The Scientific Method

There are news reports that a scientific experiment has established that certain sub-atomic particles (neutrinos) may have travelled faster than the speed of light.

It is an experiment that has yielded that result. It is not an idle claim pulled out of thin air by someone lolling on an armchair who can’t even spell the word ‘neutrino’.

Yet, the reaction to the results of that experiment in the scientific world is guarded. This is a result that could completely erase the understanding of the universe as established by Albert Einstein from the time he came up with the concept of special relativity in 1905. Even the person who performed the experiment and observed the result has called for independent replication and validation. Einstein has not (yet) been consigned to the scrap heap.

That is how science works. Nothing is accepted without evidence, independent validation and replication. Even an idea that is regarded as valid is open to criticism and will be discarded if proven to be inaccurate or erroneous. I wish the same could be said of several other notions that many in the world regard as ‘true’.

In spite of its rigor and discipline, science is the target of the ire of several groups who are inimical to it, perhaps because their own domains are threatened by it. The standard refrain that rages among these groups is, “Science doesn’t know everything”. Yes. Science doesn’t know everything. Most importantly, science knows that it doesn’t know everything. Otherwise, as Dara O’Briain says in this hilarious video, it would have stopped.

Even if there are gaps in scientific knowledge, that fact does not give license to anyone to use anything they can imagine to fill in those gaps. Any claim that is made about the nature of reality has to be substantiated by evidence. In the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens, “Anything that can be asserted without evidence can be discarded without evidence”.

A standard response to this point of view from the science-baiters is to claim that there is no such thing as objective reality. They even use the findings of one of the most precise and rigorous forms of physics (quantum mechanics) to propagate the idea that reality is subjective. But as Lawrence Krauss says and Robin Craig also points out, quantum mechanics actually shows that reality is “uncompromisingly objective” and “by testing our ideas against it, we can arrive at the truth no matter how strange or alien to our minds and preconceptions it may be.”

Rationalists are committed to the truth and emphasize that one must follow the scientific method to get at it. Those who disagree with this view try to vilify the rationalists by calling them “strident” and also accuse them of not following the “live and let live” principle. I find it hard to see the validity of those allegations. No one is coercing others to pay any attention to what is being said by the scientists. Those who wish to live in a non-scientific manner can simply ignore the rationalists and go about their lives as they please.

All that the rationalists are doing is to advocate the scientific method. They do so by writing their own books, blogs or articles and by responding to criticism that is leveled against them. They do not intrude into anyone’s private space to propagate their view. Debate over matters of logic is always acceptable and welcomed. Complaining about the tone of arguments is nothing but a weak escape route. Or, is that the only course of action open to those who continue to try and defend the indefensible?

So, let me try and sum things up in simple terms:

1. Science does not know everything.

2. Science knows that it does not know everything and that is why it is perpetually in the quest of new knowledge.

3. Nothing is accepted as true unless it is substantiated by evidence. Even what is accepted is open to being overridden by new evidence that is thrown up by the relentless march of science.

4. Anything that can be asserted without evidence can be discarded without evidence. (I know I am repeating myself but this statement deserves to become a universal motto).

5. Therefore, gaps that currently exist in scientific knowledge cannot be sought to be filled with claims unsubstantiated by evidence.

6. There is such a thing as objective reality. I repeat another quote that I have used before. As Philip K. Dick said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

7. Subjective personal fantasies are not universal truths and, hence, not ‘reality’.

8. Science is not merely the best way to know reality, it is the ONLY way.