What Is Science?

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one."

--Voltaire in letter to Frederick II of Prussia (6 April, 1767)

Somewhere along the course of its journey from Enlightenment to the present, science evolved from an aqueous unformed puddle of goo into the multicellular steel-boned behemoth we see today.  It converted from a gas into a solid.  The invisible incomprehensible God of the Westminster Confession reverted back into the vengeful Judeo-Christian God of the Old Testament, creating a resolute Master from what had once been an ambivalent guide.

At least this is what appears to have happened in the public domain.

It has become routine for groups of people with different opinions to beat each other over the head with science.  Instead of a quest for knowledge, it has become a sledge hammer, an indefatigable weapon-of-mass-destruction that acts irrefutably in the possessor’s behalf against all others.  Whenever I see it employed in the media or being wielded in website Comments sections, I usually wonder of the combatants: do you even know what science is?

Science goes through cycles called “paradigm shifts” (see Thomas Kuhn’s seminal The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), where the previous model or perspective on truth is expanded or entirely replaced.  Some examples include Copernicus’ astronomic model orbiting the Earth around the Sun instead of vice-versa, Newton’s classical mechanics over Aristotle’s, and the emergence of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.  While it is definitely the norm for scientists to go with the current paradigm and learn all that can possibly be learned within it, the fact that every previous paradigm has at some point been overturned and replaced should make everyone a little more amenable to opposing views.

Science is not a concrete comprehensive encyclopedia of all knowledge.  It is the pursuit of knowledge, the act of seeking to obtain it.  So to believe in science is merely to believe that there are those who seek to learn more about the world around them.  Which I think is true of just about everyone.

Rivalries definitely exist in the scientific community, especially when small groups of scientists start following outside-the-current-paradigm lines of study.  But it’s nothing compared to what we see in the public domain.

And it’s not limited to a particular political persuasion (see for example “Republicans Against Science” in the New York Times and “Is Environmentalism Anti-Science?” in Discover Magazine).

Now don’t get me wrong--there are some serious issues going on here, and things would probably be a lot easier on everyone if everyone would just go with the current scientific consensus and trust the scientists to identify when our current paradigm needs a face-lift.  But at the same time, every time there’s been a paradigm shift in the past, it’s been because of people thinking against the grain.  And every single time, the new paradigm has been better than the last.

So consider your position carefully the next time someone asks you the banal question: “Don’t you believe in science?”  It’s true, you could just be another liberal kook or another entrenched conservative--only time will tell.  But at least you know what science is.  And on the off chance that you aren’t just a kook--if you've done your research and stick to your guns and against all odds somehow manage to turn out right in the end--you’ll be in really good company.