Taking Science on Faith

[countrycousin]

is an op-ed piece in the NY Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html

The apparent aim is to improve the dialog between the religious and science.  I'm all for the aim, and Davies has impressive credentials, but

I don't agree with his major point.

He says that science has its own "faith-based belief system".

In particular: "All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way."

Well, yes, it is an assumption, but it isn't an article of faith - it is continually tested.  In fact there are areas where assumption of order has failed and has been abandoned - Quantum Theory is the poster child here.  There are other areas where microscopically one thinks one knows the mechanics, but sub-microscopically one knows they are affected by QM and macroscopically the region is in a chaotic state so that even if one knew the microscopic data to some reasonable accuracy, the subsequent dynamics would completely destroy the accuracy of microscopic knowledge within a few interactions/particle.

If all of a sudden things started working significantly differently . . .  well, first, I expect we'd lose all life, so there wouldn't be any scientists to react, but if something changed sufficiently subtly so that scientists kept operating - well, inconsistencies would start showing up.  People would start asking why.  The assumption that everything was the same would be dropped, relaxed, modified  (and yes, some would stick to the old assumptions as long as they could, but that is people who happen to be scientists, not science.)  There has been a lot of discussion on how well that change in assumptions might happen, but those discussions involve the psychology of scientists, not the philosophy of science.

An area where science operates on faith to a much greater extent is the faith that fellow scientists are doing honest work.  This also is not an article of faith and is also tested.  This faith is not always justified and it is always disturbing when it is shown to fail.  Fortunately the fact that the possibility of error is always considered helps discover such cases, but the overall system is more efficient the smaller the error rate - fraud pulls everyone down.

As Davies says, we assume there are laws that remain constant.  But we don't blindly assume that.  We check.  We have only one light-cone to work with, but it probes time and space, and assumptions are continually checked.  When inconsistencies show up, people scramble around to find new sets of assumptions, and at the frontier of knowledge there are often several candidates.  We all recently beamed when the microwave background survey revealed a variation consistent with observed matter distribution and a reasonable theory of universe evolution.  Now we hear of someone providing a local galaxy explanation of the microwave results - people will look at it, evaluate it, and state how they think it changes our understanding and why.  We make many assumptions, but we always check that what we see is consistent with the assumptions.

Davies then complains that physicists don't try to explain the laws - the current set of assumptions.  These assumptions are presented as consistent with the data collected, and no more justification is given.  (Considerable effort is expended to try to reduce the free parameters, but that does not constitute either justification or explanation.)  <sigh>  This is the place where he tries to connect the basis of science with the basis of religion and, IMO, falls on his face.   Science and rationality do not try to obtain all knowledge.   At one time it was hoped they could, but that was long ago.  There are aspects of human existence that scientific knowledge can not address.  Whether that region is best addressed by religious or secular efforts forms a vital topic for discussion - I endorse various participants listening to each other and searching for common ground and avoiding trivial differences.  These discussions, like science, benefit from looking for and addressing inconsistencies.  But as long as the conclusions are not testable, they do not constitute science.

Davies goes on to consider the "multiverse" - things might be pretty much the same around here, as far as we can see, but there might be other regions where things are quite different.   He objects to this as "dodging the issue".  It isn't dodging the issue.  It is a concept.  At the moment we have no idea of how to test it.   Well, at one point there was an effort in particle physics to have the different concept of there being only one possible theory that would be self-consistent and fit the known physical data.  I suppose that doesn't dodge the issue, but it is also a concept, and one that does not seem to fit.

The fact is that we are in a locality and do not, at the moment, have access to data outside that locality.  Maybe some day we will.  We have access to a much larger locality than those who came before us.  It does not seem to me to dodge the issue when physicists conceive of existence far beyond the locality we know today. 

from the end:  "Paul Davies is the director of Beyond, a research center at Arizona State University, and the author of “Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life.”"

Comments

[bec-87rb.livejournal.com]

Davies also rejects the Many Universes concept where our universe is just right for life because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here to notice it, and that bunches of other universes were possible and did/do exist where it is not just right.

He claims it is an Occam's Razor violation to assume these multitudes of universes with different sets of constants and laws, but I think he is overlooking the astronomical principle under which every time we assumed that we had a privileged singular central view on the universe, we turned out to be wrong.

Good fodder for discussion, though.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

re: Occam's Razor violation to assume multiple universes:

Sure. But Occam's Razor is more of a guide on how to proceed to find good theories than it is itself a law of nature. So I'll agree with him, but so what.

I agree with him that it would be much better to find self-consistent descriptions of our universe and its operation that had only a few arbitrary constants. If we haven't got there yet, it would be, in some sense, giving up to assume we couldn't proceed further and say that everything left was due to the arbitrary boundary conditions that gave rise to our universe.

To turn the argument, I object to the Intelligent Designer concepts because it leads to saying that anything we don't currently know about the process of evolution is due to the Finger of the Designer. Since we have a large number of people emotionally committed to demonstrating the presence of the Finger, it interferes with rational consideration.

To avoid that problem with the Multiverse concept, one has to keep looking for schemes that reduce the number of arbitrary constants, even though the Multiverse concept implies that some of the search might be fruitless. (Some of most search is fruitless.) Just think of the endless arguments at funding agencies and budget sessions. ;<)

[czarandy.livejournal.com]

I think that his problem is that he doesn't understand what a physical law is. It's a model that gives predictions of how the physical world behaves. Thus *any* universe has physical laws. Even if we lived in the most irrational, arbitrary, random, unpredictable possible world, there would still be laws, namely those that describe just how irrational the world is.

You don't have to "believe" in laws. They don't actually affect our universe. They are nothing like God in that sense. Laws are merely an (often simplified) description of how the universe works.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Considering his credentials and position, that is rather scary. But I have to agree with you - I don't agree with his concept of physical theory.

[imluxionverdin.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. That is a very well argued discussion.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly! :<)

[unknownblogger.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with Davies, I've often felt the same but am not as good at putting it into words.

Science is largely about making testable extrapolations from the 'past' to the 'future' (I put these in inverted commas because they rely on a human-centric view of time). But there is no fundamental reason for the universe to behave in such a causal way in which the 'past' is a predictor of the 'future' via a set of rules, no matter how complex. Even if it seems that the 'past' is self-consistent, this does not prove that it is so (our concept of the 'past' is purely based on the current state of our brains and other objects), and the 'future' may not be determinable or exist at all. There are many leaps of faith involved in trusting our commonsense view of the world.

[unknownblogger.livejournal.com]

To take this further, of course thinking is also a physical process; the universe might behave in such a way that thinking always produces self-consistent results (almost brain-in-a-jar, except not denying the existence of 'reality'). You can come up with a multitude of such theories that seem absurd (violate Occam's razor) and yet may be true, being untestable within the parameters of our universe. You might argue that science is not concerned with such meta-theories that are untestable, but only theories that describe observables. But while at any moment you can be thinking of a theory that seems to fit observations, there is no reason beyond faith to assume that it describes anything 'real' or can be used to make predictions.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

If a statement is untestable, I would hesitate to apply "true" to it. I would indeed argue that such theories are outside science. They may pertain to the human condition - there are many important areas for people that are not science.

If at the moment we have a theory that seems to fit observations, to be part of science, it must make a prediction that conceivably could turn out false. We do not have faith that the prediction will turn out true - we periodically test it. And, sure, in the meantime we build bridges and rocketships and produce medicines based on how well this process has worked in the past, and that involves faith, but we continue to test. I agree, we focus the tests on those areas in which we have least confidence, but this is just intelligent gambling, not faith.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

But there is no fundamental reason for the universe to behave in such a causal way in which the 'past' is a predictor of the 'future' via a set of rules, no matter how complex.

Oh, I agree. We simply observe that, in particular cases, it has worked pretty well so far. Evolution has observed that, too, and you and I have "black boxes" made out of grey matter that depend on that to help the infant learn to interact with its surroundings.

But it is not a leap of faith. It is an observation. In my post I discussed what might happen should the observed constancy change.

[elfbiter.livejournal.com]

Has he maybe mixed up the academic politicking (that sometimes looks like an argumentative battle of dogmas) and the ideal of scientific method?

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. I don't know. I think he is just confused about what science is about. If that is true, it is very alarming, considering his position. Perhaps we - each other - are mutually confused about his position.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

ugh. I was all set to rant, and then I realized you had done it already, and more coherently than I would have :)

Anyway, I agree that he seems to be confusing and conflating the question "How does it work?"-- which science answers-- with "Why does it work?" -- which is at its roots really a philosophy (or theology) question. I suppose it's a reasonable error given that in grade school the questions are pretty much the same, but still, I would expect someone publishing in the NYT to at least ask a working physicist about such an article, sigh.

And he seems to be confusing "assumptions a particular human scientist might hold" with "the platonic ideal scientist"-- I might assume that Newton's laws always hold, but the ideal scientist would add "in the realm in which we've tested it, and only insofar as we have not found exceptions."

This reminds me of a tangential story: I once knew a guy, a mathematician, who was not inclined to accept people's assumptions about anything, be it math or physics or politics or religion or whatever. One day we asked him in jest, "Do you believe in anything?" He considered seriously for a while and responded, "I believe the Civil War occurred. I have no actual direct evidence of it, but I still believe it. Perhaps this is naive of me."

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

(In par. 3: Of course, I mean "I" and "ideal scientist" as "living before the time of quantum mechanics! The point being that I would be wrong, but the ideal scientist wouldn't be.)

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

re: last para - well, I can't argue with him. :<) Not quite sure why he picked the Civil War. Maybe he visited Gettysburg or similar - that does tend to be convincing. And if once was a while ago, perhaps he knew people still influenced by the era and its aftermath.

The Center he runs has a web page http://beyond.asu.edu/home.html that starts off:(1)

It bothers me that someone in charge of that can write the piece he did.

(1)
Confronting the Big Questions
For thousands of years, people have gazed in wonder at the world about them and asked the big questions: How did the universe come to exist? What is it made of? Where do human beings fit into the great cosmic scheme? Is there a meaning to it all?

Such questions have mostly been restricted to religion and philosophy. Now, scientists are addressing them too. On every front, science is transforming our world view and challenging age-old assumptions about the nature of the physical universe and our place within it.

BEYOND is a pioneering international center at Arizona State University specifically dedicated to confronting the big questions of existence raised by these stunning scientific advances, and facilitating new research initiatives that transcend traditional subject categories.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Actually... the blurb you posted, I think, speaks to that confusion a bit. "Is there a meaning to it all" and "the big questions of existence" are kind of... well, not exactly right as questions of science. Though I bet that Davies is very good at his job, which probably involves getting people all excited about science.

Waaait a second... this is the Paul Davies, the Australian? I thought it had to be someone else with the same name. Okay, I read one or two of his books as a teenager (I sem to remember not being a huge fan, but whatever), and in fact I have actually met this guy (he is friends with the prof who was my advisor when I was abroad). That is really, really, disturbing. I don't understand this at all, because he really ought to know better. Maybe it isn't the same guy?

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Looks like it. He says he's a theoretical physicist by profession. His home page is http://cosmos.asu.edu/