The Blind Scientist and other Speculations
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The Blind Scientist and other Speculations by Nigel Glassborow July
2015 thestoa@hotmail.co.uk
So to something different.
Is it the watchmaker or the scientist that is blind?
Just how much can we trust the proselytizing atheists’ scientism that skews the actual
output of science in a manner designed to denigrate the common wisdom of the real faiths
of the world?
Wisdom and Science
From the Socratic claim that the truly wise man is the man who is aware of his own
ignorance it also follows that wisdom requires that one is also aware, as Socrates was, of the
ignorance of those that claim to be knowledgeable.
What is written in a book is not to be taken at face value, but is to be tested against other
opinions.
Seneca (4BC – 65AD) takes this up and says,
‘I know what your master says, now tell me what you think’.
Basically, to quote others and what one has read in books as the only truth is to add other
people’s ignorance to one’s own. If a so called expert writes a book saying one thing, one
can be certain that an equally qualified expert has written another book that offers a
contrary or varied view.
Chuang Tsu (4th Century BC Taoist philosopher) wrote,
‘Suppose you and I argue. If you win and I lose, are you indeed right and I wrong?
And if I win and you lose, am I right and you wrong? Are we both partly right and
partly wrong? Are we both all right or all wrong? If you and I cannot see the truth,
other people will find it even harder.’
The words of an individual, spoken or written, do not reveal ‘the truth’ - only their viewpoint
at a particular time. One more scientific observation may force them to retract all that they
have written. Unfortunately, there will always be those who will stick to the ‘book’ even
though the author has moved on – just look at the number
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of groups that still profess a
belief that the earth is flat.
(All of which applies to all that I personally write – what I write about Stoicism is my opinion
about the nature and implications of Stoicism. It is for others to decide as to if and to what
extent they agree with my views.)
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Reading books is not knowledge. Knowledge involves being aware of the wisdom that has
existed throughout the ages, while also being aware of the actual (rather than theoretical)
advances in the natural sciences that have been arrived at through observation,
experimentation and discovery.
Why?
In his book ‘A Brief History of Time’ (Page 174), Professor Stephen Hawking concluded:
“Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of theories
that describe what the universe is to ask the question why. On the other hand, the
people whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep
up with the advance of scientific theories.”
It is not the case that true philosophers have not kept up with the science but rather that, by
force of false argument and intellectual egotism, some ‘scientists’ have managed to sell the
academic philosophers and the world a set of ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’, claiming that their
theories demonstrate how the Universe was magicked up out of nothing while deriding the
traditional faiths for believing in ‘myths’ that claim that the Universe was magicked up out of
nothing.
As it is, science is beginning to move on from its ‘Creation Myth’ – the Big Bang - while the
academic philosophers and many laypeople are still marvelling at ‘the Emperor’s New
Clothes’ and have not seen that they are free to see the Cosmos for what it is and not as the
outdated nineteenth to early twentieth century science claimed it was.
The scientists are seeking the ‘holy grail’ of a ‘theory of everything’.
The wisdom of the ages that is common to all the traditional faiths and philosophies has
always had a ‘theory of everything’, and now the scientists are beginning to confirm much
that has been known for millennia while not
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recognising the significance of their
‘discoveries’.
All too often commentators on scientific issues claim that if something cannot be subjected
to scientific testing and examination then it cannot be accepted as fact.
However, there is much that is ‘known’ or experienced that science cannot examine or that
cannot be easily replicated to allow independent observation. The true philosophers who
Hawking says are responsible for asking the question ‘Why?’ have been doing so for
thousands of years and have been coming up with consistent answers that are as valid today
as they were when the question was first asked.
In fact the repeatability that the scientists look for is to be found in the constancy of the
answers from the real philosophers - the many wise people throughout history and across
religious, racial and national boundaries who see an ‘organising principle’ involved in the
manifestation of Existence.
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No matter what mythologies abound, regardless of any enforced orthodoxy of faith, no
matter how great or how limited scientific awareness is, having asked the question ‘Why?’
rather than the question ‘How?’, the wise have always seen past the fluid nature of
‘knowledge’ and have come to consistent conclusions about Existence and how it is
manifested.
Consistently throughout the ages ‘Existence’ is seen as being both real and illusionary
depending on context, just as science sees that a subatomic particle can be both a physical
object and also ‘a superposition wave of possibilities’ depending on how it is viewed.
Sir James Jeans (1877 – 1946), an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician, said:
“The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine.”
And when it comes to the ‘great thought’ one needs to step away from the limited view of
science towards the outlook of those who ask ‘Why’. And those that ask ‘Why’ are the real
philosophers, the lovers of wisdom, for they look not just to the transient knowledge of
science but to the consistent awareness of the nature of Existence that is to be found as a
common thread through all the teachings of the wise throughout the ages, cultures and
beliefs.
There is a consistent awareness that answers the ‘Why’ question, and that is the awareness
that there has to be a “universal governor and manager of all things” that permeates the
whole Cosmos.
If this is the ‘gods’ or ‘forces’ of the world religions or if it is just a ‘self-learning master
program’ is not to be answered by science and may never be definitively answered by
philosophical debate. On the other hand, knowledge of “the universal governor and
manager of all things” leads to answers to many other questions that science is not
equipped to
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answer on its own – that is, ethical questions.
The Blind Scientist
Always assuming one has started with the right proportion of ingredients and has heated the
oven to the right temperature etcetera, if one takes some flour, yeast, salt, water and other
ingredients, mix into a dough, allow it to rise, put it in a tin and bake it in an oven one will
end up with a loaf of bread.
Without knowledge of baking, and not being able to study anything but one particular loaf,
science could take it and examine it, experiment on it and eventually be able to work out
what its ingredients are, how it was possibly mixed and how it was possibly cooked.
Much less likely is as to if they could say where its ingredients came from, the date the
wheat was harvested and ground, if the loaf was baked in a bakery by machines controlled
by a computer or if it was hand made by an individual. Certainly, based on just the loaf, it
would not be possible to describe the farm, the bakery or any of the workers.
Science has its limitations.
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Science has, in general, become wedded to the idea that the Cosmos is just a vast
complicated machine that has evolved from ‘nothing’ through some form of ‘natural
selection’ to become ‘something’, which in accordance with various laws of science has
become the visible Universe that science observes today.
Science in its purest form works with observation, measurement and experimentation which
together with its system of peer review is seen to be the ‘scientific method’. The supposed
unbiased nature of the ‘scientific method’ is what much of the modern and more theoretical
sciences claim to base their authority on when it comes to understanding the nature of the
Cosmos.
However, as more and more disciplines claim to come under the umbrella of ‘science’ so the
nature of the ‘scientific method’ gets ever more fluid. The claim to being a science has
become a badge of authority, but where so called sciences step beyond observation,
measurement and experimentation into theory, if one is not careful, there is a risk of the
theories becoming little more than Scientism – an almost religious belief in the supposed
infallibility of science and the rather flexible ‘scientific method.’
What many do not realise is that the ‘scientific method’ was developed to study the
‘mechanics’ of Nature. Science was evolved to look at ‘what is’ – not why it is. And while
there is an overlap in the study of these two areas of understanding, as with the loaf of
bread, science may in time be able to explain much of how the Cosmos is ‘engineered’, but it
will not be able to explain why it is as it is.
And this is why science is blind. Left to its own devices science has only one viewpoint of the
Cosmos and when it comes to the study of the large and the small, such as cosmology and
the subatomic
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world, this viewpoint is often skewed due to various historic biases and
visualisation misconceptions.
To add to this, sciences that rely heavily on complicated ‘standard models’ which are a
collection of theories, and where observation, measurement and experimentation is a long
way from catching up, are offering little more than a ‘belief’ - especially where science is
now asking the layperson to forgo traditional logic and reason in order to ‘understand’ some
of the ‘scientific theories’ on offer.
Science needs some searching questions asked of its interpretation of its ‘discoveries’ and its
theoretical branches especially when scientists wander away from the area of asking how
things are as they are, into the area of metaphysics and speculation.
Those who believe that science can offer the answers to all of the ‘big questions’ in life are
being drawn into the Blind Scientist’s false faith of Scientism – a false belief that science is
the ultimate and only purveyor of ‘Truth’.
Blind Science
It is to be appreciated that since science separated from philosophy, out of which it was
born, it has done much to improve humanity’s knowledge base. But when it comes to
understanding what has been achieved and what has actually been discovered, science is
not necessarily the best system to address the implications of such.
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This is not an attack on all scientists – some are quite reasonable, rational and open minded
and do not blind themselves to other viewpoints. Unfortunately the blinkered way that
many scientists and their ‘disciples’ view their discipline in isolation from other disciplines
often leads to ‘conclusions’ that are questionable.
Which leads to the question inherent in the title of this essay, why is science blind?
The first scientific blind spot is that many scientists see the ‘scientific method’ that they
profess to work to as the ultimate in methods for getting at ‘the truth’, to the point of
denying that there is any other method of ‘knowing’ anything to be true or real. Any other
method of trying to gain understanding is liable to be asked to prove its conclusions
scientifically even where it is known that science itself is limited in its ability to investigate
such areas.
As it is, the ‘scientific method’ is not all that it is cracked up to be, thanks to the involvement
of human beings. The ‘scientific method’ is often described as ‘a method or practice used by
the natural sciences that uses systematic observation, measurement and experiment, and the
formulation, testing and modification of hypotheses’. However, there is no way of defining
exactly what the scientific ‘method or practice’ is.
The principles are sort of known but at the same time are a bit like trying to grasp quicksilver
- there is no understanding exactly what it is as there is no clear and accepted ‘scientific
method’. It varies from discipline to discipline. It varies from experiment to experiment. It is
often no more than a claim to authority used by some ‘scientists’ when they want to claim
superiority for their theories over that of the common sense and wisdom of the lay person.
Scientists are
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as human as the rest of us. They are just as liable to misinterpret what is
before them as is anyone else. They are also just as liable to turn their work into ‘selffulfilling prophesies’ – unintentionally skewing their ‘scientific method’ to ‘prove’ what they
set out to prove, even if the results are inconclusive, insufficient or just plain wrong.
Their jobs, their funding, even their reputation may rely on their backers feeling that they
are getting value for money. It must be all too tempting, intentionally or unintentionally, to
ensure that the money keeps rolling in by over egging ‘results’ and ‘theories’, while believing
that the real evidence will follow. Self-delusion is all too common a problem within the
human race – which also includes the scientific community.
When they are being truly unbiased, the more theoretical based sciences explain that the
strength of their version of the scientific method is in the fact that it never actually 100%
proves anything, but rather provides working theories that produce testable predictions, and
that all of their theories are continually being tested with the intent of disproving them, both
to test their robustness and also to see if a better understanding or a better theory can be
found.
However, when a layperson says ‘But it’s only a theory’, more often than not, they are
treated as an idiot or a heretic for daring to question scientific theories – even though the
scientific method requires such challenges. And if the theory has become part of what the
scientists call a ‘standard model’, that is a collection of theories to arrive at some ‘super
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theory’, then the level of insults questioning your motive, intelligence and even your
parentage, will go through the roof.
Even scientists will face being ostracised for daring to challenge the orthodoxy of the day. It
is reported that Einstein was described by fellow scientists as a heretic when he questioned
aspects of Quantum Mechanics and the developing theories around it.
In order to work, the scientific method requires physical phenomena to examine and work
with that will allow much observation and testing – as it is often described, ‘repeatability’.
The scientific method is less efficient, or even useless, when dealing with irregular or fleeting
events or subjects that defy measurement. When it comes to the very large, the very small
and the subjective, science can only go so far.
The second reason that science is blind is its preconceptions and methods of visualisation.
Up until Quantum Mechanics came along modern science had become absolutely
deterministic, believing in the total dominance of ‘cause and effect’. However Quantum
Mechanics demonstrated that Existence is not the totally mechanistic ‘watch movement’
that science in the nineteenth century had come to believe it to be.
The Universe is not a totally pre-programmed machine following a fixed path into the future
but rather one that is based on natural laws, an element of probability and possibility and
some form of universe wide instantaneous system of coordination. Advances in science are
now showing that the future is not preordained.
The Universe was not ‘wound up’ at some point so creating a system of ‘time’ whereby
every ‘tock’ has to follow the previous ‘tick’ and every ‘tick’ has to follow the previous ‘tock’.
Yet much that the new sciences are telling us today is still interpreted through this
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outdated,
irrational, solely mechanistic view of the Universe.
What does not help is that science’s visualisations of such things as ‘time’ lead to scientific
theoretical error, as does the scientific community’s need to provide a ‘Creation story’ for
the whole Universe – a need which really stems from the origins of much of modern science
as a branch of Western religious philosophy.
Einstein warned of the risks of setting up experiments to prove a theory, the risk being that
the process of observation and the nature of the experiment may actually have a built in bias
that would influence the nature of any results achieved. He was aware that in the eagerness
to prove one’s preconceived theories it would be all too easy to take new observational and
experimental results and interpret the information in a way that would be to try to force it
to ‘fit’.
If the theory predicts an observation or event, one could be tempted to take any observation
or event that is close in nature to that which was predicted and to seek ways to ‘prove’ that
the new information ‘confirms’ one’s theory – and so, in repeating this questionable line of
thought, end up with a very complex theory that has few, and not necessarily linked,
observations that supposedly support it.
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