"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.

In the Beginning...

Science as a distinct branch of philosophy began a long time ago.  How long it is hard to say, but, certainly, its roots were in place with the Ancient Greeks, and it may well have begun long before that.

Today, science is usually thought of as its own "thing", with knowledge and tools that are not directly related to any other branch of human thought.  In fact, it is often seen as conflicting with other schools of human thought, especially religion.  The media are particularly fond of science, reporting on its latest conclusions even though the reporters are often not scientifically trained and cannot critically assess the information on which they are reporting.  That inability does not prevent them from telling you and I what foods we should eat, which chemicals will make us die earlier, and what new miracles may be around the bend.  Of course, if you are not yourself a trained scientist, then you have no real way of assessing the "scientific" information given to you, either.  Thus, you may run about being worried about margarine, only to later be worried about trans fats and anal leakage caused by olestra.  In another decade or so, you'll be worried about the next butter substitute and the horrific things it can do to you.  The point here is that there is a lot of scientific conclusions running amok with few people actually trying to make sense of it all.

At a deeper level, scientific conclusions have some very interesting things to tell us about ourselves and our reality, if we are willing to listen.  If we are wise scientific consumers, we must take these conclusions with a grain of salt, which is a theme that will be repeated over and over again in this blog.  However, with a healthy dose of skepticism, we can then look at what these things tell us and draw our own conclusions about what they mean.  It is this for this purpose first and foremost that I have created this blog.  I hope to relay very complicated scientific concepts in an easily accessed manner and offer my interpretations as to their meaning, all the while leaving you, gentle reader, to decide for yourself what it means, if anything.

For those that could use a refresher, science is not really a body of knowledge, but a process unto itself.  The process is as follows: observe, hypothesize, test, evaluate, repeat.  If we test enough times a given hypothesis, it becomes a theory, and, after enough positive tests, a law (possibly).  It can take only one test that gives results inconsistent with the whole theory to bring it down.  Indeed, Einstein dismantled the aether explanation of electrodynamics without a test at all.  He only had to publish a better explanation that took into account already existing explanations.  Tests performed later by other people verified the validity of relativity theory.  The scientific process (or method), then, results in conclusions that we have to evaluate as seeming to align with our reality or not.  This last part is where the fun is, and it is where I am going to be concentrating.  Before I do, though, my first critical post (in the true sense of word - rather than meaning that it will be "negative") will be on the assumptions underlying the scientific method - one key one in particular.

We need to understand the potential holes in the scientific process before we can examine any of its conclusions, and that, really, is what the philosophy of science is all about.