Science

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Fri Dec 8 07:54:13 PST 2000


At 02:12 AM 12/8/00 +0000, Justin replies to Jim H. wrote:
>>
>>The earth was not flat when scientists thought it was, it was round. The
>>consensus caught up with the truth of the matter, it did not create it.
>
>
>Of course I agree with this. But the reason we have to believe, most of us,
>that the earth is round, is that that's these cientific consensus; and it's
>the consensus that makes for, indeed constitutes, scienmtific respectbility.
>I am a scientific realist of a rather strong sort, but I am a pragmatist in
>epistemolofy.

The key issue here is that, translating the Goedel's theorem to plain English, there is more than one way to skin a cat. The same reality can be described in a multiple ways, and it is not always possible to tell which one is true and which one is false. Kant's (and Popper's) solution to that problem was falsificationism - reality contradicting certain descriptions we concoct, but that solution is contingent upon finding such pesky facts.

In that light, theory X supported by scientists A, B and C as as good as theory Y supported by scientists D, E and F, as long as someone can produce contradicting evidence to either. But that is not the end of the stort either. People have vested interests in their intellectual products (including theories), and it is very diffciult to overestimete the capacity of human brain to explain *anything*. Hence, even is countervidence is produced, the proponents of the theory threatened by it do not capitulate - they invent "problemshifts" (Imre Lakatos' term) or semantic devices that reconcile the threatedn theory with the counterevidence - either by narrowing down the theory's scope (e.g. "theory A holds only under conditions I and J") or addind auxiliary propositions that explain the pesky facts without threatening the core assumption of the theory (which is logically possible, as that dead German Goedel demonstrated).

In that light, Jim's argument is nothing more than a thinly veiled anti-environmentalist ideology, an old canard used by industry hacks that "there is no definite proof that tobacco/asbestos/lead additives are harmful." The trick is that the standards this canard evokes are simply unattainable in any science ever, because of the inherently provisional nature of scientific propositions.

So in the light of compelling contradicting evidence (you cannot definitely disprove the global warming argument, but you cannot disprove the "no harm" argument either) - the choice between the two is political indeed. An as any political choice in face of uncertainty, it should include potential risk assessment as that dead Frenchman Pascal suggested: on the one hand we can win corporate profits, but loose the future to ecological disaster; on the other hand - we can loose today's corporate profits, but win a better future.

Pascal advises us that choosing the future is more prudent. So do many scientists on the global warming issue. Political? Yes. Imprudent? Certainly not.

wojtek



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