I came here for a heartwarming tale about turtles sliding down a waterslide.
And yet, I do not walk away disappointed. There's definitely a gap between how many of us perceive science and scientists (as the ultimate truth bringers) vs. how the scientific method works in most cases (observing, making and testing hypotheses, and continuously updating your worldview based on the best available data and explanation).
Now I'm off to start building that turtle waterslide.
I'm so glad you said this part: "Statements of faith, also known as first principles, axioms, and assumptions, are critical enablers in our complex world as long as you recognize and accept it is a statement of faith and prevent it from being ossified into a religious tenant vs. a dynamic tool we can use to foster innovation."
Science doesn't say to believe in axioms no matter what, nor take as an act of faith that the big bang happened, but popular culture certainly makes it seem as though it does... and most people who are casual observers of science are virtually certain to conclude that science is a field where people claim to "know things for sure."
Every professional scientist I've known has been the exact opposite of this, constantly questioning everything we "know."
If anything, skepticism is the default setting... even about axioms.
Agree, and they should be questioning. "Settled Science" isn't science. Sadly, science does get ossified internally as Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions highlights in spades. Max Plank once say "Science progressses one funeral at a time."
Yeah. Of course, I disagree with the assertion that everyone who is a scientist does this, but you're right to point out that far too many scientists act on their biases and not in the interest of the pursuit of determining what reality actually is. And, of course, the media simply amplifies whatever will sell ads, which does not include boring statements like "we kind of don't really know anything for sure."
Humans: "I'll take the guy over there who says he knows everything!" Perverse incentives screw up the best soups.
Great article. I enjoyed it. I agree at some point we have to "put a pin in a concept and start working from that foundation".
I'm sure there are scientists who act on their biases and not on the interest of pursuit. I'd say that all humans do this -- we can not NOT be biased (even when we think we are not being biased -- we are).
I want to add something to the good points being made here. Science is build on the possibility of being wrong -- all theories must be falsifiable -- it's the fundamental principle of science. Indeed Karl Popper, insisted that falsifiability -- the ability of theory to be proven wrong -- is the way to discriminate science from pseudoscience. My theories MUST be able to be proved wrong. If there is no way to prove my theory wrong -- science considers it a BAD theory. And I will likely be pulled up for it by an angry reviewer.
I think this point is often missed by the general public. Scientists are proud when their theories could possibly be wrong. That's a sign of good science. But the general public often sees it differently. They think scientists "know things for sure" (as you say). And then they think scientists are wishy-washy when theories change, new theories are formed, or old theories are rejected. But that's just science doing what science does.
Totally agree. I like to say "everyone is biased, the key is knowing what yours are"
Also agree on the basis of science. You work to disprove a hypothesis. However, humans in science tend to pervert that with things like p-hacking, etc.
Thomas Kuhn talks about the issues 50 years ago in his paper The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Max Planc said "science progresses one funeral at a time"
Science does get very dogmatic and they refuse the see their statements of faith for what they are and start treating them as statements of truth, never to be questioned. I like how you challenge that very clearly.
Infinity has always attracted me - like standing in the middle of opposing mirrors and conceptualizing what it would mean. I'm so glad I stumbled upon your platform. I wrote a post using the Sturgill Simpson "Turtles All the Way Down" song as a musical backbone. I'd be honored if you checked out this post.
Your discussion of apathy reminded me of this old story
1991 Frank Layden, Utah Jazz president, on a former player: "I told him, 'Son, what is it with you. Is it ignorance or apathy?' He said, "Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"
It's the idea that ties back up to the start of the essay where we need to make statements of faith to stop the turtles problem and move forward but recognize they are statements of faith though we call them first principles, axioms, and assumptions.
And that's OK but a lot of people will either ossify them or fail to apply them to move forward and continue to move forward.
So… how do you define ‘ossify’ here? Cause my thought was that these presuppositions were statements that you couldn’t move beyond, because moving beyond them made the rest of your endeavor useless. Like asking ‘Do I exist'?” as opposed to saying, “Nope, just gonna take that one on faith and start figuring out what to do since I exist.”
To the extent a presup can be changed, it was never a presup. There was something else even more fundamental.
By ossify I mean never challenging it or refusing to let it adapt. It's like most scientific theories are usable and often statements of faith but will often ossify and then have to be broken as Thomas Khun explored in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. You need to make that statement of faith but you shouldn't lock it down too hard.
This is a tricky subject but very important. Thanks for bringing it up. Regardless of what words you use, people are provoked by conversations like this but a little healthy poking and provocation is necessary at times, especially if your intentions are good and are only looking to help. The word “scientism” is another word to describe some of this dynamic and I have noticed people react to that word too. It may sound boring 🥱 but I like the simple word “uncertainty” as getting comfortable with what we know with certainty and what we do not know with certainty changes the possibilities. Making the impossible possible can only happen by first acknowledging the reality of uncertainty, to feel comfortable asking difficult questions about our current theories, thoughts and beliefs. Perhaps we need more chaos theory and less complexity science, as sometimes it feels like to me complexity science is turning more institutionalized. At the beginning it seemed like more chaos theory and outliers self organizing, people thinking and behaving in interdisciplinary ways (in a way that threatened the status quo). What is it about our current institutional organization that seems to lessen the chances of breakthrough innovation and creative possibilities?
As a general principle, if you cannot explain what you mean without using a specific meaning laden word, and "faith" features high up on that particular list, then you probably don't understand what you are trying to say.
So here's a plea to discourage use of the word "Faith" in any description of science. We don't need to use it and, because of its long history at the centre of religious ideology, it comes steeped in connotations that simply do not apply to science.
Science is an intellectual process that proceeds from Conjecture to Hypothesis to Theory. The trajectory along that pathway to the truth is fuelled by the collection and authentication of evidence. Faith, by reputation, infers belief without evidence irrespective of how outrageous that belief may seem when viewed from a scientific perspective.
Science now has many well substantiated and very useful theories: Gravity, Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Electromagnetism, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Biology, Germ theory and Evolution etc.. Taken together, these theories form a magnificent body of Reliable Public Knowledge that delivers extraordinary levels of Explanatory Power and they do so without any implication of being true all the way down to the bottom turtle.
If there is a need to identify a single word from that to replace the misuse of "faith" in connection with science then "Reliable" is an obvious contender that is easier to say than "Explanatory".
As for meaningful connotations, consider air travel. Few passengers would dare to board an aircraft if that industry didn't have a reputation for reliability and that the magic of flight wasn't widely understood to be down to wings, engines, pressurized cabins and advanced navigation systems as opposed to a wish and a prayer for a miracle. Once on board, passengers are reminded that reliability cannot be taken to mean absolute certainty by being told about oxygen masks and lifejackets.
Science doesn't do bottom line certainty. It does reliability and explanatory power.
The term "faith" has long been the de facto property of religion. We should honour that fact and refrain from using the term in any discussion of our magnificent and "reliable" scientific "explanations" of our world.
Faith is certainly a term fraught with religious ideology. I wouldn't have used 'faith' except it ties with the concept of miracle McKenna used. Also, I find challenging the 'explainable' and 'reliable' science is important. Because that tips toward 'settled science' which is as religiously dogmatic as anything.
Science already settles too much for reliable and explainable which is what Thomas Kuhn pushes back on in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Namely that it stops explaining. At least calling it 'faith' means we strive to learn more to prove it. Calling it already exlained is what Einstein fought against to advance physics. No-one wanted him to poke at their statement of faith they had locked down and yet he transformed it with new physics because the science had gotten too 'explained' and 'reliable' and therefore not open to questions.
Trouble is, many people hearing the word "faith" don't register the meaning "we strive more to prove it". They take it to mean "we don't need to prove it!"
Here's where I get to quote a verse from the Bible as evidence: 😃
HEBREWS 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
My view is that the rehabilitation of "faith" to even the outskirts of general English usage is a lost cause and one we should not even attempt. In discussions with those of religious leanings, we should encourage the use of scientific terms and not use terms that imply the application of religious standards to science.
We should emphasise that there is no implication in general English usage that the properties of Reliability and Explanatory Power are hammered into the end stop of certainty. They are LEVELS that require constant attention for adjustment where necessary.
I came here for a heartwarming tale about turtles sliding down a waterslide.
And yet, I do not walk away disappointed. There's definitely a gap between how many of us perceive science and scientists (as the ultimate truth bringers) vs. how the scientific method works in most cases (observing, making and testing hypotheses, and continuously updating your worldview based on the best available data and explanation).
Now I'm off to start building that turtle waterslide.
We do need a turtle waterslide. That would be fun.
I'm so glad you said this part: "Statements of faith, also known as first principles, axioms, and assumptions, are critical enablers in our complex world as long as you recognize and accept it is a statement of faith and prevent it from being ossified into a religious tenant vs. a dynamic tool we can use to foster innovation."
Science doesn't say to believe in axioms no matter what, nor take as an act of faith that the big bang happened, but popular culture certainly makes it seem as though it does... and most people who are casual observers of science are virtually certain to conclude that science is a field where people claim to "know things for sure."
Every professional scientist I've known has been the exact opposite of this, constantly questioning everything we "know."
If anything, skepticism is the default setting... even about axioms.
Agree, and they should be questioning. "Settled Science" isn't science. Sadly, science does get ossified internally as Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions highlights in spades. Max Plank once say "Science progressses one funeral at a time."
Yeah. Of course, I disagree with the assertion that everyone who is a scientist does this, but you're right to point out that far too many scientists act on their biases and not in the interest of the pursuit of determining what reality actually is. And, of course, the media simply amplifies whatever will sell ads, which does not include boring statements like "we kind of don't really know anything for sure."
Humans: "I'll take the guy over there who says he knows everything!" Perverse incentives screw up the best soups.
I would disagree with that assertion too... Scientists are humans.
Great article. I enjoyed it. I agree at some point we have to "put a pin in a concept and start working from that foundation".
I'm sure there are scientists who act on their biases and not on the interest of pursuit. I'd say that all humans do this -- we can not NOT be biased (even when we think we are not being biased -- we are).
I want to add something to the good points being made here. Science is build on the possibility of being wrong -- all theories must be falsifiable -- it's the fundamental principle of science. Indeed Karl Popper, insisted that falsifiability -- the ability of theory to be proven wrong -- is the way to discriminate science from pseudoscience. My theories MUST be able to be proved wrong. If there is no way to prove my theory wrong -- science considers it a BAD theory. And I will likely be pulled up for it by an angry reviewer.
I think this point is often missed by the general public. Scientists are proud when their theories could possibly be wrong. That's a sign of good science. But the general public often sees it differently. They think scientists "know things for sure" (as you say). And then they think scientists are wishy-washy when theories change, new theories are formed, or old theories are rejected. But that's just science doing what science does.
Totally agree. I like to say "everyone is biased, the key is knowing what yours are"
Also agree on the basis of science. You work to disprove a hypothesis. However, humans in science tend to pervert that with things like p-hacking, etc.
Thomas Kuhn talks about the issues 50 years ago in his paper The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Max Planc said "science progresses one funeral at a time"
Science does get very dogmatic and they refuse the see their statements of faith for what they are and start treating them as statements of truth, never to be questioned. I like how you challenge that very clearly.
Thanks! Glad to have you here.
Infinity has always attracted me - like standing in the middle of opposing mirrors and conceptualizing what it would mean. I'm so glad I stumbled upon your platform. I wrote a post using the Sturgill Simpson "Turtles All the Way Down" song as a musical backbone. I'd be honored if you checked out this post.
https://riclexel.substack.com/p/1st-take2nd-look-2
Your discussion of apathy reminded me of this old story
1991 Frank Layden, Utah Jazz president, on a former player: "I told him, 'Son, what is it with you. Is it ignorance or apathy?' He said, "Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"
Keep writing - I'll keep reading
Fantastic and thanks for the comment. I hadn't heard that song before. Great share!
Except for the last paragraph, which seems to come out of the blue, this is a great explanation of the 'turtle' issue. Is it turtles all the way down?
Yeah, I could have woven that in a bit better. 🤣
Well, it is the paragraph that I think I disagree with. So yes, it would’ve been nice to see a little more explanation there.
It's the idea that ties back up to the start of the essay where we need to make statements of faith to stop the turtles problem and move forward but recognize they are statements of faith though we call them first principles, axioms, and assumptions.
And that's OK but a lot of people will either ossify them or fail to apply them to move forward and continue to move forward.
So… how do you define ‘ossify’ here? Cause my thought was that these presuppositions were statements that you couldn’t move beyond, because moving beyond them made the rest of your endeavor useless. Like asking ‘Do I exist'?” as opposed to saying, “Nope, just gonna take that one on faith and start figuring out what to do since I exist.”
To the extent a presup can be changed, it was never a presup. There was something else even more fundamental.
By ossify I mean never challenging it or refusing to let it adapt. It's like most scientific theories are usable and often statements of faith but will often ossify and then have to be broken as Thomas Khun explored in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. You need to make that statement of faith but you shouldn't lock it down too hard.
This is a tricky subject but very important. Thanks for bringing it up. Regardless of what words you use, people are provoked by conversations like this but a little healthy poking and provocation is necessary at times, especially if your intentions are good and are only looking to help. The word “scientism” is another word to describe some of this dynamic and I have noticed people react to that word too. It may sound boring 🥱 but I like the simple word “uncertainty” as getting comfortable with what we know with certainty and what we do not know with certainty changes the possibilities. Making the impossible possible can only happen by first acknowledging the reality of uncertainty, to feel comfortable asking difficult questions about our current theories, thoughts and beliefs. Perhaps we need more chaos theory and less complexity science, as sometimes it feels like to me complexity science is turning more institutionalized. At the beginning it seemed like more chaos theory and outliers self organizing, people thinking and behaving in interdisciplinary ways (in a way that threatened the status quo). What is it about our current institutional organization that seems to lessen the chances of breakthrough innovation and creative possibilities?
Great points!
As a general principle, if you cannot explain what you mean without using a specific meaning laden word, and "faith" features high up on that particular list, then you probably don't understand what you are trying to say.
So here's a plea to discourage use of the word "Faith" in any description of science. We don't need to use it and, because of its long history at the centre of religious ideology, it comes steeped in connotations that simply do not apply to science.
Science is an intellectual process that proceeds from Conjecture to Hypothesis to Theory. The trajectory along that pathway to the truth is fuelled by the collection and authentication of evidence. Faith, by reputation, infers belief without evidence irrespective of how outrageous that belief may seem when viewed from a scientific perspective.
Science now has many well substantiated and very useful theories: Gravity, Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Electromagnetism, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Biology, Germ theory and Evolution etc.. Taken together, these theories form a magnificent body of Reliable Public Knowledge that delivers extraordinary levels of Explanatory Power and they do so without any implication of being true all the way down to the bottom turtle.
If there is a need to identify a single word from that to replace the misuse of "faith" in connection with science then "Reliable" is an obvious contender that is easier to say than "Explanatory".
As for meaningful connotations, consider air travel. Few passengers would dare to board an aircraft if that industry didn't have a reputation for reliability and that the magic of flight wasn't widely understood to be down to wings, engines, pressurized cabins and advanced navigation systems as opposed to a wish and a prayer for a miracle. Once on board, passengers are reminded that reliability cannot be taken to mean absolute certainty by being told about oxygen masks and lifejackets.
Science doesn't do bottom line certainty. It does reliability and explanatory power.
The term "faith" has long been the de facto property of religion. We should honour that fact and refrain from using the term in any discussion of our magnificent and "reliable" scientific "explanations" of our world.
Faith is certainly a term fraught with religious ideology. I wouldn't have used 'faith' except it ties with the concept of miracle McKenna used. Also, I find challenging the 'explainable' and 'reliable' science is important. Because that tips toward 'settled science' which is as religiously dogmatic as anything.
Science already settles too much for reliable and explainable which is what Thomas Kuhn pushes back on in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Namely that it stops explaining. At least calling it 'faith' means we strive to learn more to prove it. Calling it already exlained is what Einstein fought against to advance physics. No-one wanted him to poke at their statement of faith they had locked down and yet he transformed it with new physics because the science had gotten too 'explained' and 'reliable' and therefore not open to questions.
Trouble is, many people hearing the word "faith" don't register the meaning "we strive more to prove it". They take it to mean "we don't need to prove it!"
Here's where I get to quote a verse from the Bible as evidence: 😃
HEBREWS 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
My view is that the rehabilitation of "faith" to even the outskirts of general English usage is a lost cause and one we should not even attempt. In discussions with those of religious leanings, we should encourage the use of scientific terms and not use terms that imply the application of religious standards to science.
We should emphasise that there is no implication in general English usage that the properties of Reliability and Explanatory Power are hammered into the end stop of certainty. They are LEVELS that require constant attention for adjustment where necessary.
I can get behind that idea.