Scientists seem to have one really big secret: science can’t prove ANYTHING!
We can observe an apple, and wonder, “Will it fall, or will it jump over the moon?” We see one falling, and think “hey, apples fall!” With that conjecture, we watch another apple, and it also falls. After watching a dozen apples or so, we conclude “apples always fall”. How do we know though? We can watch a million apples falling, and we still won’t know for a fact that the million-and-oneth apple will not jump. You know what we do? We take it on faith.
We can only hypothesize that the apple will always fall. We can never prove it. We can only have faith that the theory that the next apple will fall, is correct. What, then, makes science any different from religion?
This is the crux of the scientific method, of what makes something “scientific”: scientists do not try to prove their hypotheses, instead, they try their best to disprove them. A scientist comes up with the hypothesis that apples always fall. He then observes as many apples as he can, trying his best to find one that jumps over the moon. If he were to find one, he would conclude “ah, so my hypothesis was incorrect, apples do indeed not always fall”, and go searching for a better hypothesis.
The harder a scientist tries to disprove a hypothesis, and the more the scientist fails, the more faith can be placed in that theory. In this way, Newton’s theory of gravity became generally accepted as “fact”.
However, at some point, people started noticing jumping apples. Originally they thought their eyes were deceiving them - that their measuring instruments were not accurate enough, or that there is some other influence at work which they have over-looked. One of these jumping apples was the planet Mercury. It did not move exactly as predicted.
This is where the “no deferring to divine influence as an explanation in science” comes into play. Humans could simply have concluded: “Wow! Conclusive proof that God exists! God is pulling Mercury around, breaking all the known laws of physics!” This is not valid science, whether God exists or not. Instead, scientists continued scratching their heads.
In 1915, Einstein presented his theory of General Relativity. This theory includes a new formulation for the effect we know as gravity. In simple cases, this reduces mathematically to Newton’s laws, indicating he was correct for the cases we have here on earth. However, for Mercury, General Relativity’s prediction was spot-on, while Newton’s law of universal gravitation was inadequate. For highly accurate science and technology applications, such as GPS satellites, Einstein’s relativity is of the utmost importance, Newton doesn’t cut it.
So yes, science also requires some “faith”. However, science is a process that is self-correcting, that improves over time, and that searches incessantly for its own flaws. Effectively, science is continually examining its own eye in the mirror, to determine if there isn’t maybe a beam in it, or even just a splinter for that matter, that could be removed in order to further improve its vision.
If “creation” is a book written by the hand of God, then science is our basic reading skill. All humans should become literate, so that they may part-take in the wonderful stories that are there to be read.
This is the fourth post in a series inspired by a recent Creationism Seminar in Stellenbosch. The previous post was Is CMI Scientifically Illiterate?
For more on the attempts to prove General Relativity incorrect, please see Tests of general relativity. Any experiment, any test in science, serves to try to disprove the theory, not to prove it.
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20 responses so far ↓
1 gloep // Oct 6, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Fourth year BSc and we’ve never had a serious discussion and investigation about the way and being of science. Go Stellenbosch University.
2 Hugo // Oct 6, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Wow! At least at Engineering we had some philosophy for six months, which included “philosophy of science”. Why the Engineers but not the BSc bunch? That’s just bad. Go ECSA?
(BTW, Squirt is a great back scratcher.)
3 Negate // Oct 7, 2007 at 11:12 am
Hugo this is often a view on science that creationists take! There is a huge difference between science and religion! If i may use your example of the apple, we can observe the apple and make our hypothesis about the apple, after studieng and observing the apple for a long time we come to a conclusion of it!
The difference between this science and religion is quite obvious, you can not observe god, you can not study god and make your hypothesis about him and his behavior!
We can see the apple, thats why science can try and explain its use!(its not to say science will be right, but science takes its best assumption supported by solid scientific laws) you can not observe god, thats why science can’t explain god, you can not compare 2 different things that have now correlation with each other and them come to a conclusion!
Thats the whole point of science hugo, If a apple suddenly jumps then scientific theory will change! but if have solid scientific laws of newton thats impossible for apple to jump! (For every action, there is an equal (in size) and opposite (in direction) reaction.) If there is no force pushing an inanimate object it wont fall or jump! Science is the best accurate assumption we can make of the world around us now, But in 200 years another more accurate assumption would be made. When talking about science also hold in mind the principle there is no absolute truth! so science will always be the best assumption not necessarily true
Also i saw what you were trying to do, you are taking a heave unlikely scenario of something just falling and then jumping! you cant approach a logical subject like this in this way, you are going to come to wrong conclusion like you did
4 Hugo // Oct 7, 2007 at 11:20 am
<sigh>
You do so love exclamation marks, you only have two full stops in your comment. Why does it not surprise me that it seems you are somehow completely misinterpreting me? What exactly is your complaint here? You repeat a lot of what I thought I said…
5 Negate // Oct 7, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I know its a metaphor. Did you read my point, i said you cant make assumptions on these metaphors Hugo! I agree with you assessment that scientific theories chance (your example of newton and Einstein) and i also agree that there is no valid science for, whether god exists or not, as i pointed out in my comments. It is when you compare religion to science that confuses me
“If “creation†is a book written by the hand of God, then science is our basic reading skill”
This is true, science would be us observing the environment that was created(but of course this is a creationist point of view)
I Think science is the attempt to explain our existence, and our existence don’t have to be attributed to god! With science hugo we observe space, chemicals and make a assumption of how the planets and stars could have come into existence (big bang) Again as you pointed out science can not observe god waving his wand creating everything. So we have to make the best accurate assumption on this matter!
We need to observe god first before we can attribute his creation to him!
6 Steve // Oct 7, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Hugo: from my side, I think you did a good job of representing what science is and isn’t, and the approach taken by good scientists.
Are we heading for nonfalsifiability any time soon, because the Mercury example is a good way of explaining it: humans can indeed say, “alright. new hypothesis: there is a god (who sometimes pulls things around)”. But then, even if we solve the Mercury thing, it doesn’t disprove the hypothesis. And Nothing we find can disprove the hypothesis.
7 Hugo // Oct 7, 2007 at 1:35 pm
With Negate’s agreement, I have hidden six of Negate’s comments, and my responses to those. It was a little tricky figuring out where the misunderstanding was. In the end, it came down to the definition of “faith”, which led to a misunderstanding of a lot of what I wrote.
The first definition of “faith” on answers.com matches quite well the way I use it:
“Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.”
8 Hugo // Oct 7, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Good comment Steve. What do you think of claims like “prayer can heal” though? Are those falsifiable? And prayer for rain, say?
I’ve pondered if God doesn’t want to be provable, God, hypothesised to be omniscient, could easily avoid working miracles that would prove his/her own existence… in such a case, the existence of the scientific method is suppressing miracles.
Of course, my idea of a “trustworthy God” is “one that doesn’t willy-nilly break the ‘laws of nature’ at the whim of some arbitrary human’s prayer”.
9 Johan Swarts // Oct 7, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Akkoord, dis ‘n knap opsomming van die wetenskaplike metode. Kommerwekkend egter is sciëntiste wat maak asof dit die moeilikste ding in die wêreld is om te verstaan en die intellektuele higher ground claim omdat hulle kwansuis die heilige metode(tm) beter kan begryp en dit nie vir die prolatariaat en sy leke beskore is nie.
Meanwhile is dit pretty damn straight forward.
10 Steve // Oct 8, 2007 at 8:24 am
“What do you think of claims like “prayer can heal†though? Are those falsifiable? And prayer for rain, say?” These claims are nonfalsifiable. The best you can do is collect examples where praying for X did not work. And, using statistics, not accept the hypothesis that praying works. Which still doesn’t prove it.
Besides, with these sorts of things, there’s a general danger that this God one is praying to is aware of the experiment, so that independence in the experimental design is violated. Not something easy to get around. It’s like you say: God could willfully be concealing himself from scientific exposure, in which case all our experiments most likely won’t find him.
I have often thought that the advance in science is a possible reason for observing less miracles today, with the greatest incidence of reports of demonic activity and miracles still coming from third-world countries and primitive cultures. Still, that could just be a higher incidence of superstition in those areas.
By the way, nog first-hand accounts of demonic activity, witchcraft, mense wat dinge vooruit weet, ens. die ander dag gehoor. Die tipe goed is nogal moeilik om te verduidelik as jy die mense ken, en hulle nie “madmen over the sea” is nie.
11 Hugo // Oct 8, 2007 at 8:47 am
For sure. I had accounts from friends in res, such accounts can seem quite convincing. Can we ever know for sure… we can’t really.
I love how Carl Sagan deals with such issues in “The Demon-Haunted World”. I love Sagan’s humility. I was shocked at how much serious thought he gave what I thought were absurd claims. I learnt a lot from him. I suppose that kind of thing can backfire, it can make you “too open-minded”, if you give too much weight to the serious consideration of incredible claims without giving enough weight to skepticism.
As you know me, I’m sure you know I think it is extremely likely that reports of demonic activity and miracles is purely due to more superstition.
I’ll post about alien abductions in the creationism seminar series early next week.
12 Stefan // Oct 9, 2007 at 12:37 am
Negate states “you can not observe god, you can not study god and make your hypothesis about him and his behavior!”. I have to wonder what the theological students do all those years. I suppose knowing Hebrew has its perks.
Since we cannot make hypotheses about god and his behaviour, we are left to trust the writings of an ancient people who claimed to have this ability. I remain unconvinced.
If there is a god, I very much doubt that the bible describes him well.
13 Hugo // Oct 28, 2007 at 1:43 pm
An interesting titbit that Steve sent me just now, which he found on the internet, I think on the Discovery Institute’s website (that’s the Intelligent Design people):
I need more philosophy as well. Philosophy, science, theology, and a whole bunch of things that fall under those umbrellas…
While I’m using something from DI, let me balance it with something against DI, from Pharyngula (that raving atheistic science blogger):
Pharyngula: The Discovery Institute doesn’t like smart college students
14 A Synchronicity? // Nov 14, 2007 at 6:12 pm
[...] The scientist? What will the scientist do? Ideally: neither. The scientist would think: “Hey, this is interesting! Can’t we test it? Let’s test whether it is nothing other than coincidence, or something more…” (assuming funding could be found for such experiments). A scientist that would love to “prove” it, should ideally try his or her best to disprove it, in order to avoid his or her own bias. (See What is Science?) [...]
15 gerhard // Nov 19, 2007 at 3:41 pm
i still think you should disprove the existance of yetis ..
16 Hugo // Nov 19, 2007 at 6:10 pm
The point here, of course, is that the creationist’s request that one gives “conclusive, irrefutable proof of evolution”, is silly. They will always dig up some silly reason why one could interpret it in some other way to support their pre-conceived ideas… never mind how good those reasons are.
Scientifically, evolution is all there is. There is no alternative theory challenging evolution.
17 gerhard // Nov 20, 2007 at 11:54 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
, its actually considered a cognitive bias. it effects every aspect of life. we base things off things that have been. it makes sense if you think about it. why waste all the computational time on starting fresh on each action, tought or idea. same goes for information gathering , you start looking for the things you know you should be looking for that lets you get a basic idea of what you are looking at which should normally get you to your goal quicker. this is also why acceptance and understanding is always so relative.
I try overcome confirmation bias by arguing opposing side with people who are doing the same. i think it gives you a better understanding of arguments made because it forces you to look for arguments to attack your own points of view while defending against it.
18 gerhard // Nov 21, 2007 at 2:30 am
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/science/06tier.html?_r=2&ex=1352091600&en=8dd85ab605098dbc&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
‘This self-delusion, the result of what’s called cognitive dissonance, has been demonstrated over and over by researchers who have come up with increasingly elaborate explanations for it. Psychologists have suggested we hone our skills of rationalization in order to impress others, reaffirm our “moral integrity†and protect our “self-concept†and feeling of “global self-worth.‒
19 Batten #2: Transitional Fossils and Quote Mining // Mar 16, 2008 at 3:37 pm
[...] theories, and they try to disprove these theories, including their own. (As I explained in What is Science? in my (incomplete) series on the previous creationism seminar, one of the foundations of science is [...]
20 Practising Science Requires Methodological Naturalism // Aug 5, 2008 at 2:36 pm
[...] Material: my old post titled What is Science? — I may want to revise it some time, but in the mean time, I believe you may find it [...]
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