BIOLOGY 103 FALL, 2000 FORUM, WEEK 1

• what is "life"?
• what is "science"?

If that seems too easy, here's a tougher question: what's the relation between science and life? My assertion is that, in important ways, they are very similar, maybe even in some sense the same thing. That trigger any thoughts in your mind? Don't be shy. Every one's thoughts are relevant: any thought may trigger a new and interesting one in someone else's mind, and someone else's may do the same in yours. That's life.

I'm looking forward to the semester, to sharing thoughts (and observations) here in the forum, and elsewhere in the course. Hope you are too. Welcome.

At least, this is what I tell myself, as an English major, to keep from waking up in a cold sweat at night worrying about my lab science.....

This is also an explanation for why science can't "get it right." Just as we now believe the ancient myths to be untrue, so we discover that science is also sometimes just as inexact. Many times we cannot find the right answer, just one that is less wrong than the previous one.

But, as I argued today, there is a deeper reason for "not getting it right", and another cultural aspect that's relevant: the inclination/preference of non-scientists to have definitive answers (an inclination to which, I agree, media contributes). Maybe the latter would be less of a problem if people in general (scientists included) were clearer about the deeper reason. It relates to the thoughts that science tends (necessarily) to be focused rather than broad, and to the notion that things are in fact always changing while scientific inquiry tends to imply some stasis. And to the notion that science should really be thought of not as an outcome or set of outcomes but rather as a process (thanks to whoever pointed that out). It really IS just a process of continually collecting new observations, summarizing them, analyzing the implications/predictions of the summaries, testing those by collecting new observations. Ad infinitum. From that process comes all the hypotheses, rules, laws, and, yes, "whys". So, you can never "get it right", but can always "get it less wrong"?

Yep, this too, of course, is a "summary of observations". So, don't "believe" it, but do see whether its useful in relation to your own observations. And let me know.

For example, someone who is Pro-life would consider the scientific process of developing an abortion pill or a "morning-after" pill to be wrong, or "bad science". Whereas someone who is very much concerned with the development of advanced contraceptions and the reproductive rights of women would look at this as "good science". The same would apply for the recent works in genetic research.

So, is there any progress in science? Yes I believe there is. If science can adjust to the changes in life, then progress is being made.

"...If science can never perfectly predict the future, Could this be why such oddities as fortune tellers..are automatically pushed aside and disregarded as "occult"...is it possible that "magic" is truly science that has been overlooked?"

What I think I hear you saying, is that perhaps people discount fortune tellers because of their apparent certainty in predicting the future? Intuitively this sounds right to me. Moreover, as everyday scientists (a la Grobstein's definition)I think we tend to have a healthy scepticism when predictions are based on information that we have no access to. Perhaps we tend to respect scientific research more (or NOT, given the class discussion!) because, in theory, at least, we CAN go back and look at the prior observations the current prediction is based upon. And maybe this is one distinction between what we were calling "good and bad" science.

Although, that being said, I really hesitate to single out certain forms of inquiry as somehow "good" and other methods of making observations "bad" or somehow lesser. Rather I tend to think about different forms of inquiry in terms of their use. Maybe what the fortuneteller, as an "everyday scientist" is trying to accomplish is entirely different than the lab scientist. (but that is another discussion altogether)

Of course, on a smaller scale, this certainty, especially predictability, is a nice comfort. It lets us prepare ourselves for whatever may come our way and raises the odds of a positive outcome. But Mulder (and the rest of us) might be taking things just a little further than really necessary....

Now, admittedly there has been a big, (gaping even) lapse of time between then and my return to school at the college level, but the thing that has struck me most is how the FACE of SCIENCE has changed. Now we are presented with a humbler (aw shucks m'am we scientists aren't perfect), more flexible (see above student comments regarding clairvoyance, X-Files, etc.,) more accessible (hey guys! We're ALL scientists ;) What the hell happened?

(P.G. - is this all Thomas Kuhn's fault? And y'all are just back-pedalling now, or what?)

That's a VERY interesting question. Yeah, Kuhn (and, more generally, the quite new field of history/philosophy of science) probably had something to do with it. But so too did science itself. As indeed it should: if it is actually fundamentally about "getting it less wrong", then it should "self-correct". And good scientists are familiar enough with history to know how sweeping and unanticipated a number of "getting it less wrong" changes in science have in fact been. The switch from classical physics to relativity and quantum physics is probably the most dramatic twentieth century example. But there are a number of others, of which the work of Godel and Turing on logic and computability may be the most generally significant. And there are clearly ones in progress (the universe, it has emerged in the last decade, is not only expanding but accelerating in its expansion, which indicates something SERIOUSLY wrong with some quite fundamental ways of thinking about things), some of which we'll talk about in class. A last thought (for now, this really IS an interesting question; thanks for raising it) on "what happened" ... There is a relevant historical/sociological angle. "Science" exploded during and after the second world war, in terms of both money invested in it and the numbers of people doing it. And much of the "arrogance" of science has to do with this period. Really good scientists have always known, and were generally quite willing to acknowledge, that it was "getting it less wrong" rather than Truth that was their business. So, in some ways, I suspect we're returning to an understanding of both the value and the limitations of science which is more open/honest than that provided during (and used to justify) an explosive expansion.
PG

However, I recently read a book involving scientists studying personal energy and how it relates to interpersonal psychology. While it was very spiritual, it also involved much research and observations from experimentation. Perhaps "magic" does invlove experimentation, albeit different from what many scientists consider experimentation. This got me thinking: does evidence have to be tangible to be considered valid?

Science has the nitty problem of being too often defined in terms of itself. Like money: instead of becoming a means to an end, it becomes the end. This is shown in two ways; one, in the hate and fear of science by the populace, and two, in the overarching "need" to experiment and master the world. [note: i have to admit I do not believe that this mastering-the-world complaint is really valid for most of the world's science-related problems. those problems, like deforestation, the disappearance of species, etc. are largely due to Ordinary Men who simply want to own and control things, not necessarily scientists.]

People in America are taught science largely the way people teach history: as a series of mundane facts. I just started reasing Loewhen's Lies my Teacher Told Me and I'm starting to realize how widespread THAT issue is... As a result they end up uninterested in the sciences, not because they are uninteresting, but because they are presented so: without the contradictions, without the humanity. It has nothing to do with the technical terms, large words, or logic involved. I think people can respond to big words as well as little ones. But when it comes to the perfect people described in the textbooks, their great intellects which are nearly worshipped... people can only bear so much before they crack. The true story behind the history of Darwin is more interesting than what's reported in most textbooks... but textbooks are presented as authoritative.

And then people leave school. In a culture of instanteous gratification and understanding, processed through sound bites and computer bits, such lack of exposure to interesting material takes on humongous proportions - and being forced to listen to it creates feelings of resentment which never, entirely, go away (witness the rise of the term "egghead," among other insults, which relate entirely to the stereotype of the smart-but-boring scientist.)

Science does get it right. The difference between a science and a philosophy is that the philosophy is often without substance. If it is a religious philosophy it is entirely taken on faith. The sciences allow us to measure and analyze and determine: to see the facet of reality given to our senses and try to understand it. The process may lead to errors - may lead to mistakes - but by and large, we have progressed in our understanding of the universe. And this progress is shown by the fact that the results of science are visible outside of science. Children no longer die during birth as much as they did in the past. Computers allow people to once again form communities in an extended world. The medical advances alone are enormous and powerful. Science became, and will continue to become, ever more part of our lives. There's nothing dangerous about it. The danger comes when it is not carried out completely, or thoroughly; when people try to make money instead of discover knowledge; when a premium is placed on fast results, and when the public cries out for a solution to a problem... and the scientist, in a hurry for fame or under pressure from a funder, caves in and hands over something he's been working on (but he won't give it to his own children, under pain of death.)

enough babble - i have to go to class!

joe

It seems that the teachers in high school were more preoccupied with cramming as much material as was possible in the heads of the students than actually making sure they were learning and understanding what science involves.

Science is all around us. It's in everything we do, see, etc. Instead of striking the fear of science in students, teachers should be more worried about trying to get their students to enjoy and understand what they do. They should teach that science is more than just lectures and written experiment. They should teach that there is more to it than just writing notes all class period, and making up hypotheses, and then trying to explain things in a "scientific method."

Regarding Robin's old Zen proverb, it is known in science that any good study generates more questions than it answers. If this is true then we do, in a sense, become more ignorant as we make more observations. (Have you read Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? The main character in the story raises this same question.) I suspect that most scientists would try to argue that as more observations are made, our models (i.e.- hypotheses) eventually reach a level of sophistication and predictive power that would allow us to answer most of the questions that might be asked about a phenomenon (of course, you can always ask more questions!). Therefore, we can eventually increase our understanding (decrease our ignorance), if we work hard enough.

But one obvious weakness in this counter argument is that it assumes the existence of some absolute truth which, of course, no one knows to be the case. Could it be that reality changes as we learn more about it? Sound silly? Maybe not. There is a class of experiments in a branch of physics called quantum mechanics which demonstrates clearly that particles (ex- photons and electrons) will behave differently depending on how closely we watch them!

On another note, Joan made a comment about the role of personal values in distinguishing good versus bad science. It is important to realize that the "goodness" of science can be judged independent of one's values. The scientific studies taken by a company to develop a medication could be of very high quality (i.e.- be the result of good, focused questions and ingenious, well-crafted experimentation), and this could be true regardless of how one feels about the implications of the drug's creation.

Jill had a very interesting remark regarding people being uncomfortable with unpredictability. I find this interesting because, as a scientist, I am often frustrated with the lay public's distaste with the inability of science to provide "the answers" with sufficient finality. In the past, usually during some acute spasm of pessimism, I used to think of this as simply being indicative of a contagious simplemindedness and ignorance pervading our society (especially American culture). Your comments brought up a different view which surfaced in some past conversations I had with Professor Grobstein. I think people ARE uncomfortable with the capriciousness and unpredictability of life, and to a certain extent, do, as you said, look to science as a way of combatting that. But when the limitations of the scientific method are exposed, people sense a mismatch between what they thought science could deliver and what it actually does deliver. This seems to cause some angst.

In response to Jackki's comments regarding the change in the "face of science", I will simply agree with Dr. Grobstein's remarks. One reason why Godel's Theorem and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle are regarded as two of the most brilliant and important advances in 20th century science is that they both set limits on what can be known. This took mathematicians and scientists completely by surprise- especially mathematicians!

Finally, Joe had some interesting thoughts about problems in the teaching of science and history. It is true that we humans seem to have an inherent proclivity to oversimplify history, distilling it down to the contributions of one or a select few individuals or causative agents. It is true that the story behind Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection is much more interesting than we are usually taught, as are those of the inventions of the lightbulb and the computer, and the discovery of the New World. Einstein once remarked that people were uncomfortable with the "impersonal accretion of knowledge." He felt that the names which become associated with particular inventions or discoveries are somewhat arbitrary. (If anyone can find that quote for me I would appreciate it!)

Thanks again to everyone for writing in the forum. Lots of interesting stuff to go around!

See Serendip's general Biology forum area for a contribution by a visitor from outside the class.


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