The Fallacy of Scientific Truth: Why Science Succeeds Despite Ultimate Ignorance

By Donald R. Miklich

Scientific knowledge is vastly and overwhelmingly humanity's greatest achievement. Furthermore, if humanity is to survive, either on this planet or perhaps eventually elsewhere in the universe, it will do so only because of scientific knowledge.
Nevertheless, scientific knowledge is not truth.
To assert any scientific knowledge to be true is to assert that beyond doubt we know the phenomena at issue occur for exactly and only the reason(s) specified by the scientific knowledge, and we similarly know they do so occur and will so occur at any time and at any place in the universe where the causal reason(s) obtain.
To claim scientific knowledge does not reach this truth standard is not new. Philosophers of science generally hold scientific knowledge always to be tentative and subject to refinement and/or replacement if and when new evidence is found. Therefore, scientists never use the word "truth" to describe their conclusions. Unfortunately, however, while theoretical scientists are too circumspect to call scientific conclusions true, they frequently treat them as if they were true. The most conspicuous examples of this are those cases, exceedingly common, wherein a scientific conclusion is used as the premise from which impossible-to-test deductions are drawn, and then these empirically unverifiable deductions are presented to the nonscientist public as certain scientific knowledge, the validity of which everyone who is not an intellectual troglodyte is obligated to accept and believe. The inescapable logical fact, however, is that no such deduction can be more certain than the uncertain scientific conclusion it is based on. Nevertheless, theoretical scientists have, with considerable success, propagandized and proselytized this illogical heretical scientific practice to the nonscientist public as standard procedure.
Scientifically, this disingenuous practice, this "Don't call scientific conclusions truth, but go ahead and treat them as truth anyway" practice has the cost of causing scientists to ignore the inescapable fact that scientific knowledge is a work in progress, and it always will be. Scientists must never close their minds to the possibility that even our most securely established scientific knowledge may be wrong, and might be improved if we made the effort. But more importantly, I am concerned that this practice of passing theoretical speculations off to the public as scientific knowledge may be partly responsible for the obstinate refusal of many nonscientists in the United States to accept and act upon scientific knowledge which is empirically well supported, scientific knowledge which has the well established ability to reliably improve human existence.
The purpose of this essay is to try to inform the scientifically skeptical nonscientist of the difference between such unreliable and untrustworthy theoretical science excesses and reliable scientific knowledge. Though not in this order, it will: Illustrate how theoreticians treat scientific knowledge as truth; Explain why scientific knowledge is not truth; Explain what scientific knowledge really is; Show why it is enormously successful, reliable and useful even though it is not truth; Point out how the presumption of scientific truth is itself destructive of scientific knowledge; and finally, Note the implications of all of this for theoretical and practical science issues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donald R. Miklich
• Release date: Nov 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311009135

Book preview

THE FALLACY OF SCIENTIFIC TRUTH

Why Science Succeeds Despite Ultimate Ignorance

and

How to Solve Theoretical & Practical Scientific Problems

Notwithstanding Ultimate Science Ignorance

Donald R. Miklich, Ph.D.

Published at Smashwords by Donald R. Miklich

Copyright 2014 Donald R. Miklich

ISBN 9781311009135

This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration and the reader is not charged to access it.

The author's e-mail address is [e-mail] where interested readers may send comments, criticisms and questions. If time and circumstances permit, I will try to respond when a response is appropriate.

Table of Contents

The Purpose of This Essay

The Dogma of Scientific Truth

A Brief History of Science

Ancient Greek Science

Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning

Affirmation of the Consequent

Data Inaccuracy

Ancient Greek Celestial Mechanics

The Birth of Modern Science

Modern Classical Physics

Truth Dogma's Damage: A Contemporary Example

What Scientific Knowledge Really Is

The Superiority of Scientific Knowledge

An Erroneous Criterion of Truth

Reason vs. Experience

Quascience

Big Bang Cosmogony

Redshift

Indirect Measurement

Quascience Myths

Coping with Quascience Mythology

Discerning Believable Scientific Knowledge

Global Warming

Conclusion

Appendix

The Purpose of This Essay

I am a scientist. And I am proud to be, maybe a bit overly so. Proud because, although by only the tiniest amount, as a scientist I have contributed to scientific knowledge, and scientific knowledge overwhelmingly is humanity's greatest achievement. Furthermore, if humanity is to survive, either on this planet or perhaps eventually elsewhere in the universe, it will do so only because of scientific knowledge.

Nevertheless, scientific knowledge is not truth.

It's well to begin the elucidation and defense of this assertion by defining what truth means in the context of this essay. To assert any scientific knowledge to be true is to claim that beyond doubt we know the phenomena at issue occur for exactly and only the reason(s) specified by the scientific knowledge, and we similarly know they do so occur and will so occur at any time and at any place in the universe where the causal reason(s) obtain.

To say scientific knowledge does not reach this truth standard is not new. Science is based on empirical evidence. Since we can never experience everything, new and different evidence is always possible. If and when it arises, current scientific conclusions must be refined or replaced. Therefore, scientific knowledge necessarily is always tentative. I am unaware that anyone has ever seriously contested this view. Nevertheless, over approximately the past century it has been more and more sidetracked and ignored. Today there are major areas of contemporary science where scientific knowledge is treated as true, but this presumption is neither acknowledged nor defend. This practice is deceptive. However, we can be fairly sure the deception isn't deliberate, for it appears the perpetrators themselves are first among the deceived.

Usually deceit is practiced because of failure. But this instance is different. Scientific knowledge is being taken as true not because of failure, but because the technologies based on it are so spectacularly successful the science seems necessarily to be true. If it were not, how could all the modern world's magnificent devices work? For many years I so believed. I felt science's conspicuous effectiveness proved its conclusions to be essentially true. Nor was I alone in this. A fairly common opinion starts by admitting scientific knowledge can never be definitive, but continues by dismissing this limitation as inconsequential. Every additional bit of scientific knowledge, these people claim, has moved us closer to truth. And now we are so close we may fairly consider basic sciences such as physics, at least, to be effectively at truth's threshold.

This contention is an analogy with the mathematical concept of an asymptote, the value which some math functions approach closer and closer, but never reach. For example, the fraction 1/N approaches closer and closer to zero as N increases. Since there is no limit to how large N can be, 1/N can never be exactly zero. But clearly, once N is fairly large, for all intents and purposes it is zero, so the fact that it can never be exactly zero is immaterial

Many scientists, especially those in heavily mathematical disciplines such as physics, think scientific knowledge is analogous. According to this opinion, every scientific advance moves us closer to truth, and though we can never reach it, close enough it good enough, essentially equivalent to truth. For many years I also so believed. The effectiveness of scientific technologies made the proposition seem so self-evident I never bothered to examine it. However, in the recreational reading of retirement I came across the work of persons who did bother with such examination, and I discovered, as so frequently happens with analog based thinking, that I was wrong. As is shown in what follows, the unequivocal empirical fact is this: Wrong science can and often has led to effective technologies. Therefore, indubitable as it is paradoxical, the only scientific truth is that scientific knowledge, no matter how many marvelous things may be done with it, can never be taken as true.

The principal goal of this essay is to explain this profound paradox, and to do so in ordinary language without considering any of the abstract and abstruse arguments a philosopher of science might use. Such complications are unnecessary, for once one knows where to look, it is obvious why science works brilliantly and reliably notwithstanding its ultimate uncertainty. Any competent high school student can understand what is said here. There is nothing complicated or difficult about it. Indeed, one and the same simple incontestable fact both shows why scientific knowledge is effective and also proves it can never be trusted to be true.

Theoreticians, however, do not want to acknowledge this because it calls into doubt one of their favorite methods. So instead they implicitly treat science laws as true. The second purpose of this essay is to call attention to this practice and to its insidious, potentially science destroying effect. The dubious method involves the extrapolation of scientific knowledge beyond possibility of empirical confirmation. This is illogical. No conclusion which is beyond empirical substantiation is, or can ever be scientific, because the essence of science, its sine qua non is empirical evidence. What makes this method even more suspicious, if not spurious, is that these extrapolations usually involve unverifiable assumptions the uncertain nature of which also is seldom divulged in popular science writings. By inescapable logical necessity, therefore, these assumption-based extrapolations are and can only be maybe so speculations. There is nothing wrong with speculations. They sometimes turn out to be spectacularly fruitful, but this can only happen when the speculation has empirically testable consequences. When it does not, speculation becomes metaphysical belief, not science.

As is illustrated at several places later in this essay, when addressing the nonscientist public theoretical scientists implicitly treat scientific knowledge as true. But they seldom note this nor its inherent ambiguity and uncertainty. Thus nonscientists are led to look on speculations as scientific knowledge. This practice borders on deception. One can only guess why theoreticians do it. Perhaps they are kicking the uncertainty of their speculations under the rug in order to garner popular support. It also has been suggested to me that theoreticians simply take it for granted that everyone, nonscientist as well as scientist, knows all scientific conclusions are tentative, and all scientific theory necessarily only learned guesses. Thus, theoreticians may feel there is no need to emphasize the obvious.

But it might be that theoreticians are deceiving themselves. Perhaps they are so enamored of their ideas they are closing their minds to their uncertainty. To the extent that they may be self deceiving, to the extent that theoreticians popular ballyhooing of uncertain theory reflects conviction that it is true, they are undermining science. Science inescapably is a work in progress, and it necessarily always will be. Scientists must never close their minds to the possibility that even our most securely established scientific laws may be wrong, and might be improved if we are continually aware of this.

But the more immediate danger is the not unlikely possibility that theoreticians' practice of passing off uncertain theories about matters completely beyond human experience as scientifically sound may be leading some nonscientists to suppose all scientific knowledge is mere speculation. Thus the selling of grandiose but dubious theories may be partly responsible for the growing refusal of many nonscientists to accept and act upon genuine, reliable scientific knowledge. Such refusal has the potential of denying society the benefits which genuine science offers, or of leading society to ignore the harmful effects science identifies. Either is a terrible price to pay for metaphysics.

This essay seeks to explain the real nature of science. Science is limited. Within the domain of phenomena capable of producing empirical evidence, it is powerful and reliable. Outside this domain, it is neither. Though not in this order, this essay will: Illustrate how theoreticians treat scientific knowledge as truth; Explain why scientific knowledge is not truth; Explain what scientific knowledge really is; Show why it is enormously successful, reliable and useful even though it is not truth; Point out how the presumption of scientific truth is itself destructive of scientific knowledge; and finally, Note the implications of all of this for theoretical and practical science issues.

The Dogma of Scientific Truth

The dogma of scientific truth, whether openly acknowledged, as occasionally is done, or the more usual practice of disingenuously implying it, is more corrosive of, and probably a greater impediment to the advancement of scientific knowledge than any other thing. It is harmful to the scientific enterprise to consider or treat any scientific conclusion to be truth. This statement seems paradoxical. Therefore, you may be inclined to doubt it. So before proceeding, let's consider it.

In contradiction of my assertion, many people say scientific knowledge is damaged most by religion. Strong support for this contention comes from the United States where, for over a century, Creationist Christians have waged an unremitting war on the scientific fact of evolution. Their attacks have had appreciable success. Public opinion polls say a substantial minority, not a great deal less than a majority of US citizens reject the idea of evolution because they consider it inconsistent with their religious beliefs. US Creationists have also managed to bowdlerize many texts used in pre-college schools, eliminating the scientific fact of evolution from some and minimizing it in others. Thus, in the US, at least, religion has indeed restricted and impeded the acceptance of scientific knowledge.

This damage is less than some alarmists allege. Creationists have not prevented the fact of evolution from being taught in institutions of higher learning which do not have the teaching of creation affirming religious doctrine as their basic purpose. Nor have these religionists inflicted damage on evolution science itself. Scientists in the US are as committed to the fact of evolution, and are as vigorous in pursuing issues concerning it as any in the world. Indeed, US biologists are conspicuously competent in the technology of genetic modification, a technology based upon a fundamental premise of evolution, viz., the fact that all known life forms have the same basic biochemistry, with no essential differences among them.

{Genetically modified organisms provide an amusing illustration of how duplicitous we humans are when our self interest is involved. Many US farmers who on Sundays devoutly proclaim Creationism for religious reasons, during the rest of the week use genetically modified seeds for economic ones.}

In general, while religionists' vigorous and persistent war against evolution has not destroyed evolutionary science, it has done real and substantial damage to it. It has restricted the number of persons who accept the fact of evolution, and it has impaired the biological educations of many students.

Creationists came close to inflicting even greater damage with their principle of Irreducible Complexity. This idea says some organs, e.g., the eye, could not have evolved by the natural selection of those few favorable ones of a long succession of small, purposeless, random genetic