What's it all about, I mean really, when you get right down to it ?
Everyone should stop to question their own most basic assumptions from time to time, and if they did, the world would be a happier place. In this post I look at what assumptions have to be made for scientific conclusions to hold true : that the world is objective, measurable, real, logical, and finite. If any of these were shown to be false, science would disprove itself. Something might be salvaged from the wreckage, but whatever would emerge would look substantially different from what we think of as science today - just as science and philosophy are not the same thing. I examine how it might be possible to disprove these assumptions, but not to prove them : they are unavoidably actually assumptions. The world might not make much rational sense without them, but they cannot be proven. Maybe the world just is irrational.
I also look at how to relate to people who fundamentally challenge these assumptions. Not everyone with a crazy idea is a crazy person, but some are. Those who can admit they're being irrational are generally fine - it's the ones who aren't even aware of what science assumes that are the problem. Getting everyone to recognise and admit their assumptions can, if you're lucky, frame the debate in a much more productive way. It's not a guarantee, but it is a good guideline. Likewise there are different debating strategies to employ, but one has to understand the opposing position. You cannot possibly fight a non-scientific belief with scientific methods, any more than you'd expect a scientist to be persuaded by emotion-driven woo. Avoiding personal attacks does not mean one should avoid trying to understand opposing viewpoints.
Finally I look at why conceding that science does have these implicit assumptions is a fundamentally good thing, which does not weaken scientific achievements in the slightest. Quite the reverse : it provides a defence against dogma (the very thing anti-scientific beliefs are most prone to), prevents science from becoming another potentially oppressive belief system, and frees disciplines which require rational and irrational techniques from otherwise inevitable conflicts. There's nothing that can be done about the extremists or the extremely stupid, but the majority of people are neither. What we should be encouraging is curiosity : show people the advantages of science without robbing or attempting to cure them of their ideologies. You have to get them to embrace the scientific method before you stand a chance of getting them to agree to its conclusions.
In a writing class, long ago, I was told the best way to make a point was to make it personal, about myself. This did two things: I wouldn't offend others by putting words in their mouths - and it would allow me to smear a pat of the butter of personal observation over the vast landscape of the hot toast of my howling irrationality.
ReplyDeleteIt's simply easier to frame the world on these terms: the universe obeys rules and humankind does not obey even its own rules. If the universe is confusing and vexatious, that is because we humans do not yet fully understand its rules.
As for why humans don't obey their own rules.... I have a few assumptions of my own. These I shall keep to myself. Explaining mankind's cruelty to his fellow creatures, of his sturdy and wicked refusal to get with the plan of living on a spherical world with no fallback, should he fuck this one up - always offends. See paragraph one as to why.
It is simply easier to say mankind is not rational. Even when mankind strives for scientific rationality, unable to resist drawing unwarranted conclusions, he always ends up building some dogmatic Tower of Babel.
And there they are, up in the scaffolding of the Tower, squabbling, each in his own language. In the Zurau Aphorisms, Kafka said if it were possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, the work would have been permitted.