ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 25, 1995                   TAG: 9503270012
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAVID A. de WOLF
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SCIENCE HOLDS NOTHING SACRED, BUT THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

JUSTIN ASKINS' March 6 commentary, ``Science, it seems, is not an exact science,'' shows a lack of understanding of what the scientific method is about. He feels science is discredited because many cosmological theories are being revised, because medical advances haven't conquered all diseases, and mainly because scientists haven't solved all of humanity's problems. It's a classic example of blaming the messenger for bad news.

Askins doesn't seem to understand that science is a method, not a result. Scientific advances come about due to the fitting of observations to hypotheses or theories that already appear to have provided a rational framework for previous observations. The theory or hypothesis is deemed further useful if the new observations fit. If they don't, then it's necessary to revise the theory or replace it by a new one. In that sense, all scientific theories are temporary, and limited by the observations that have led to their formulation.

Many observations, with refined tools developed in the 20th century, have shown that the Newtonian theory of forces - which states that the velocity of a passenger walking forward in a moving train is the sum of the velocities of the train with respect to the ground and that of the passenger with respect to the train - is incorrect in an ``exact'' sense. The special theory of relativity has been borne out to show decisively (so far) that the sum of two such velocities is more complicated, and that it cannot exceed the velocity of light in a vacuum (even if both velocities exceed half of that velocity).

Newtonian theory is only an approximation for low velocities, and it still works fine for those, but it's quite wrong for high velocities. The fact that we now know it's wrong in those cases doesn't imply that science was wrong. It merely implies that the facts needed to establish the limitations of usefulness of the theory weren't known well enough. The pre-20th century scientists did the best they could with the available material and facts at their disposal.

No proper scientist believes that any theory is final. All theories, hypotheses and explanations are open to examination when new facts or observations become available, and the possibility of rejecting any theory is always present. Hence, the statement attributed to the philosopher Karl Popper that any scientific theory is open to being ``disprovable'' at any time. That's what makes the scientific method so valuable and much more reliable for understanding the human condition than any other human framework of attempted explanations of the world around us. It makes the scientific method different from the more extreme forms of religious creeds where adherents explain and re-explain new observations in terms of an unshakable set of beliefs, no matter how convoluted and difficult it may be to fit those observations to the previously held beliefs.

For example, the constantly mounting geological evidence that the age of the Earth appears to be in the order of several billion years makes it harder to accept the doctrinal-biblical view that the Earth's age is only several thousand years. Adherents of that view often maintain that God has ``built in'' that apparent evidence in the geological strata. Thus, one needs the extra hypothesis of a deity constructing an elaborate mechanism, of what for lack of a better word I must label as deception, to lead to the confusing idea that the Earth is so much older. The doctrinal view may have to add the idea that God is ``testing'' our faith by this. The scientific method doesn't rule on these extra hypotheses; it doesn't need them, and therefore doesn't need to comment on them.

The Darwinian theory of evolution is always a favorite target of the anti-science people. But no respectable scientist ``believes'' in that theory. It merely seems to be the best explanation, so far, of all the observations of biological development. It very well may be replaced in the future by a better theory, as our knowledge of biology, biochemistry, neurological processes, social organizations, etc., develops. It's regarded only as a working hypothesis and it certainly doesn't explain everything, which is probably why there's much legitimately scientific debate about it.

Scientists are people who are prone to mistakes and to arrogance, just as any other person may be. Scientific ``facts'' are sometimes overstated, and speculations presented as established facts. No wonder uninformed people such as Askins feel betrayed or misled. But if one can see beyond the usual human frailties, to be found in all aspects of human endeavors, then I think we should be grateful that the world has at least one ruthlessly honest method for investigating unknown phenomena: the scientific method that holds nothing sacred other than a relentless search for the most coherent explanation of the phenomena we experience.

David A. de Wolf is a professor of electrical engineering at Virginia Tech. 


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