which they cannot account. So there is no absolute truth in science. The closest we get are facts that are regarded as indisputable observations – such as the date of my birth or the reality of the holocaust.
Despite the tentative nature of scientific findings, they are nonetheless widely accepted because of their utility. So long as they work, we’re inclined to think they are true – even though truth and utility are not the same thing. Newton’s theories have been superseded by Einstein but are still very useful when it comes to building skyscrapers. And though Einstein’s E = MC2 may itself one day be superseded, it was sufficiently useful to create a bomb that wiped two cities off the face of the planet. Scientific laws have in fact given us enormous power to control the phenomena which these laws describe.
Because of this, many believe that scientific theories, if not the final truth, are at least approximations to the truth. As our understanding advances, so the fit between theory and reality improves. And one day we will arrive at a set of equations that finally embody the “true laws” in their entirety. Not all scientists, however, subscribe to this. Physics, they say, is not about truth but about “models of nature” that are useful in relating one observation to another in a systematic way. The task of science is to construct models that are simplified representations of “real” phenomena. Such models are never right or wrong, but only more or less useful. Newton’s theory is not wrong; it merely has a limited range of validity. The special theory of relativity gives us a more useful account of high-speed systems. The idea of a final, perfect theory that cannot be improved is as meaningless as the idea of a perfect picture or a perfect symphony.
One such model that has been fundamental to science since its inception is the machine model - a model that likens the universe to a giant machine. It was a metaphor that made perfect sense in the early years of science when Western society became enamoured of machines. It was the early days of the Industrial Revolution and our success in creating ever more efficient machines was intoxicating. If the universe too is a machine, maybe we could discover the bits and pieces that comprise it and how they fit together. So that’s what we set out to do. And, lo and behold, that’s what we found. Our assumptions determined our findings. It was then only a short step from saying “The universe may be likened to a machine” to saying “The universe is a machine.” It’s so tempting to confuse our maps, models, and metaphors with the reality they are meant only to represent.
More than this, the entire scientific enterprise is built on assumptions about the nature of the universe that cannot themselves be proved. One of these stems from 17th century Christian theology when science was first being launched as a discipline – namely the concept of God beyond space and time, whose mind is full of changeless mathematical ideas that govern the universe. The notion had originated in the much earlier neo- Platonic and Pythagorean mystery schools of ancient Greece. Since then, all that has really changed is that we no longer call it God, but the laws of nature. Today’s leading physicists continue to believe that there’s a sort of timeless mind underlying the universe, essentially mathematical in nature.
We assume that we live in an ordered universe, that physical systems comply with simple mathematical laws, and that these laws are unchanging. Everything else in the universe may evolve and change, but the laws that govern it do not. The job of the scientist is to observe and catalog this orderliness and discover its laws. There is no empirical evidence whatsoever for this assumption, but science could not exist without it. So although our understanding of these supposedly unchanging laws has fluctuated wildly over the past century, we have no option but to dismiss such fluctuations as experimental errors. We are committed to discovering a kind of Platonic order in the universe and are compelled by our belief in the mathematical beauty and simplicity of nature. “All of these endeavours,” Einstein said, “are based on the belief that existence should have a completely harmonious structure.”
One more limitation deserves mention. Science confines itself to the empirical sphere – to the realm of things that can be observed and measured. If you can’t put a number to it, science can’t consider it. And that leaves vast areas of human experience outside the realm of scientific inquiry. Each of us, for example, lives according to certain values. All our choices are ultimately value choices. But since science deals with numbers, and because one number is not intrinsically better than any other, science can offer no guidance regarding values or the conduct of our lives. For the same reason, science can say nothing about the purpose or intention of anything. Everything can be explained in physical terms and determined by natural laws.
There is nothing wrong with this so long as we acknowledge it as a limitation. It becomes a problem only when we claim, as some do, that if science cannot measure it, it doesn`t exist – that the material realm is the only reality because that`s the only realm for which there is scientific evidence – or that, because science cannot consider questions of purpose or intention, the universe must therefore be devoid of either. Certainly when it comes to the BIG questions regarding why the universe happens as it does, science must remain silent. That is not its business. But neither can it legitimately denigrate those who offer mythic answers to these questions simply because they are not evidence-based.
Once again, here’s Albert Einstein: “The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the language in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan to the arrangement of the books – a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.” (Words of Wisdom from Albert Einstein)
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