Science is a relatively recent human endeavor. I will state I am unequivocally a fan of science. I studied it seriously as an undergraduate student and investigated various methods of doing it as graduate student. I am ashamed that we have political leaders who bash science, the people who do it, and the lessons we have learned. I predict that will be the downfall of the country rather than the instability caused by their political decisions. I am further ashamed that so many people have abandoned science for the finding of their own “research.”
As an advocate of science and a practitioner, I have always been interested in the fact that science often finds us undertaking very different types of activity. We bring observation to our work and we establish fact at times, while at other times, we must bring creativity to the data to have them make sense.
In Leonard Nash’s 1963 book, The Nature of Natural Sciences, he describes the Method (capitalized as he is defining a specific method adopted by scientists) as typically described and the opposing activities, which he claims are equally vital for science.
| Traditional approach to science | Equally important approach |
| Empiricism (defining facts) | Speculation (defining hypotheses) |
| Skepticism (of observations) | Faith (in the process and in mathematics) |
| Logic (when approaching problems and data) | Imagination (when evaluating experiments) |
| Order (to data collection and analysis) | Chance (to recognize relevant events) |
This seems to introduce contradictions to science. How to we differentiate being speculative when we are evaluating data and when are we introducing conspiracy theories? When does skepticism become denialism? What do we do when advocates abandon logic?
At the same time that I was reading Nash, I was also listening to Stephen Jay Gould’s essays during my commutes. Gould reminds us that science is an activity undertaken by humans, and it is affected by their preferences, biases, and occasionally they become quite unscientific in their work and sometimes they use their expertise in science to make some damn silly observations about fields far from their field.
I am hopeful that we renew our interest in science and we reestablish its presence in our society. I am hopeful that a more comprehensive video of science, such as Nash presented those decades ago will contribute to this.
Reference
Nash, L. (1963). The nature of the natural sciences. Little, Brown.