Scientism, Knowledge, and Truth
Today I want to briefly introduce a heresy against which I have had to contend. I do not mean necessarily that I am myself tempted by it–as far as I am aware, I am not–but rather that I have encountered it fairly frequently, and even more frequently than has the average person, due to my own line of work. I am a physicist, that is a scientist, and thus much of my “social network” includes other scientists and especially other physicists. As with any other group of people, there is a heresy which is uniquely tailored to appeal to scientists, that is to appeal to the pride of the scientific community and especially to the pride of individual scientists. Our heresy is called “scientism,” and though it is not unique to scientists (professional or armchair), it is especially prevalent among scientists and (atheistic) philosophers of science. It has, however, also become prevalent in our culture at large since, as the late Fr Stanley Jaki was known to quip, nothing sells quite like the three S’s: Sex, Sports, and Science.
If you have never heard the term before, you may be asking yourself what is scientism? Scientism may fairly be summarized by four propositions. The first is that only science is a reliable guide to truth. The second is that truth itself does not matter, but rather that knowledge is only as good as it’s utility. The third proposition explains the meaning of utility given in the first: utility ultimately means man’s ability to control nature. The fourth proposition is more about where scientism leads, which is that in the end, man’s increasing power over nature leads to some men’s using nature to gain power over other men. In the interest of keeping this post reasonably short, I will only give a cursory overview of the first two propositions, and refer the interested reader to C.S. Lewis’ excellent book The Abolition of Man as an introduction to the third and fourth propositions.
The first proposition, which is especially popular these days among the new atheists, says again that science is the only reliable guide to truth. All information, all value statements, all knowledge is either scientific fact or else opinion. Another way of saying this is that if it science can’t account for it, it didn’t happen, for the laws of science are absolute. I can think of few statements which are more patently dogmatic than this, and for that matter few which are a greater hindrance to true science. After all, this attitude when taken to its logical conclusion–and it very often is–entails discounting the accounts of eyewitnesses which conflict with “settled science.” Yet, many of our scientific advancements have hinged upon the testimony of eyewitnesses to phenomena which they were not expecting to occur. In his Miracles and Physics, Fr Jaki notes that
Courts of all levels, governments of all jurisdiction, depend on witnesses and their plain witnessing, and so do laboratories. In none of these forums can a discrimination against plain witnessing of unusual facts be condoned or else the most important cases may be prejudged and the only avenues for progress be blocked. Had Oersted refused to believe his eyes when they noted that the magnetic needle which he placed under a live wire turned in a direction which he believed to be impossible, the discoveries of Faraday and Maxwell might not have followed as they did. The discovery of the world of atoms depended on Roentgen’s chance witnessing of the formation, that was not expected to happen, of the negative image of a key on a photographic plate. Far more importantly, would Newtonian science have happened at all if Kepler had not unconditionally trusted in Tycho Brahe’s eyes in making countless naked-eye observations about the position of the planet Mars?
The second proposition of scientism is loosely related to the first, in that not all who hold that science is the only reliable guide to truth necessarily hold that truth itself does not matter (and vice versa). It is nevertheless common to find that those who believe the one statement also hold the other. After all, if science is the only reliable guide to truth, then all truth is ultimately reducible to mere brute facts–which are ultimately without intrinsic value.
This is largely because to the question of “why does X happen?” there are ultimately four necessary (though not necessarily sufficient) answers, which are Aristotle’s four causes. Consider the desk which you are probably sitting at as you read this. What causes the desk to exist? Well, I could answer that the wood (or plastic, glass, metal, etc) from which the desk is made causes it to exist. No wood, no desk: this is the material cause of the desk. On the other hand, I might state that in order for it to be a desk, it must have legs and a flat surface to work off of. If the wood is just a pile of logs, it’s not a desk. Instead, some form must be given to the wood–four (or so) legs and a flat top: this is the formal cause of the desk, which distinguishes it from a pile of logs or a tree. In turn, the fact that desks don’t just come into existence requires another explanation (which would actually also be required even if they did just come into existence): how was the desk made? What craft or skill was needed to make the desk? In the case of the desk, carpentry and woodworking were needed to “make” the desk, and so these are the things which govern the process of its coming to be a desk: the efficient causes of the desk. Finally, we can ask why the desk was made at all: what purpose does it serve? Well, it gives a place a work on, and a place to hold the computer and important papers, etc. There is therefore a reason for that desk’s being: the final cause.
These four causes can also be applied more broadly, say to the universe, or even to the laws which govern it. Science therefore is largely interested in formal and efficient causes, as well as needing to assume material to study: but it is ultimately mute on final causes. To be fair, some types of final causes can creep into science–Professor Stephen Barr, for example, likens the need to minimize action as a final cause in physics, and if “science” is extended to include the soft science (particularly psychology) then some final causes enter through the study of human motives. None of this, however, can give a final cause for the universe itself. A thing’s final cause must be external to itself, and so the universe itself must have a final cause which is outside of the universe, and hence outside of the realm of science.
Now, arguably the final cause of a thing is the most important, because it tells us something about why the thing was created. The efficient cause and at time the formal and material causes are the pieces of knowledge which are “useful” in the sense of having utility. The efficient cause of the universe is what gives us some ability to predict and control nature, yet even this is not so important as to understand why there is any nature for us to predict or control in the first place. To explain this, let me use a brief analogy.
Suppose that you receive a letter from a wealthy benefactor telling you that he is going to send you a very large sum of money. It may be important for you to know what kind of money he is sending–is it gold or American dollars or British pounds or what–which is the formal and material causes of this money. You may also need to know about how he will transfer the money to you–check or cash or wire or gold on a ship–which is the efficient cause of this transfer. But what you most need to know here is why he is sending you the money–what does he want you to use the money for; is this really just a “Nigerian Prince Scam,” or is there some charitable cause he wants you to use it for, or is this just a windfall for your own pleasure?–which is the final cause of the transfer.
We are in the same position in real life, with God acting the part of the rich benefactor and the universe taking the part of the money. Why did God create the universe? And more importantly, why did He create us? That is, what is the meaning of life? Science cannot answer these questions, yet they are perhaps the most important questions we can ask about ourselves.
________________
Update: I noticed a sudden surge in traffic to this page. Unfortunately, the comment boxes close after two weeks. I don’t have any control over this. But you can always visit me on my other blog, or leave comments related to this post there!
Your numbering in the 2nd paragraph appears to need fixing.
Thank you for writing this post. It is useful for me when I have debates with atheist friends about the difference between science and truth.
You said that scientism is four propositions, but only listed three. What is the fourth proposition? Or did you mean “three propositions”?
Thank you!
@Howard: thanks. There are in fact four propositions, and I listed two as “second.” It’s fixed now, though third and fourth can in some sense be combined.
Good post. When science correctly self-identifies as natural philosophy; that is, validation of hypothesis by repeatable, crucial physical experiment, it is capable of great things.
Unfortunately, a great deal of what is now called “science” is simply metaphysics under, as Fr. Jaki says, a “best buy” label.
There is no experimental evidence that we came from a single ancestor, and there is no experimental evidence that gravity warps space-time.
Both are metaphysical propositions for which no crucial experimental demonstration were possible even in theory.
Now when we find a T Rex bone with soft tissue and blood cells, or a universe which presents us with a preferred reference frame, we can either adopt new hypotheses, or we can publish papers calmly asserting that soft tissues can- somehow- remain soft inside 70 million year old fossils; papers calmly asserting that homogeneity reigns amongst an infinity of multiverses, none of which, conveniently, we shall ever see.
This is metaphysics in action.
Alas, it is not good metaphysics.
Fides et Ratio
88. Another threat to be reckoned with is scientism. This is the philosophical notion which refuses to admit the validity of forms of knowledge other than those of the positive sciences; and it relegates religious, theological, ethical and aesthetic knowledge to the realm of mere fantasy. In the past, the same idea emerged in positivism and neo-positivism, which considered metaphysical statements to be meaningless. Critical epistemology has discredited such a claim, but now we see it revived in the new guise of scientism, which dismisses values as mere products of the emotions and rejects the notion of being in order to clear the way for pure and simple facticity. Science would thus be poised to dominate all aspects of human life through technological progress. The undeniable triumphs of scientific research and contemporary technology have helped to propagate a scientistic outlook, which now seems boundless, given its inroads into different cultures and the radical changes it has brought.
Regrettably, it must be noted, scientism consigns all that has to do with the question of the meaning of life to the realm of the irrational or imaginary. No less disappointing is the way in which it approaches the other great problems of philosophy which, if they are not ignored, are subjected to analyses based on superficial analogies, lacking all rational foundation. This leads to the impoverishment of human thought, which no longer addresses the ultimate problems which the human being, as the animal rationale, has pondered constantly from the beginning of time. And since it leaves no space for the critique offered by ethical judgement, the scientistic mentality has succeeded in leading many to think that if something is technically possible it is therefore morally admissible.
Rick Delano wrote, “there is no experimental evidence that gravity warps space-time.”
Wrong. There are quite a few experiments and observations that show this, including gravitational lensing and the recent results from Gravity Probe B, not to mention the adjustments that have to be made for GPS units to work.
Howard: In none of those experiments was the entity space-time demonstrated to warp. The reason is that space-time is a metaphysical, not a scientific, entity.
You have correctly reported the metaphysical interpretation widely reported in the press.
The Gravity Probe B authors demonstrated the capacity of data to confess, under sufficient torture, to whatever is demanded of it.
Let us say the data were indeed telling the truth, when confessing under the ridiculous torture imposed by the Gravity Probe B authors.
In such a case all we know *scientifically* is that there exists a force, attributable indifferently to the rotation of Earth, or to the rotation of the cosmos, which deflects a gyroscope.
The GPS (actually, all of the JPL space navigation software written for NASA, thus including the deep space probe navigation software used for Voyager and Pioneer) incorporates a one- way Sagnac effect correction, which is in explicit contradiction to the premise of the special theory of relativity that the speed of light is constant in all frames.
It has been experimentally demonstrated- that is, “physically shown”, that the time correction written into the GPS software renders the speed of light constant in one frame only; that of the receiver on the ground.
But that is not the important thing.
The important thing is that you are convinced that Gravity Probe B physically demonstrates warped space time, and that the GPS physically demonstrates that c is constant in all reference frames.
In neither case did we see space time warping, not did we see the speed of light constant in all reference frames.
Instead someone said that these things had been demonstrated, and you dutifully reported them to be so.
Such practices lead, in the extreme, to similar reports of multiverses, similarly calmly asserted as objects of science, and all in all this begins top smell more than a little bit like the ancient epicycles.
Dr. Ellis smells it too:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0811.3529v1
Excerpt:
“The extreme case is multiverse proposals, where no direct observational tests of the hypothesis are possible, as the supposed other universes cannot be seen by any observations whatever, and the assumed underlying physics is also untested and indeed probably untestable. In this context one must re-evaluate what the core of science is: can one maintain one has a genuine scientific theory when direct and indeed indirect tests of the theory are impossible? If one claims this, one is altering what one means by science. One should be very careful before so doing.”
The point is that science is, just now, increasingly adopting metaphysical solutions as solutions to observational challenges, without being completely forthright in saying so.
In arguing (debating) with atheists, I’ve found the atheist argument cannot overcome the evidentiary problems of their worldview. Science rejects God because it cannot find evidence of God. Yet a prima facie evidence that God exists can be found in the fact that an ordered (evolved, if you will) existence is flourishing after millions of years, despite numerous identifiable moments in history in which one zig or zag a different direction would have derailed the whole process. The burden of proof is not on the believer to prove God exists, it is on the atheist to prove God doesn’t exist, because the assertion of athiesm requires a belief in a foundation that is faulty: that all of existence brought itself into existence, and that pure entropy has ordered creation into amino acids and multicellular organisms on a planet just perfectly aligned enough to be the place where life not only can exist, but does exist, and comes to a point where a collection of mere molecules has gained the capacity to become aware of its own existence.
The atheist cannot prove God does not exist, and until he can, the evidence can only support the idea of a Creator.
Rick,
Special relativity is well-evidenced by observation of time dilation and by the electromagnetic equations of Maxwell (which require that the speed of light in a vacuum be constant). Nothing I know about contradicts the predictions of special relativity, at least in the classical regime. And in the quantum mechanical regime, special relativity is accounted for with exceptional precision in Quantum Electrodynamics.
I don’t understand your statement about JPL technology, but I have some friends at JPL, so maybe I can ask them about this and see what they say? Could you expand on your point a bit?
As for general relativity, its first main evidence (besides explaining the motion of Mercury) is the verified prediction about how the distance between two stars increased when viewed during an eclipse, this because the sun was changing the trajectory of the light around it. General relativity also explains the copied images of quasars and other objects millions of light years away, by a process called gravitational lensing. General relativity, as Stephen Weinberg showed in his textbook, does not require a warping of space-time, and the metric can be interpreted as a force-term.
J.C. Sanders,
Are you Jerome Sanders, from U.Conn? If so, say hi to Jason for me, Jason from Robin Cote’s group. Hope your ultra-cold atom work is going well.
Oh, and Rick, I completely agree with you about how silly the multiverse stuff is right now. I think what happened is a bunch of high energy theorists have too much time on their hands waiting on LHC results. It’s a function of too many theorists, too much time, and too little real data. The result is strange works of the imagination.
Good article. It made me think, though, that errors come in pairs; scientism has a twin which, although not as prevalent today, still represents an error: fideism. I’ve written a fuller account of this at:
http://sicetnonderful.blogspot.com/2011/09/errors-come-in-pairs-fideism-and.html
In short, fideism is the error by which the proponents of a faith (in my case, I will assume Catholicism) construe that faith (at least, faith as we understand it) is an all-encompassing and complete, incorrigible body of knowledge that supersedes all findings of reason. But our understanding of faith is always subject to growth, and sometimes science or reason has been the touchstone towards this growth. Furthermore, the faith is not even competent to speak on certain subjects: as Thomas Aquinas noted, the faith is only about “things unseen,” while the findings of science regard what is observable.
And a quick note about Rick, for those who don’t already know: he is a geocentrist. I do not by this mean that he has no insights, but he is peculiarly stubborn regarding the matter and refuses to acknowledge relativity’s recognition that the earth has no special claim to the title of “immobile center of the universe.”
Paul:
First, the Maxwell equations assume a physical medium for the propagation of electromagnetic forces- the ether- which is precisely the point at issue. If the ether doesn’t exist, as the special theory asserts, then we must replace it with the metaphysical entity spacetime. The ether attempts to provide a physical explanation for observations, spacetime a mathematical one.
If the spacetime entity corresponds to a physical entity, it has magical properties- it warps, although it is a perfect vacuum, for example. What, one asks, is warping? Good question.
Of course, the same accusation is made about the ether on the other side of the tracks (that it is ascribed “magical” properties), but there is a significant difference- ether is asserted to be ponderable, and material, and hence a legitimate object of scientific investigation. It is asserted with good evidence to have in fact been physically detected in numerous experiments (such as Sagnac).
With respect to the observed excess counts in muons, there are other explanations than time dilation possible, and the time dilation answer has its own problems.
For example, the unasked question in the moving muon experiment, is whether the observed effect is “time dilation”, or instead, whether the moving clocks (in this case, the muons) have slowed because of a physical cause, such as traversing the Earth’s gravitational field.
Also, there exists no experiment from the moving muon’s frame, and hence the interpretation of time dilation assumes an absolute value for the Earth frame, contrary to the assumptions of special relativity.
As has been noted here:
http://www.stephankinsella.com/wp-content/uploads/texts/beckmann_einstein-dissident-physics-material.pdf
“…the speed v is the speed of the clock with respect to the gravitational field, not the speed with respect to the observer, and the mutual slowdown of clocks has never been experimentally observed.”
The reference for the JPL time correction is found here:
http://www.worldnpa.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_3053.pdf
Excerpt:
“NavCom Technology, Inc. has licensed software developed by the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) which, because of historical reasons, does the entire computation in the ECI (Earth Centered Inertial) frame. Because of some discrepancies between our standard earth-centered earth-fixed solution results and the JPL results, we investigated the input parameters to the solution very carefully. The measured and theoretical ranges computed in the two different frames agreed precisely, indicating that the Sagnac correction had been applied in each frame……The JPL equations [10], used to track signals from interplanetary space probes, verify that the speed of light is with respect to the chosen frame.”
I fully agree that the equations of GR can be made to agree perfectly with explanations other than warpage of space-time, which was in fact the point of my response to Howard above.
You cite several experimental evidences for GR and I would like to address them briefly in a separate response.
Dear Rick,
Your first point is confusing. What in Maxwell’s Equations requires there to be an ether? In fact, the presence of an ether would seem to provide paradoxes when Maxwell’s Equations would be applied; for example, for solving propagation.
I do not understand your second question, but it is not relevant to either special or general relativity. Some people understand general relativity in terms of space warping or bending and some interpret it as a way to understand the effects of gravity in a regular Euclidean space by means of force-terms. Both are acceptable ways to think of general relativity, they are at least mathematically equivalent, and Stephen Weinberg in his textbook “Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity” shows how.
The ether has not been detected, to my knowledge. I think such a detection would be worthy of publication, and I can’t find such a publication in any refereed journal. Could you tell me how you know this?
The time dilation I was speaking of is measured in atomic clocks tracking time for military airflight. However, it seems as though your example about muon time dilation is confused; are you invoking general relativity as a way to discredit special relativity? Or what are you trying to get at? Also, your comment about no experiment existing “in the moving muon’s reference frame” does not seem to intersect our discussion. Why does there need to be an experiment in all reference frames in order for there not to be an absolute reference frame?
Your comments are very confusing, and I do not understand what you are trying to communicate to me. I’m a simple guy, so if you think it’s worth it:
1. How do you explain the time difference for clocks on fast moving planes?
2. How do you explain Mercury’s orbit with Newtonian physics alone?
3. How do you explain gravitational lensing with Newtonian physics?
4. How do you modify Maxwell’s equations so that the speed of light in a vacuum is no longer independent of reference frame?
5. What do you mean by a “preferred reference frame”? What is it about a reference frame that makes it preferred?
These are simple questions, and these are the things I don’t understand about what you are saying. Thanks for the help.
Thanks for the JPL reference. I’ll look into it and ask around.
Oh, and finally (sorry for the many posts), but this may help you answer my questions:
Special relativity only asserts that all inertial frames of reference are equivalent. It is actually an aspect of classical mechanics (and something accounted for by Galilean relativity) that non-inertial frames of reference can introduce new terms into equations of motion; physical laws will not appear equivalent in all non-inertial frames of reference.
I suspect (though I will investigate to make sure) that the JPL discussion you include actually is about non-inertial effects.
(Fourth post! Very sorry for the spam)
Scotty, I should have read your post first! It would have saved a great deal of time!
Rick: Are you really a geocentrist? Because, if not, I will be happy to discuss your confusions (or mine) about special or general relativity. If you are a geocentrist, I’m sorry, but I’m working on editing my dissertation for final submission right now, and I don’t have time to argue with a Ptolemaic framework; I definitely don’t have time to argue with someone who rejects modern science.
So if you would answer the geocentrism question first, it could save both of us a lot of time.
Ah, first comes Scotty however
Scotty asserts:
“Furthermore, the faith is not even competent to speak on certain subjects: as Thomas Aquinas noted, the faith is only about “things unseen,” while the findings of science regard what is observable.”
This is highly problematic indeed. It were perfectly possible to *see* whether Abraham had one son by Sarah, or seventy two.
But it is a matter of Faith that the promises to Abraham *and his seed* pertain to the seed through the one son by Sarah, Isaac:
“But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named,’” (Gen. 21:12).
Therefore, whenever the Scriptures touch upon a matter pertaining to what can be seen, they are exactly as infallible as when they touch upon things that cannot be seen.
Both are matters of Faith.
There is a great tendency in this age to attempt to separate Scripture, and seal it off from application to physical phenomena.
I will simply say that such an interpretation is entirely novel, has arisen only in the last century and a half or so, and yields terrifically difficult problems of its own, as we see for example in the recent, official International Theological Commission document, which teaches polygenism upon (undemonstrated) scientific premises, in direct contradiction to the official magisterium of the Church.
So, to summarize again, the Bible is certainly applicable to matters touching upon science, howsoever much the contrary position has gained traction in the last couple of generations.
Second, Scotty employs in a very polite way (thanks, Scotty, I am accustomed to much worse!), the good ol’ argumentum ad hominem:
“And a quick note about Rick, for those who don’t already know: he is a geocentrist.”
>> Horrors!
I am guilty as charged, along with all the Fathers, St. Bellarmine, St. Aquinas, and the ordinary magisterium of the Church, as universally recognized for (at least) eighteen centuries.
“I do not by this mean that he has no insights,”
>> In a similar spirit, let me hasten to add that I do not mean that Scotty has no insights. The matter of the doctrinal status of geocentrism is certainly one upon which liberty of conscience presently exists for sincere Catholics honestly seeking to form their conscience in accord with *all* of the teachings of the magisterium on the question.
“but he is peculiarly stubborn regarding the matter and refuses to acknowledge relativity’s recognition that the earth has no special claim to the title of “immobile center of the universe.”
>> As opposed to Scotty, who is flexible? Flexible enough to admit that recent observational evidence of preferred, earth-centered Nz relations in galaxy distributions out to a billion light years, of polarization of quasar photons along a preferred axis- precisely the same axis defined by the multipole alignments in the CMB- and of the correlation of this axis with the ecliptic and equinoxes of supposedly “insignificant” Earth, are precisely contrary to the assumptions of the Copernican Principle, yet in harmony with the assumptions of geocentrism?
Well. Stubborn is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
I do maintain that no experiment has ever directly measured the assumed motion of the Earth.
I assure you, I am not so stubborn as to refuse to adjust my position, were any such direct experimental measurement provided.
According to relativity, it never can be provided.
Even in theory.
Therefore let me invite Scotty, or anyone else, to propose the existence of any such experiment, which I might have overlooked.
If none are forthcoming, I would invite Scotty to reconsider his characterization of my position as “stubborn”.
Paul: If I were to accuse you of adopting Copernicus’ system, including its circular orbits and epicycles, simply because you believe the solar system is heliocentric, then I should be guilty of exactly the same fallacy you advance, in assuming that geocentrism is equivalent to Ptolemy.
But please, do not feel obligated to address me further, if you are prepared to assume that my arguments and citations, as opposed to my cosmological position, are indefensible.
I will, likewise, not feel proscribed in any way from answering your suggested observational evidences for GR.
Rick,
I’m glad we agree. You of course have no obligation to respond to me, and I have no desire to continue this conversation with you. So our correspondence ends here.
I’m sorry that I don’t have more time to get into your position; it is news to me that there are any geocentrists in the world at all anymore. But like I said, I’m a pretty simple guy, with a limited intelligence which is best spent on subjects I am most interested in. Discussing geocentrism in any of its possible incarnations is not one of those subjects.
Good luck with your future work in geocentrist astronomy.
Taking scientism to task is one thing, but the weird attitude towards real science that is so much on display here a different thing altogether.
Guys, you may sincerely believe that you are unsung geniuses who have not been taken in by a propaganda machine that masquerades as modern science. That delusion is not terribly harmful or important in itself. Regardless of whether you are right or wrong (and there can be no mistaking my confidence that you are wrong), you should give a little consideration to how you sound to outsiders. You sound, frankly, exactly like the cranks who sincerely believe that Bigfoot is a pan-dimensional being with advanced powers of telepathy, which is how he has been able to avoid definitive detection; or like those people who sincerely believe that in the middle of the darkest hours of the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union conspired together to hide evidence of extraterrestrial visitors. If you want to convince people of more important matters — matters of really eternal consequence — you should make sure that this is not the first impression you make.
I’m not going to argue science with you until (at the very least) you show me you know how to solve a basic problem. How about this: Consider a cube with edges of length L centered on the origin. The edges of the cube are parallel to the x, y, and z axes. Five sides of the cube are grounded, but the top side has a fixed charge distribution of C(x+L/2)(L/2-x)(y+L/2)^2(L/2-y)^2. Find the electric field everywhere inside the cube.
If you know how to work problems like that, I’ll take you a bit more seriously.
Howard,
Who are you referring to with “you guys”?
You aren’t trying to get some help on your Jackson homework, are you?
To address Paul’s questions (whether or not he decides to engage the discussion further):
1. How do you explain the time difference for clocks on fast moving planes?
>>Consider a geocentric, non-rotating frame, and a rotating east-west ether, which comes into direct contact with all of the atoms in the atomic clocks. The results are consistent with the conclusion that westbound flights fly with the ether rotation, causing less resistance and running faster than a stationary clock. And vice versa, for the eastbound flights.
2. How do you explain Mercury’s orbit with Newtonian physics alone?
>> Can’t be done. But then, neither can GR explain precession at larger-than-solar system scales. Neither can GR explain the galactic core rotation problem in the absence of an added-in dark matter correction term/epicycle.
3. How do you explain gravitational lensing with Newtonian physics?
>> How do you explain it with GR? Is space time warped by mass? Is there a force term applicable to achieve the same result?
4. How do you modify Maxwell’s equations so that the speed of light in a vacuum is no longer independent of reference frame?
>> Maxwell’s equations assume light propagates through a medium (ether), and that the measuring apparatus in an optical experiment is not altered by relative motion of ether and lab. Therefore your question presupposes that ether does not exist, which is to be demonstrated, not assumed, for purposes of this discussion.
Sagnac experimentally shows that, in a system rotating with respect to the lab frame, c is *not* constant, but is instead c +/- v.
Which supports, experimentally, the existence of Maxwell’s ether, and, experimentally, contradicts the (necessary) non-existence of such an ether in the special theory.
5. What do you mean by a “preferred reference frame”? What is it about a reference frame that makes it preferred?
>> I adopt Einstein’s own definition for purposes of this discussion:
“”…the systems of equations expressing the general laws of Nature are equal for all such systems of coordinates.”
Therefore any system of coordinates which presents us with a particular manifestation of a law of Nature, not found in all others, is exactly a preferred reference frame.
Rick,
I think an argument about geocentrism is out of place here, so I won’t even bother to deal with the “challenge” you propose.
However, I think it only fair to provide a nice quotation from St. Thomas Aquinas that I think is quite apropos of the article:
“Now as stated above (Article 4), it is impossible that one and the same thing should be believed and seen by the same person. Hence it is equally impossible for one and the same thing to be an object of science and of belief for the same person. It may happen, however, that a thing which is an object of vision or science for one, is believed by another: since we hope to see some day what we now believe about the Trinity, according to 1 Corinthians 13:12: “We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face”: which vision the angels possess already; so that what we believe, they see. On like manner it may happen that what is an object of vision or scientific knowledge for one man, even in the state of a wayfarer, is, for another man, an object of faith, because he does not know it by demonstration.
Nevertheless that which is proposed to be believed equally by all, is equally unknown by all as an object of science: such are the things which are of faith simply. Consequently faith and science are not about the same things.”
So, to introduce a little subtlety: the faith can only teach us about the unseen, nonphysical, spiritual characteristics of the world, such as the existence and nature of the soul, etc. It is clear that treating the Scriptures as literally true in every passage, in the sense of an accurate depiction of spaciotemporal events, is a mistake of fideism and contradicts, as Augustine put it, what even non-Christians know about the world from science, such as that the world was not created in six twenty-four hour periods. And, since the Church has, in the person of the Pope, acknowledged that the inquisition made errors regarding Galileo and the question of heliocentrism, and furthermore since the Church has, in the person of the Pope, already acknowledged the great contribution which Galileo and the physical sciences have made to our understanding of the cosmos, there is not much more to argue here from faith either; unless one wants to be an anachronistic follower of a bygone interpretation of the faith, rather than faith itself.
Howard,
I admit that I do not know enough about science to say much more than the most general statements about how it operates. I am trying to learn more.
But does an inability to perform certain kinds of mathematical operations make someone unable to make statements about the practice of science in general? I think it is licit for someone who lacks knowledge about particular scientific theorems to make a general statement about its practice and the relationship of practice to culture, just as I think someone can make a valid observation about the practice of medicine in general without knowing how to transplant a kidney.
Howard: In fact the term “modern science” hides an assumption, which is that it is true.
A brief look back one hundred and twenty years will show that modern science believed as unanimously in the necessary existence of an ether, as modern science today believes in the necessary non-existence of an ether.
A deeper conclusion emerges:
Scientific consensus, defined at any given point, is never to be unjustifiably identified with scientific truth.
Scotty says:
“I think an argument about geocentrism is out of place here, so I won’t even bother to deal with the “challenge” you propose.”
>> Remarkable. It is, therefore, unnecessary to provide experimental evidence of a given assertion, in your version of science.
Okey dokey.
We have certainly arrived at a point of differentiation between our respective views of science.
Scotty: Concerning your quotation of Aquinas (it is one I employed myself in a debate last week), it is necessary to point out that the word “science”, for Aquinas, refers to a valid syllogism constructed upon a self-evident (in the case of our modern use of the term, “experimentally demonstrated”) premise.
If the premise is not self-evident, then the syllogism is not science, as Aquinas uses the term.
It were, for the reasons stated above in the example of Abraham’s son, impossible to employ the excerpt as arguing that Faith does not pertain to that which can in fact be observed.
The Faith teaches us that Abraham’s promises are given through Isaac, an actual son, actually seen.
So, the unseen thing (the promises given by Faith) is intimately bound up in the seen thing (Isaac).
Rick: Ain’t gonna happen.
Dear Rick,
The failure of the modern project (which, as Jonathan Swift points out deftly, began with scholastics like Aquinas) has undermined any foundationalist accounts of science. We no longer live in a world in which we believe ourselves capable of building up a body of scientific knowledge in the sense that the ancients and medieval authors used that term. While the principles of logic remain valid, there is a difference between validity and soundness. A principle may be logically valid, building from particular assertions and then pyramided into a body of knowledge that we can roughly assign the name “scientia,” but may not conform to the way the world actually is.
Science today recognizes that its models are always, in one sense, provisional, in the sense that they may always be subject to revision by further empirical data. In this way, it is no longer the case that what we consider science is simply limited to “valid syllogism based upon self-evident premises,” but rather, roughly, “a valid, logical, and consistent description of some phenomena or relationship which conforms to all observable data.” We have switched from primarily deductive to a primarily inductive form of reasoning, although to be fair all ages have made use of both to some degree. Because of this, science recognizes its fallibility only in the sense that its hypotheses must always be falsifiable; their soundness, not merely their validity, is always at question.
This does not mean that there are not principles to be believed with a high level of certainty, nor that science is unconnected with truth for the sole purpose that it has been willing to discard models when they no longer conform to what is observed in the universe.
In any case, this is all only tangentially related to the article. To tie it back in, I would only like to point out that scientism does fall into a kind of modernist fallacy of foundationalism, assuming that science is a body of eternally True conclusions rather than provisionally true conclusions.
I find nothing to disagree with in your post above, Scotty, so that seems like an excellent note upon which to thank the blogowner for his hospitality and the participants for their courtesy.
Please use 1.5 or double spacing. Then I might be tempted to read your article. It is way too solid and indigestible the way you present it. First appearances do count, you know…
Like I thought: A lot of criticism of science by folks who don’t understand science. Have fun, guys.
To Paul Rimmer: “J.C. Sanders,
Are you Jerome Sanders, from U.Conn? If so, say hi to Jason for me, Jason from Robin Cote’s group. Hope your ultra-cold atom work is going well.”
I’m not that J.C. Sanders. I study optics and plasmas (and the interaction of optics with plasmas) at the University of Texas. Right general field, though, since both the ultra-cold guys and I are in the general AMO field.
To Peppin the Short: I’ve never had that request before. I’d have to play around in WP to do this for you, though I’ll be annoyed if I then get a comment from someone else saying “I liked single-spaced more.”
To everyone else: I’ll be browsing through your comments, and probably won’t be able to respond to them all (it seems that there is some interesting discussion going on). FWIW, this seems to be the most visited post I’ve ever written, and the most commented. I’m honored and humbled.
My apologies. I’m hoping to end up at University of Texas at the end. And the work I do in astrochemistry intersects both optics (spectroscopy) and plasmas. In fact, I talked with someone from UT Austin at a Spectroscopy conference at Ohio State University. He was working on optics and radiative transfer in interstellar plasma.
How much longer do you have? By the way, it’s wonderful to read someone with the intelligence and ability to be successful in both science and philosophy.
Thanks for getting back to me. Hope to read more from you soon (but don’t neglect the dissertation; I need go get back to work, myself!)
My graduation eta is two years from now, making 7 total as a grad student: which is rather fast for the group I’m in.
J.C.: Your line-spacing right now is 1.2 (18 pixels against a font-size of 15 pixels), and 1.2 is generally a pretty comfortable ratio. I think if you just break your paragraphs a bit more often you’ll be fine. Throw in a bullet list now and then and you’ll be golden (e.g., in the four propositions of scientism in what is now your 2nd paragraph, but should probably be the third or fourth).
Also I don’t think carpentry and woodworking are, properly speaking, efficient causes of the desk, at least in any proximate sense. The carpenter/woodworker and his tools are better candidates.
Last thought: My sense has always been that modern science (meaning everything after Francis Bacon) is very leery of formal cause, at least in natural phenomena. I’m not a scientist, though, far from it — just have a bit of training in classical philosophy. Would be interested to hear more examples from a real scientist like yourself of the discussion of formal cause in modern science.
@Ben Dunlap–Thanks for the tip. If you want somebody who has a bit of a head-start on my with AT philosophy and who is also a real physicist (and closer to cosmology at that!), I can direct you to Mr Alan Aversa, who maintains a site here. I think it is fair to say that there can be more than one cause of the same type for a given thing, depending on how it is looked at. For example, kinematics is the formal cause of a projectile’s motion, and yet at the same time we can say that “math” is the formal cause of the motion in-as-much-as math is the formal cause of physics, period.
Here is a thought (since I have no “formal” training in philosophy whatsoever): can a formal cause of one thing ever be the efficient cause of another related thing?
Math is not the formal cause of physics, nor is math the cause of any physical motion whatever. Math is the language in which the formal causes are sometimes expressed, but they can be expressed in other languages as well (for example, Carl Gauss chose to express the (mathematical) fundamental theorem of algebra by means of a geometrical proof, and the physics of the orbit of Ceres through a similar geometrical proof.
In this he followed the example of the Greeks, who considered nothing proven unless by geometric demonstration.
Carl Gauss, unlike many mathematical physicists, actually discovered something.
His methodology, therefore, deserves careful consideration.
““math” is the formal cause of the motion in-as-much-as math is the formal cause of physics, period.”
What makes you say this?
It’s basically a part of how I am interpreting Saint Thomas Aquinas when he writes in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (lib. 1 l. 1 n. 5):
Thus, I write that math is the form of physics. In so much as physics is the laws of nature (e.g. motion etc) Mr Delano is probably correct. However, in-as-much as physics consists of the laws of nature, and in-as-much-as laws might be expressed, math becomes the form of physics as communicated, since we normally write or communicate those laws through mathematics. The laws (and theories, etc) of physics generally take the form of mathematical expressions; ergo, mathematics is the form of these laws. Physics is the set of laws (and theories, etc) which govern the normal course of nature. Ergo, math is the normal form of physics.