What is science, and why do we need it?
Image by holdentrils from Pixabay
It sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But the definitions we have of “science” in our individual minds are all very different – and often far removed from the reality.
The massive behemoth many of us now identify as “science”, this expansive conglomeration of corporations, laboratories, theories and technologies across a multitude of fields and different practitioners can, quite often, appear totally at odds with itself.
But at root level, that is not what “science” really is. Nor is it a tool developed to deliberately oppose religion, or other systems of belief.
In fact, it is easier to explain what it is by considering why we need it.
We were born, both as a species and individuals, into an unlikely, confusing, dangerous and long-lived world and universe. Far more long-lived than any of us have the capacity to fully grasp. I’m sure you’ve heard the idea that, if the lifespan of our planet was measured as a single human life, our species would have existed for no more than the blink of an eye - but that barely begins to describe how short-lived we are as individuals, and have so far been as a species. When we start to consider our universe, the truth is, we still don’t know for sure how long it has existed, let alone how many there are, what forms they take, or even what time itself is!
And for all that this slow blink of millennia has allowed us to exist and develop, we haven’t yet found a stable and satisfactory way of being for the majority of human beings, let alone the species as a whole, or all the other forms of life we need to safeguard. (And we do need to safeguard them - that’s one of the most important lessons that scientific enquiry has given us: we are not the only form of life, and we need the others, and their complex patterns of behaviour, far more than they need us.)
While this ideal isn’t one I would expect science to bring about single-handedly (it would certainly involve significant economic and political changes, at the very least), understanding our selves and our environment - from how we function as organisms, to whatever lies on the very boundaries of the furthest universe from our place in time and space - can certainly help to safeguard ourselves as individuals, as a species, and as one component of an inconceivably complex, detailed, interconnected, and interdependent infrastructure - not just of life, but of all matter (and non-matter!).
What we call “science” is simply the objective investigation into this vast domain; observing what exists in it and how it all behaves, then using tools such as pattern analysis, logic, and mathematics to identify and extrapolate past, present and future behaviour. Form and movement, if you like - for what is behaviour other than form and movement, at all levels of microscopy and magnification?
But why these tools and not our emotions, intuitions or beliefs? Because those tools rely on human bias. They emerged and developed to help us survive our environment, and negotiate it - not to understand it. As organisms, we emerge into this world with our own individual potential for form and movement (our DNA). This potential is then shaped, from the very outset, by the conditioning of our environment;–our parents; home; family; school; work; country; planet – an environment so multifarious we cannot possibly disentangle our “selves” from it without great effort.
We are all very, very different, and we are legion. Why should we trust our intuitions, our emotions, to show us the reality of who we are, and where we find ourselves? Sure, they’re extremely important to tell us the stories of our individual and group experiences – stories that can inspire, entrance, entertain, educate, and act as a catalyst for change - but ultimately, they tell us little of the nature of our inner mechanisms that create these experiences, or the outside world that shapes them (two worlds that are so intricately and inextricably linked, we should hardly think of them as different worlds at all – rather as one more boundary of information and matter, like a firewall or fence around what we have identified as individual ‘people’).
Stepping outside ourselves to explore what is around us is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do, particularly when we must also turn around to investigate our selves; our own form and behaviour. For most people (including myself!) it’s far easier to rely on what comes immediately from within us - these ancient mechanisms within the brain that spring immediately into action (or more appropriately reaction) at whatever we encounter.
So it’s no surprise that the very idea of “science” is, in itself, confusing for many of us: it comes wrapped up in, even smothered by, our pre-existing beliefs and intuitions - both as individuals and within our many varied groups. Too often we rely only on what we see to define it: in the media, the opinions of others, and our own preconceptions. And what we see is pharmaceutical companies; laboratories; school lessons on (for many, intolerably boring) chemical formulae, or animal dissection; experts who want to change our behaviour or use their discoveries - including us - for unknown, perhaps even nefarious, purposes. A confused, schizophrenic entity that can disagree with and argue against itself; that at different times appears to both agree or disagree with our way of seeing the world and behaving (or perhaps, the way we want to see and behave). But that is not, at root level, what “science” is, or should be seen as.
This was my driving force for writing Struggle to Make Sense of it All, the first chapter in The Misadventures of Stank and Bohdrum : to plunge my characters (one, a storyteller, who relies on subjective tales and beliefs for his way of seeing the world; the other, a trained rationalist investigator, with little time to waste on other ways of thinking) into a similarly unlikely, confusing, and dangerous situation - one that they must struggle to make sense of in their own individual ways, and through the dialectics of their relationship, to come to a better understanding of each other and the world around them.
Because perhaps the most important thing we should remember about science is that it is a human venture, and the people and groups who work within it are a reflection of the larger pool of humanity - all very different, with their own ideas, values and ways of seeing the world and behaving - and rather than expecting it to reflect and validate our personal experiences (and reacting combatitively or defensively when it doesn’t) we should pay a little more attention to its methods and findings, and try to better understand why and how it might not.
Finally, I feel it is important to add a caveat to this and any other articles I post about science: I am not an expert. My ramblings are the result of 15 years of reading, watching and listening to real experts from various scientific fields, and are intended to give some idea of why I am fascinated by it, and why it is so often a source of fuel for my creative fires. I hope that they convey this, and possibly ignite the same interest in other people. If they do, then I would strongly recommend you consult the work of real experts in field. Here are some of my personal recommendations for further reading, watching and listening:
The New Scientist podcast
The Life Scientific podcast
Rick Edwards and Michael Brooks - Science-ish podcast
Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford - The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry podcast
Sam Harris - Making Sense podcast; Free Will
Robert Sapolsky - Behave
Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene
Daniel Dennett - Consciousness Explained
Max Tegmark - Our Mathematical Universe