Natural Science

Science or Philosophy?

In the PBS Series Nova: The Fabric of the Universe the host, and respected scientist, Brian Greene explains the concept of the Multiverse and how mathematical modeling supports this unintuitive view of the physical world. The claim is that there are an infinite amount of universes that contain an infinite amount of possible worlds, timelines, and physical laws. There are plenty of scientists and mathematicians who work on String Theory or Loop Theory and who fully believe in the scientific nature of the existence of multiple universes.

There are, however, others who declare that these claims are not of the Natural Sciences. A knowledge claim in the natural sciences needs to be falsifiable in order to be tested, and claims regarding a multiverse are not falsifiable. This view of science is most closely associated with the philosopher of science Karl Popper and more recently by Neil Degrasse Tyson. Tyson claims that the multiverse theory, and others like it, do not fall under “science”, but “philosophy”. He claims that in physics, for example, a concept constitutes knowledge if it accurately predicts the future and can be tested empirically. Questions about why certain models work can be discussed and debated over dinner, but those ‘why’ questions are not scientific. We can predict where the moon will be at any given time on the strength of our equations, but questions about why those equations work are for philosophers if they cannot be answered with a falsifiable claim.

Greene, however, would counter that the likelihood of a multiverse can be modeled mathematically, even though not tested with the scientific method. He believes that confronting those “why” questions will lead to the next major breakthrough and paradigm shift in Science. So, we are left with the question, “How does the Natural Scientist know?”

Before I start to answer that question I need to express a bias I have toward the work of Thomas Kuhn (Tyson is not a fan). Many of the descriptions of the ways of knowing owe much to his framework for understanding the epistemology of Science.

NATURAL SCIENCE and the WAYS OF KNOWING

Reason:

The natural sciences rely heavily on reason, in particular inductive reasoning. The statement, “all bodies observed so far obey Newton’s law of gravity” has been used to justify a believe in Newton’s law of gravity. Belief structures like this are the backbone of Natural Science, but there are notable philosophers of science who are quick to point out the fallacy of induction. David Hume, for example, questioned the assumption he referred to as the “uniformity of nature”. In short, simply because all observed bodies follow a pattern tell us nothing of unobserved bodies, and the “uniformity of nature” (the belief that nature behaves uniformly) cannot be proven. This brings us to....

Faith:

Though faith is often viewed in opposition to the goals of science there are (at least) two fundamental assumptions that the Natural Sciences accept on faith before they begin their work. The first is that the physical universe has order and is guided by rules that manifest patterns. The second is that the human brain is capable of discerning these rules and patterns. A Scientist accepts these premises as truth in the same way that Euclid accepted his axioms and Augustine accepted the reality of God.

Additionally, in order for paradigms or models to change in science, a certain amount of faith is necessary on the part of those who question the consensus view. Kuhn explains, “The man who embraces a new paradigm at an early stage must often do so in defiance of the evidence provided by problem solving. He must, that is, have faith that new paradigm will succeed with many large problems that confront it, knowing only that the older paradigm has failed with a few. A decision of that kind can only be made on faith.”

Intuition:

Scientist who wish to respond to philosophers like Hume and defend the “uniformity of nature” premise will, as the philosopher Peter Strawson does, argue that induction is fundamental to how we reason and is not something that can be justified because it is the process by which justification happens. Our intuition to use induction and pattern recognition to build knowledge is intrinsically imbedded into the concept of knowledge building itself.

Additionally, Kuhn’s view that scientific paradigms are meaningfully situated in the cultures they exist within also has implications on Intuition. The way that scientists are trained in a given community molds their scientific intuition. The “Strong Programme” of the 1970’s is the result of viewing science as a product of society and the training of intuition within a given paradigm.

Sense Perception:

Science could described as observation and induction. Scientists use the senses to make observations and predict future behavior. But what about the unobservable universe? There is a debate in the philosophy of science between a group called “Realists,” who hold that the aim of science is to formulate an accurate description of the universe, and the “anti-Realists”, who maintain that science can only hope to provide an accurate description of the observable universe. Atomic theory, for example, is based on unobservable elements of the universe. Elections cannot be “seen” but their effects on the universe can. In a simple particle detector, a cloud chamber, a closed container is filled with water vapor. When a charged particle passes through, like an electron, they interact with neutral atoms and convert them into ions. The result is water droplets, which we can see. This highlights a distinction between being able to detect the existence of something, and actually observing the existence of something. This is particularly interesting in modern science since so much modeling is based on mathematical modeling rather than physical modeling.

Additionally, Carlo Rivelli poetically describes how much of the universe is unavailable to the proddings of human senses in our quest to build knowledge in his book The Order of Time: “We barely see just a tiny window of the vast electromagnetic spectrum emitted by things. We do not see the atomic structure of matter, nor the curvature of space. We see a coherent world that we extrapolate from our interaction with the universe, organized in simplistic terms that our devastatingly stupid brain is capable of handling… About the world independent of us we know a good deal, without knowing how much this good deal is”

Imagination:

Friedrich August Kekule discovered the hexagonal structure of benzene after a snake try to bite its own tail in a dream. He, of course, then needed to test his hypothesis empirically, but his imagination certainly played a role in this discovery. Consider this quote from "No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated Richard Feynman":  "The game I play is a very interesting one. It’s imagination, in a tight straitjacket, which is this: that it has to agree with the known laws of physics. I’m not going to assume that maybe the laws of physics have changed, so that I can design something or other. I operate as if everything that we know is true. If we’re wrong, of course, we can redesign something with the new laws later. But the game is to try to figure things out, with what we know is possible. It requires imagination to think of what’s possible, and then it requires and analysis back, checking to see whether it fits, whether it’s allowed, according to what is known,...". Playing within the structure of a scientific paradigm requires imagination to see how the puzzle pieces can fit, and then those conceptual models are tested empirically. Other scientists, though, think differently of imagination. Richard Dawkins, for example, wrote “We don’t have to invent wildly implausible stories: we have the joy and excitement of real, scientific investigation and discovery to keep our imaginations in line” (The Magic of Reality, 2011). 

Additionally, in those moments when our sense perception is limited, imagination becomes more useful. The explanation of General Relativity or Quantum theory depend on thought experiments and utilize the imagination both in the formulation of those thought experiments and in their interpretation.

Memory:

The Natural Sciences has an interesting relationship with its past. It has its heroes who give their names to important discoveries or laws, but once a scientific theory is proven wrong, or no longer makes sense within a new paradigm, it is entirely forgotten. A quick comparison between the Natural Sciences and the Arts will explain this point: When Lavoisier formulated a new and more successful paradigm for understanding combustion, the previous theory of based on “Phlogiston”, disappeared from science classes. When Duchamp claimed the “Painting is washed up” and began producing readymades, art classes did not start to ignore Raphael.  

Kuhn explains this though his theory of “incommensurability” in the sciences. He doesn’t accept the idea of objective truth in the Sciences. He understands scientific knowledge claims only in relation scientific paradigms. Essentially, a claim constitutes knowledge only with regards to how well it fits within the dominant paradigm. Consequently, when a paradigm shifts in science, the theories and scientists who exist before the shift “live in different worlds”. The scientist, in Kuhn’s view, understands everything through the lens of the paradigm she works under. In that way, the whole world does indeed change with the changing of a paradigm, and the heroes of the former paradigm become impotent and obsolete.

Language:

As paradigms in Natural Science change, so does the language. It’s interesting to think that Newton and Einstein both refer to the “mass” of an object, but they both mean two very different things with that term.

Taxonomies and classifications are also a large part of the way science works. It’s good to remember, though, that any set of objects can be classified in many distinct ways and that the standard classifications and terms we use to distinguish between objects can influence the knowledge we produce. Compare how Chemistry categorizes elements by the atomic number on the Periodic Table (rather than any number of other possibilities), and how Biology categorizes plants and animals under the Linnaean system, which is hierarchical. These classification systems are based in language and impact the way we build knowledge in those disciplines.

Emotion:

The amount we know in the Natural Sciences is dwarfed by the amount we do not know. Indeed we cannot even begin to comprehend the scope of how much we do not know. Given that dark and vast unknown landscape we inhabit, we could point the flashlight of Natural Science in any direction. Without emotion we might be like Buridan’s Ass, unable to choose between equally appealing piles of hay. Emotion drives attention in the natural science, and this demonstrates itself in a number of ways, from medical research to space exploration, to the disproportionate number of studies attempting demonstrate the health benefits of chocolate or wine.

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Find some more video resources and a reading list for the Natural Sciences here.

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Lesson plans for teachers. Please make a copy of the google docs and edit as you see fit, and remember to cite the website.