The End of Science?

The End of Science? Why do many now view science as a failed ideology rather than as an epistemological ideal? Should science be viewed that way? THEODORE SCHICK JR. litde over six years ago, I attended the twenty-fifth annual Nobel conference, the only program outside Aof Sweden and Norway sanctioned by the Nobel Foundation. It was entitled, "The End of Science?" John Horgan, senior writer for Scientific American, has recently written a book of the same name (Horgan 1996). The sub- ject of both of these inquiries is not the impending solution of certain scientific problems, but the impending dissolution of science itself. What prompted these projects is the grow- ing belief that science is not the royal road to the truth. There is a view abroad in the land that science is more of an ideology than a methodology, and thus that it cannot legiti- mately claim to have a corner on reality. No one expresses this view more pugnaciously than the late philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. He writes: Science is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy is pre- pared to admit. It is one of the many forms of thought that March/April 1997 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER have been developed by man, and not necessarily die best. It is justify their methodology, Feyerabend's claims have gone conspicuous, noisy, and impudent, but it is inherently superior largely unanswered. As a result, Feyerabend's position has only for those who have already decided in favour of a certain ideology, or who have accepted it without ever having exam- become prominent in both academia and the public at large. ined its advantages and its limits. And as the accepting and This has arguably led not only to the rise of pseudoscience and rejecting of ideologies should be left to the individual it fol- religious fundamentalism, but also to a shrinking pool of sci- lows that the separation of state and church must be comple- entific jobs and research funds. As physicists T. Theocharis and mented by the separation of state and science, that most M. Psimopoulos lament in their article "Where Science Has recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institu- tion. Such a separation may be out only chance to achieve a Gone Wrong": humanity we are capable of, but have never fuiiy realized. (Feyerabend .975. Feyerabend's position... has arguably led not only to the ,_,.,. ..rise of pseudoscience and religious fundamentalism, but also In Feyerabend s view, science is a reli- r m gion, for it rests on certain dogmas that to a shrinking pool of scientific jobs and research funds. cannot be rationally justified. Thus, accepting it requires a leap of faith. But just as government has Having lost their monopoly in the production of knowledge, no business teaching teligion in die public schools, it has no scientists have also lost their privileged status in society. Thus business teaching science either. In a truly democratic society, the rewards to the creators of science's now ephemeral and dis- people would be as free to choose their epistemology as their posable theories are currently being reduced to accord with political party. their downgraded and devalued work, and with science's diminished ambitions. (Theocharis and Psimopoulos 1987, The Nobel prize-winning physicist Sheldon Glashow 595) spoke at die twenty-fifth Nobel conference in an attempt to counter these sorts of claims. His response consisted of die fol- The rise of Feyerabend's view of science, they claim, is the lowing "cosmic catechism": "We believe that the world is "most fundamental and yet the least recognized cause" of die knowable, that there are simple rules governing the behavior of decline in science funding in the West. So don't let anyone tell matter and the evolution of the universe .... [and that] [a]ny you that philosophy has no practical import. If T h e o c h a r i s and intelligent alien anywhere would have come upon the same Psimopoulos are right, philosophy has put a number of scien- logical system as we have to explain die sttucture of protons tists out of work. and the nature of supernovae. This statement I cannot prove, Feyerabend once proclaimed that scientists "have more this statement I cannot justify. This is my faith" (Glashow money, more authority, more sex appeal than they deserve, and 1989, 24). Instead of refuting Feyerabend, however, Glashow the most stupid procedures and the most laughable results in vindicated him. For he admitted that his belief in die objec- their domain are surrounded with an aura of excellence. It is tivity of science is simply a matter of faith. It's no wonder that time to cut diem down in size, and to give diem a more mod- science's stock has fallen so precipitously in recent years. est position in society" (Feyerabend 1975, 304). It appears that Scientists' ignorance of die philosophical underpinnings of he has done just that. their enterprise has not gone unnoticed. In 1986, biology How did diis happen? Why is science increasingly viewed Nobelist Sir Peter Medawar commented: as a failed ideology rather than as an epistemological ideal? Ask a scientist what he conceives the scientific method to be, Let's take a closer look at the arguments underlying and he will adopt an expression that is at once solemn and Feyerabend's position. shifty-eyed: solemn because he feds he ought to declare an opinion; shifty-eyed because he is wondering how to conceal Popper, Induction, and Falsifiability the fact that he has no opinion to declare. (Quoted in Theocharis and Psimopoulos 1987, 595) Ironically, one of those most responsible for die diminished view of science is one who was firmly convinced of its superi- Scientists are a philosophically naive lot. But this naivete ority: Sir Karl Popper. Although Popper believed that scientific does not come without a price. Because most scientists can't theories were better than nonscientific ones, he argued diat die traditional inductive conception of science was mistaken. Theodore Schick Jr. is a professor of philosophy at Muhlenberg According to inductivism, scientific mediod consists of College, Allentown, PA 18104, and co-author (with Lewis three steps: (1) observe, (2) induce a hypothesis, (3) confirm Vaughn) of How To Think About Weird Things. He received the hypothesis through additional observations and tests. his B.A. from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in philosophy Popper objected to all three of these steps on the grounds that from Brown University He has published numerous articles on scientists do not—and cannot—follow them. epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind and Popper found the notion that scientific inquiry begins with ethics in such journals as Skeptic, International Philosophical an observation ludicrous. He writes: Quarterly, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Twenty-five years ago I tried to bring home the same point to Idealistic Studies, Thought, The Journal of Speculative Philos- a group of physics students in Vienna by beginning a lecture ophy, The Journal of Aesthetic Education, and Dialog. with the following instructions: "Take pencil and paper; carc- SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 1997 37 fully observe, and write down what you have observed!" They Quine have convincingly demonstrated that hypotheses have asked, of course, what I wanted them to observe. Clearly the testable consequences only in the context of certain back- instruction, "Observe!" is absurd. (It is not even idiomatic, unless the object of the transitive verb can be taken as under- ground assumptions. If a test fails, it is always possible to stood.) Observation is always selective. It needs a chosen maintain the hypothesis in question by rejecting one or more object, a definite task, an interest, a point of view, a problem. of the background assumptions. (Popper 1965, 46) Moreover, Popper's demarcation criterion is far too weak to For Popper, a scientific investigation begins with a hypothesis. distinguish science from pseudoscience. According to Popper, For without a hypothesis to guide research, scientists would a theory is scientific as long as there is some possible state of have no way of distinguishing relevant from irrelevant data. affairs whose actual occurrence would refute the theory. By Popper also objected to the view that enumerative induc- this criterion, however, astrology, creationism, and Immanuel tion was used to generate scientific hypotheses. Many theories, Velikovsky's theory of planetary development would all be scientific theories, for they all imply propositions that could turn such as the atomic theory, the genetic theory, and the gravita- out to be false. Popper's demarcation criterion, therefore, lets tional theory, postulate entities or forces that are not men- in too much; it grants scientific status to theories that don't tioned in their data. Consequently, they cannot be arrived at seem to deserve it. through enumerative induction. Thus we have arrived at an impasse. We can't establish science's superiority by Scientists and educators alike need to realize that the viewing it as an attempt to verify theories educated person is not the person who can answer the through induction, and we can't establish its superiority by viewing it as an attempt questions, but the person who can question the answers to falsify theories through deduction. Perhaps Feyerabend is right that there is Finally, he claimed, no universal generalization can be con- no way to prove the superiority of science. clusively confirmed, for we can never be sure that we have examined all the relevant data. It is always possible that we will Kuhn, Paradigms, and Relativism discover something that will overturn even the most well- Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn and Feyerabend argue established theory.

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