Scientific methods/science
Posted on 2004-01-15 by ivo :: /science :: link
Introduction
Usually, when people ask me if I have a religion, or if I believe in something, I usually answer “no”. My parents are both atheists, I wasn't baptized. When I have to put a little more nuance in that, it becomes “I believe in Nature.” But I don't mean Nature to be some higher order being like some people see mother nature. So I change it to “I believe in science.”
“But there are some things that science can't explain.” (usually they refer to the metaphysical) — bzzt, wrong. There are things that science hasn't yet had a chance to explain. (And there are things that science explains, but nobody wanted to know about.)
There are people who don't know how to handle science, there are those who don't know how to handle scientific results, and there are those who just Do Not Get It. There are a lot of generally accepted principles that apply to any scientific research. These principles have influenced the way that scientists do research since the middle ages, when research in western Europe was generally intended to support the Catholic Church in their doctrine.
Zero point field
Last thursday, I was visiting a friend and colleague for a game of go. He had a few episodes of the Dutch magazine Ode lying about, among them was the one from november 2003, with an article about the Zero Point Field.
I had quite a bit of trouble following the author in what he wanted to say. When my friend asked what I thought of it, I answered that I thought it was “a lengthy article, a string of wrong quotes and dubious scientific experiments.” It seemed there is no point in the article.
The story is nothing more than a string of stories that seemingly “can't be explained by modern science.” Apparently the author believes they can in fact only be explained by believing in some scientific phenomenon that would be the cause of telepathy and other extrasensory perceptions.
He then goes on to misquote some key figures in the history of quantum mechanics, somehow trying to create a link from the zero point field to the supernatural. My favorite misquote in this article must be this one:
Moreover, these particles appeared only to take a specific shape if a spectator observed them. If a person noticed a particle, it ‘froze’. The researchers came to the startling conclusion that consciousness creates reality and Einstein wondered whether the moon would actually exist if we didn't look at it.
The best refutation I could found—after spending only about two minutes googling—of this use, the actual meaning of Einstein's quote comes from a rather terse but interesting page Notes on David Peat, Einstein's Moon: Bell's Theorem and the Curious Quest for Quantum Reality:
Einstein resists [quantum mechanics] because of its probabilistic character (“God does not play dice,” to quote the famous phrase), and because both the epistemology and ontology of the Copenhagen Interpretation clashed with his classical (Newtonian) belief regarding the essential separateness of subject and object – and the belief that an external reality does exist, independent of the subject/observer […]
Notes on David Peat, Einstein's Moon: Bell's Theorem and the Curious Quest for Quantum Reality, http://www.drury.edu/ess/philsci/bell.html#ontology
The point here is that Einstein didn't wonder if the moon would actually exist if we didn't look at it, rather he used this as a sarcastic remark in the general direction of quantum mechanics—and Nils Bohr in particular—to question the Heisenberg principle.
After this, the article goes on and on and on misquoting random people and citing dubious “scientific” research from people who wouldn't dare to submit their findings to respected periodicals such as Nature or Scientific American.
This brings me directly to the main point of this article: peer review.
Scientific methods
For any kind of serious scientific research, the conducting scientist will have to obey a small set of rules to make the research considered a valid effort. This small set of rules is known as the “scientific method.” The actual implementation of this method isn't always as clear and well-defined as this example (and many varieties exist), usually caused by discussions among scientists and sudden new insights.
The scientific method is a repetitive process, usually split up in four steps:
- Observe some aspect of the universe.
- Write down a hypothesis—a tentative description—that is consistent with what you have observed, and which you would like to test.
- Use the hypothesis to make predictions about the phenomenon you're researching.
- Test those predictions by experiments or further observations.
If the results after step number 4 are still unclear, do more tests. Or perhaps you need to reformulate your hypothesis, in which case it is possible to repeat steps 2 to 4 as often as it takes to get a satisfactory result. Maybe the results of the research indicate that you might need to split the research into smaller pieces.
The process must be unprejudiced. It must be possible for a different person to conduct the same research, and come to the same conclusion. This is accomplished using methods such as Ockham's Razor, see the next section for more on that.
The process must be repeatable. The nature of the research must be so that it can be repeated in different conditions. This is necessary if you want to convince other people of the correctness of your activities. If any inconsistencies arise during the repeated execution of a well-conducted research, further research may be needed.
A hypothesis must be falsifiable. The hypothesis must be formulated in a way that allows it to be rejected by the research you are going to conduct. This page has an example about little green men that hide whenever we look at them. It must be possible for a new theory to replace an accepted theory if it was possible to reject the old theory based on the results of new experiments.
In any case, for the scientific method to work, it is absolutely required that the scientist is open to the possibility that the hypothesis may be fundamentally incorrect.
Ockham's Razor
For priorities in scientific research Ockham's Razor is generally a good tool.
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate.
(Plurality shouldn't be used without necessity.)
William Ockham, 1285-1349
When applying this to logical reasoning, it means that—out of a set of possibilities—you should take the explanation for an event that requires the least assertions. The wikipedia page has a few examples of this:
For example, after a storm you notice that a tree has fallen. Based on the evidence of “a storm” and “a fallen tree” a reasonable hypothesis would be that “the storm blew down the tree”—a hypothesis that requires only one assumption—that it was, in fact, a strong wind that knocked over the tree, rather than a meteor or an elephant. The hypothesis that “the tree was knocked over by marauding 200 meter tall space aliens” requires several additional assumptions (concerning the very existence of aliens, their ability and desire to travel interstellar distances and the alien biology that allows them to be 200 meters tall in terrestrial gravity) and is therefore less preferable.
When applying this to scientific research, Ockham's Razor dictates that, when trying to understand a phenomenon, and you have evidence, the most simple explanation of that phenomenon has precedence over the more complicated explanation. In the example of the storm and the tree above, you'd need to assert that it was in fact the storm that caused the tree to fall down. Maybe it was an elephant, but you would have to gather evidence for that path of reasoning first. Maybe there has been a circus in town, and they report a missing elephant the same day the tree fell down.
(In a way this applies to the way programming should be done, and extreme programming is based on this as well: keep the amount of code so small that it does exactly what it has to do at the time of writing. If it needs to be expanded, you can always do that afterwards, when it has become unavoidable. Especially in a world where requirements change so quickly that you can't expect to write a full blown system that complies to all specifications and can also make coffee for you and ends world hunger. This is also known as the K.I.S.S.-principle).
Throwing it all together
There are many more generally accepted principles such as the Scientific Method and Ockham's Razor, but these two are the most important. This is what I believe in when I say that I believe in science. Any scientific research that complies to these rules is credible in my opinion. Any scientist who is able to keep his faith, religion, personal opinions and prejudices separated from his research, and the conclusions he draws follow logically (that is: they obey Ockham's Razor),
Unfortunately there has only been very little research in the field of science that is supposed to bring the paranormal or metaphysical world closer to the physical reality.
The author of the Zero Point Field article tried to trick his readers into believing that quantum mechanics have anything to do with metaphysics, by throwing all sorts of “evidence” at them. This leads to a very complicated theory, that everything is interconnected. I still believe that there's a more simple explanation for what happened in his examples, so Ockham's razor applies.
When handled correctly, science can be a powerful tool in learning new things. When handled incorrectly, science can be a powerful tool in asserting beliefs.
