Faith in science

It's a message we're going to hear a lot more of. The idea, not new, that science is little more than modern man's church has received fresh impetus from the writings of a number of people calling themselves "philosophers of science," and it shows no sign of abating. Nor should it. It is an important and necessary cautionary tale, dangerous as it doubtless is when employed by those who fear science because they fear reason itself.

The argument of those who fear science seems to be two-pronged: 1) scientists too often make rash assertions of possessing truths, and 2) scientists too often dispute matters hotly with each other.

You will note the weakness in the assault, for it attacks itself massively on both flanks. One, that scientists pretend Godlike status and, two, that they're not Godlike enough. Scientists claim to know, and they debate too much over each other's claims to know, and then, to cap it all, they change their minds! They are indeed a shifty bunch.

I think we may rightly express our irritation with one or the other facet of the scientist's nature, that they are either too sure of themselves or not sure enough, but I can't help feeling that it's rather unfair to fault them on both counts simultaneously. Either they are arrogant and pig-headed, or wishy-washy wimps. But they can't be both at the same time.

Perhaps those who think that science is just religion with Bunsen burners in place of candles, our own day's edition of eternal unreasoning and unreasonable faith, and new formaldehyde in old bottles, can suggest something better in its place? Perhaps they can do something even more useful, and that is to study what science really claims to be: the best way of reasoning we have at the moment, to be abandoned as soon as anything better turns up. Anyone who sees our current state of scientific knowledge as the final step, apotheosis of all our dreams, is behaving idiotically on two counts: one, the more obvious, is that the present state of the game is subject to rapid, unexpected alterations at all times and in most directions; and two, less transparently the case, there is no God-given fiat that decrees that, whatever the state of play today, the future is bound to be one in which what we now call scientific method will still prevail forever and ever in all its hypothetico-deductive glory. At the moment we can't think of anything better to put in its place - I can think of lots of things that are worse - but this hardly constitutes evidence of its eternal primacy in the minds of human beings. To be honest, I can't imagine what might take scientific reasoning's place and be superior to it, but then my imagination is no big deal.

The necessity of being on guard to not allow science and its findings and methods to become our new faith and scientists our new high priests is one almost all true scientists would fervently endorse. In fact, they would plead with us to do so. For those whose faith in science is founded on a high respect for reason, and not a high respect for one's own particular reasons, the need for drastic and continual assessment is vital. Science cannot become a religion if it remains scientific. Science can never be certain. It must doubt everything: itself most of all. Religions, transcendent or earthbound, can't do that.

Why the need for these blindingly self-evident truisms, these platitudes of conspicuous presumption? Because science is becoming something like a faith to too many people: a crutch for some, and a good, whacking dub for others to use on the heads of adversaries.

This misuse is nothing new. It was science's malignant afterbirth, accompanying it as it was born 400 years ago. And it haunts science today, dogging its footsteps like a malevolent shadow. Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes used science less as a light to dispel the darkness of fear, ignorance, and superstition, and more as a battering ram to knock down the walls of the establishment of their day: a battleship, a howitzer, a cruise missile, sent into the world before its time, half-formed, like something designed by da Vinci, horrible, and lumbering, and clearly primitive, but effective enough to blast away the ancient citadels of church and state. It was never what it pretended to be: a disinterested search for truth. It could hardly be expected to have been. Pope Urban and Louis XIV were not inclined to look indulgently on disinterested searches for truth. Giordano Bruno knew that, and so did the church that burned him at the stake. Science's search for truth was always an interested one, a personal one. It was conducted by men and women, not angels. And science had its beginnings in rebellion: its symbol was Lucifer.

Things are not so different today, except in one vital feature. Lip service is still paid to total objectivity, while science, its research, its paradigms, and its applications, are dictated by more pragmatic, if less publicized, assumptions. The big difference now is that the war with authority is largely over; the state and big business pay the majority of our white-coated pipers and, so, call most of the tunes.