(A) Karl Popper argues that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is negative. That is, we never know anything to be true, and the aggregation of knowledge proceeds through falsification.
(B) The study of the physical world through science, then, is an endless quest. Science will never reach a conclusion because positive knowledge is unattainable, and though theories may provide better explanations of observed phenomenon they will never be comprehensive across all domains.
(C) In a tautological worldview, an endless quest for knowledge is unnecessary. Tautologies can expand and be revised when new observations disrupt the former order, but in a steady state a tautology need not challenge itself. A comprehensive mythological interpretation of the physical world, for example, can posit satisfactory explanations for all facets of daily life and requires little to no regular modification of the framework.
If a tautological framework is simpler and more satisfying than the endless quest of empirical knowledge through falsification, then why do science at all?
(D) If we consider a dichotomy between “pure science” (gaining knowledge for its own sake) and “technology” (application of knowledge to solve a problem), then it is the latter that is typically used in justification of scientific research–especially in today’s funding environment. From (B), the pursuit of pure science is an endless quest (an asymptotic search for truth at best). A worldview based entirely upon pure science will always be less complete than a tautological worldview because the theories of pure science are always conjectural. The justification of science as “knowledge for its own sake”, then, is perhaps no more than a quixotic delusion.
(E) The success or value of a scientific theory often seems related to its consequences. Part of the success of Newtonian mechanics was its wide reaching explanatory powers and technological applications. On the other hand, a brilliant theory that arrives fifty years too soon may lay forgotten in wait until the idea eventually becomes pragmatic. Science, it seems, is fundamentally consequentialist.
(F) If science is consequentialist, then it is primarily technologically driven. Pure science, or the quest for knowledge, is not the driving force of science but instead is a tool for technological development. The quest for knowledge, too, is directed by the consequences: not all knowledge is considered equally valuable, and knowledge that produces results will direct future lines of investigation.
If science is technological consequentialism, then is there any reason to be a “pure scientist”, aside from love of the endless quest?
4 comments
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June 19, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Lana
This is a tremendously thought-provoking post. One that I will have to give much more consideration. I’d recently been considering the “negative knowledge” aspect of modern scientific discovery, myself. This gives me much more to chew on.
June 22, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Jon Petters
I don’t know any ‘pure scientists,’ and I’m not sure there are any today….if we put technological consequentialism (a reasonable concept I think) together with the fact that all of us scientists have to put food on the table, arguing that any scientist is solely on a quest for knowledge is a tenuous claim in my opinion. Perhaps we could consider Newton and others of his age pure scientists, as they were independently wealthy and required no external funding.
However, claiming oneself as a ‘pure scientist’ today makes it easier to sidestep all those nagging ethical and political questions surrounding one’s work(e.g. stem-cell research, genetic engineering, atmospheric dispersion, ballistics, etc.).
Personally, the endless quest for knowledge gives me something to do while I’m waiting on my football scholarship. This is the year JoePa gives me the nod, I can feel it…
July 15, 2008 at 10:10 am
Paul Maurice Martin
Because science often results in technologies, I don’t think that makes pure science technology-driven. It seems to me it’s basically love-of-truth driven, and that this would remain the case even if it turns out that the road that puts us on is one of endless approximation.
That science often results in technologies is an indicator that it’s at least reality-based in a way that tautological systems are unable to demonstrate.
July 30, 2008 at 9:43 am
Farmer de Ville
I’ve always felt - at some half repressed level - that science and the concept of “progress” is a delusion. In reality, nothing substantive about human life has changed with the accumulation of human knowledge. We are born in the same manner. We mature and take on the same virtues, vices and drives. We age in the same way as we always have. And when we die, we go to wherever it is that we’ve always gone.
There is no advancement, no progress, no gain. We are simply children who have moved from collecting Matchbox cars to collecting conceptual toys. Silly when you think about it.
Great post…
Farmer
http://www.farmerdeville.com