Science and the scientific method is very important for modern society. This has upset many people because the methodology of science can act like an acid on traditional beliefs: the almost ruthless questioning is difficult to hold up against and, under the pressure of scientific inquiry, many traditional beliefs have had to be abandoned. As a consequence, many have sought to limit the areas in which science can operate.
- There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths.
- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
As you can probably imagine, the above isn’t an isolated observation about the nature of science; it is, instead, a quote which appeared on the context of a more general attempt to compare and contrast the scientific method of acquiring knowledge against other alleged methods — like intuition, faith, etc. Sagan, naturally, comes down on the side of science when it comes to what method is most reliable and does the best job at helping us better understand the world around us.
The points Carl Sagan makes above may seem obvious to anyone who is familiar with science, but the unfortunate fact is that science is regularly misrepresented in ways that contradict what Sagan describes. One of the most common involves painting science with the brush of unyielding dogmatism. According to critics, science is every bit as guilty of protecting favored theories as any other endeavor, such as religion, and thus has no claim to higher intellectual or moral ground.
Creationists, including those who argue on behalf of Intelligent Design, love to argue that “Darwinism” is defended as scientific orthodoxy and without regard to reason or evidence. The impression one is supposed to get is that Darwin’s status as holy figure and evolution’s status as a sacred cow, then schools would have introduced Intelligent Design and creationism long ago.
The problem here seems to me to lie in the failure to understand that we have three prongs to deal with: science as an ideal, science as an institution, and science as it is actually practiced by individual, working scientists. Science as an ideal requires a willingness to question assumptions and an open mind — it is, essentially, just as Carl Sagan described it. Science as an institution doesn’t actually achieve that ideal but it probably comes about as close as any human institution can be expected to. There are failures and flaws, to be sure, but all evidence indicates that they are worked out in the long run.
Individual scientists, however, fall even farther short of the ideals. In practice scientists are just as pig-headed and closed-minded as the average human being. Moreover, science is not truly objective and dispassionate when it comes to the individual scientists — after all, if it weren’t for passionate commitment to some idea or theory, many scientists would probably find work in some better-paying field or position. They do what they do because they love it; sometimes, though, their passion can lead them to defend ideas which are past their prime.
So how does science as an institution come anywhere close to the ideals of science when individual scientists fall so far short? Where the ideal and practice meet can be found in the concept of peer review. In the end, all scientists have to submit their data and ideas to others for review. If the only support they end up producing is their own faith, then their field will move on without them. If, however, their stubborn tenacity has led them to interesting data that no one else has come across, then they will be vindicated. Thus, no matter how dogmatic an individual may be, the system itself tends to remain very undogmatic and disinterested.
Other human institutions and endeavors are not incapable of establishing the same sorts of standards and achieving the same sorts of success as science, but it will be difficult. Not all endeavors are ultimately based upon the replication of hard data — and it is the data, after all, which does the most to weed out the good ideas in science from the bad. An even more common problem is the inability to genuinely submit all positions to critical review.
Anyone who can decisively overturn an established theory in science and set their field on an entirely new course will have an uphill battle, but if successful their name will be listed among the greatest figures in scientific history. In other arenas, like religion, such people may forever be remembered as heretics and schismatics — if remembered favorably, it will only ever be by their followers. Religion doesn’t reward criticism and questioning like science does and that’s an important difference.
