- Yaron Tokayer
- Teaneck, NJ
- United States
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Will humankind ever achieve an end to science history?
My bioelectricity class is half science and half history. When we bring up a new topic, we often first pause to set its historical backdrop from a political and experimental perspective. This is particularly interesting, given that in bioelectricity, experiments date back several hundred years, but are also unfolding every day (quite literally, if we consider that ion channels are proteins whose foling structures are a topic of this field -- see http://fold.it/portal/ for a link to the fold it protein folding game taking the world by storm). But when I try to consider new research, I find myself feeling viscerally skeptical of our own time's limited perspective on our own accomplishments to date.
Phillip von Jolly, Planck's professor at Munich, is pretty much solely known for falsely predicting of physics that, "in this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few unimportant holes." Similarly, Lord Kelvin is said to have proclaimed that "there is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." Both of these quotes were said at the dawn of the quantum era. I think we humans tend to assume that we are at the end of history, that all scientific and social progress has culminated to the present.
The question I would like to pose is whether or not science is at least honing in on an absolute reality--what philosophers call "scientific realism." Are we getting closer--converging--to the end of scientific discovery with each paradigm shift, or do we just recast how we understand the world in a different vocabulary? From one perspective, the miasma theory of disease, which preceded today's germ theory, was thought to be approximately accurate experimentally, just like today's germ theory is "approximately accurate" as far as it's clinical effectiveness. Is there a truth of nature behind a curtain for us to discover? If there is, are humans capable of acieving it?
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Krisztián Pintér 200+
1, black body thermal radiation refused to work as the models suggested
2, the exact nature of the luminiferous aether was to be discovered
then came einstein with the theory that light is emitted in small packs. and there went our entire knowledge of electromagnetism to give place to the new quantum theory.
then came michelson and morley to find that there is no aether, and some really weird things are going on. and then came einstein again, to postulate that our entire knowledge of newtonian mechanics is also wrong, and thus the theory of relativity was born.
so einstein singlehandedly turned "almost complete" to "damnit, we know nothing"
Yaron Tokayer
That narrative is exactly what I was referring to. I think that last line sums it up well :)
So my understanding is that you are arguing for "pessimistic meta-induction," or the belief that we will never settle on a final science of the world, based on the fact that every theory until now has been replaced. I find this pretty convinving as well. However--and this is what holds me back form fully subscribing to pessimistic meta-induction--doesn't it seem like the corrections we are making are becoming more and more fine-tuned? Newton introduced gravity and shattered the Aristotelian view. Einstein didn't debunk the idea of gravity, but rather explained it in a way that accounted for more things. Indeed, our theories are still being replaced, but don't the corrections seem to be getting more petty as time goes on?
Krisztián Pintér 200+
but i see signs of that hybris again. i don't think that our beliefs in quantum mechanics and cosmology are as well grounded as some claim.
Jon Lawhead
Krisztián Pintér 200+
and the reason why we shouldn't, and i am not, is because we still use newtonian mechanics extensively today. in fact i'm kind of sure that newtonian mechanics will be in use forever. it has not turned out to be wrong, it just turned out to be a part of the picture, not the whole picture. since the 1600's, when proper science started to take root, we can kind of sure that what we know stands. every new discovery extends our knowledge, maybe shines a new light on it, but does not rewrite it. so we can be sure that what we know is more or less the truth, and that is what we should aspire for.
Jon Lawhead
I was just clarifying, not disagreeing with your point. I agree entirely that Newtonian mechanics is not best described as _wrong_ but just as _incomplete:_ Newton identified some real patterns in how the world works, but there are other stories to be told as well.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
it worths to be pointed out though that while the predictions of the models are compatible, the models themselves are often completely rewritten. it is a very interesting philosophical problem, whether our models has anything to do with reality other than a mapping between elements of the model and the observable world. thus the question can be raised whether any scientific theory can be true, or it can just be useful. or to rephrase it, usefulness and truthfulness are the same or not. i myself lean toward the notion that in natural sciences, truth equals to descriptive power, and nothing more.
Yaron Tokayer
I've tried to think about it, and I can't seem to find meaning in the word "truth," other than usefulness. Meaning, I think it's pragmatic to describe theories as true to the extent that they work. Call it truth, call it heresy, or call it black magic--the only testable difference in the world will always come down to whether or not it predicts accurately. I am in agreement with you.
I think the question of truth then become psychological--a human belief. To be sure, I think belief in truth can be important in areas other than experimental sciences, but I don't see it's place in scientific discourse.