"Hidden" Assumptions

The scientific method as I laid out is often touted by many as an "objective" process that is superior to other processes because of its objectivity.  While I would certainly agree that there is some value in its approach of seeking objectivity, that the conclusions drawn are highly informative and potentially highly beneficial, and certainly that the quest for self-understanding that ultimately drives it is of great value, it is a philosophical weakness not to understand the underlying assumptions of it.

The process begins with observation of something.  Be it an apple falling off a tree or a bug skittering across water or a warm summer's breeze, observation is the first step in science.  Much of the value in science historically came (and still comes) from a largely unconscious assumption (still very widely made and very widely unconscious) that what is observed is apart from the observer.  Quantum mechanics (about which I will have a great deal to say later) begins to challenge this notion, but it is a notion that has been widely held throughout the history of science by scientists.  I do not wish to challenge the value of that assumption, but I do want to point out that it is an assumption that is largely made with no conscious forethought.

The fact is, we can never really know whether our beliefs and expectations influence the outcome of any experiment or not.  No one can design an experiment to tell us that.  Quantum theory suggests that the observer does play a role, though, in the outcome of the experiment, at the very least by forcing a collapse of the wavefunction (in the Copenhagen interpretation).  The question is, does the observer's role extend beyond that?  We cannot truly know through scientific means (it is worthwhile to think that one through).  Let us take a simple example.  If we weigh a cup of water three times, we would expect to get very much the same answer each of the three times.  Ignoring evaporation and other molecular and atomic processes for the moment, our conception is that the mass of the cup of water is unchanging throughout time.  Thus, naively, we would expect that the weight will come out the same each time.  Were we to actually perform this experiment (and correct for evaporation), we would find out that the result is not exactly the same each time but varies a little bit around a central value.  Analytical chemists tend to think of this as "random error", which is a very scientific sounding way of saying "We don't know what's making it change".  Some of the "random error" is indeed due to fluctuations is air currents, electrical power, temperature, pressure, etc., etc (though usually we cannot say how much of the variation is due to any one of these factors).  Generally, though, it is assumed that there is no actual change in the mass of the cup of water (apart from the previously mentioned atomic and molecular processes).  No doubt that if one could eliminate all the aforementioned sources of variation, we would see the same value over and over again without variation.  The question is, is that because the mass never changes or because our measurement of the mass never changes?  In other words, if we begin the experiment believing that the mass cannot change, then does the mass measure not change because it is truly static or because we believe it cannot change?  Is it possible that it does change but that our measuring device also changes proportionally to compensate so that we still get the same answer?  From a functional ponit of view, the answer to this question may not be terrifically important, but it is important philosophically because it gets to the core of what science is and what it can and cannot tell us.

I want to point out, too, that it is not my assessment that if, indeed, our beliefs about experimental outcomes affect those outcomes that science falls apart and becomes useless.  Hardly!  However, it is important when we start talking about scientific conclusions and how they may be applied to our lives.  It is also a very important point to bear in mind when considering the value of scientific conclusions versus conclusions produced by other thought systems.  Many advocates of science will belittle religious thought, for example, because of its lack of objectivity, while failing to notice their own assumptions (taken on faith because they appear to be self-evident).  The intrinsic "correctness" of "self-evident" axioms is another "hidden" assumption that many advocates of science rarely consider (at least, publicly), and it will be the next one that I address.