Welcome to Overeducated and Underemployed. I'm
Fettin, and today we are talking about the scientific
method. And how the scientific method has actually
contributed to the mistrust and lack of understanding
of science. E .O. Wilson, who was a Pulitzer
Prize winning biologist and someone that I actually
met a couple of times before he passed away a
few years ago. E .O. Wilson, Ed Wilson. Once
said, we're drowning in information while we're
starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will
be run by synthesizers. People able to put together
the right information at the right time, think
critically about it, and make important choices
wisely. I'm not going to pretend to be one of
those people. But I do think that I've stumbled
upon a pretty clear explanation for why there
are so many people that are so quick to be dismissive
of scientific inquiry. We're going to talk about
the scientific method. And we're not going to
just talk about the actual scientific method
and whether or not there even is one. And we're
going to talk about the traditional scientific
method that is taught to people in science education
across the world that most of us are already
thinking about right now. Observation, hypothesis.
experiment, etc, etc. I know I jumped around
there and that doesn't really matter because
that's a heuristic device that was largely constructed
in the 19th and early 20th century as a way to
help professionalize science. Is it a description
of the way science works sometimes? Sure. I don't
think there's anything wrong with using the way
that the Scientific method is described in science
education as a heuristic device to understand
how science works. That's fine. What it is not
is the way that science always must be done all
the time, or even the way that science is actually
done most of the time. Science is definitely
bound by our culture, but what makes it different
than, say, religion or... superstition or mythology
or even just a regular belief is that the findings
of science can be repeated the public has access
to those findings and the evidence that supports
them and the fact that we are willing to update
our understanding of the world in the scientific
community with new information when new information
presents itself We can integrate that information
into our worldview. The worldview isn't fixed,
right? That being said, science at any given
time is only the best understanding that we have
of the physical world at that time. So the scientific
method, if taught as an example, can help people
understand some of the ways that we... validate
the information within the scientific community
and the processes that they follow. They're not
universal though. And teaching them is part of
what has led to some of the biggest misunderstandings
of the way that science operates that we've seen.
When you think about the way science is actually
conducted, versus the way that we talk about
the scientific method in science education, the
way science is actually conducted is messy and
full of cultural presuppositions and bound by
the desires of the people that make decisions
about what gets researched and what gets ignored
and what projects get funding and what don't.
There's no denying any of that. And to talk about
the scientific method without talking about any
of that makes it seem like science really isn't
trustworthy once you start to learn about all
these cultural influences that can happen with
science. But the difference is repeatability,
time, and our willingness to adjust our worldview
based on new information. Now, some philosophers
of science have said that you don't ever really
convince people that disagree with you once you
have new information. Once they're set in their
ways, you argue with them until they die. And
a new generation of scientists is brought up
in the newer worldview. But that's going down
a rabbit hole that I'm not really prepared to
tackle today. What I am prepared to tackle is
the idea that the... scientific method and i'm
using air quotes here the scientific method is
even a thing in fact the way that the scientific
method is taught in schools varies and the way
that it's framed to students has a severe impact
on the way that they understand how science works
that's been well documented you can check out
a paper from 2003 called attitudes towards science
It's a review of the literature and its implications.
It's from the International Journal of Science
Education. Essentially, just exposing exactly
what I'm talking about. Traditional education
has taught that there's this set of strict methodology
and step -by -step process that scientists operate
by. And scientists have been pushing back for
a long time against this, arguing that there
isn't a unified future. scientific method that
doesn't reflect how science actually works it
like i said it can be used as a heuristic tool
to help people understand some of the scientific
processes and things like that but if science
is bound by our culture and bound by the attitudes
and presuppositions of the people that do it
and the way that we teach science to the general
population affects how they view science as a
field then we're automatically poisoning the
well before they even decide whether or not to
become scientists sometimes. If we're not teaching
a clear understanding of how science does work,
it makes people think people aren't doing science
when they see scientists doing things other than
what they were taught as the scientific method.
And it also gives people a very rigid view. of
what science should and can be, which results
in a very narrow focus in the science being done
by the people with those worldviews. And I'm
talking about scientists who just have a very
limited view of what they think science's underlying
methods are, right? That being said, we're constantly
shifting the way that... experiments are done
hypotheses are tested how even observations are
formed even the tools that we develop can change
our understanding of what an observation is or
what can be observed so if science doesn't really
operate by the scientific method and it's bound
by our culture how can we trust it what does
hold the scientific community together if it's
not a set of standard methodologies. When I started
this episode, I really thought I was talking
just about the scientific method. As I started
planning it, I started realizing that I'm really
just talking about the reasons people do not
trust science. That brings me to Lee Smolin.
So if scientists are bound by anything at all,
it's not a methodology. The first double -blind
study wasn't even conducted until 1937. Placebo
study was not even conducted until 1937. What
we can observe now would have been unfathomable
to scientists 200 years ago. You couldn't even
really explain some of the discoveries that we've
made now to somebody from 200 years ago because...
the foundations of what make up our belief have
changed so much. It hasn't even been 200 years
since the origin of species by means of natural
selection was released. Now that's a really good
case study of how science works. Because you
had a man who did a lot of the things that you
might be able to recognize in the scientific
method, but he made multiple observations based
on... entirely other fields of science or sometimes
not even science at all. Around the time that
Darwin was on the Beagle, they were building
railroads across the United States and tunnels.
And when you blow up mountains, you start to
find fossils. You also start to understand geologic
time in a new way when you cut into a mountain.
So all of these things were bound by our culture.
The fact that we were building railroads at all,
had the advance in technology to colonize further,
to need railways to transport goods, all of these
things that were bound by our culture and our
human achievement that really didn't have much
to do with science, are what led to geologists
understanding just how old the Earth was. And
when you increase that geologic timescale, And
you start to recognize changes over time in certain
populations of species. And then you bring in
something like Malthus, right? Who's a sociologist
who talked about how there would never be enough
resources to feed the number of people in a society.
We would always have some level of starvation
and poverty. And he puts all these things together
and then combines them with his observations
in the natural world. To develop his theory of
natural selection. And then he sits on it for
20 years and he confirms it. And essentially
does what the scientific community is set up
to do after a discovery is made. But he understood
the implications of his discovery. And he wanted
to be very sure. And I'll tell the story a little
bit later down the line in the podcast. Another
episode about Alfred Russell Wallace and Charles
Darwin. Thomas Henry Huxley and how this young
dude with barely any evidence almost published
Darwin's theory right out from under him. But
if anything, that just suggests that the theory
was somewhat inevitable based on the information
that we had already discovered as a society,
as a humankind. Now, what Darwin discovered has
been refined and changed and there have been
all sorts of new discoveries made about what
he was talking about. But you couldn't even really
talk biology to someone prior to 1859 with our
lexicon and way of thinking. If you go to Animal
Kingdom at Disney World and you visit their little
conservation island, Rafiki's Conservation Island,
right? You enter their conservation center and
you see a Dobchansky quote, Theodosius Dobchansky.
who said nothing in biology makes sense except
in the light of evolution. He said this in 1973.
124 years after the theory of evolution, the
theory of natural selection, rather, was published.
In just 124 years, the view of scientists was
that nothing in biology even made sense anymore.
if you didn't look at it through the lens of
Charles Darwin's work. And that brings me to
Lee Smolin. So if science isn't operating on
like a set of methodologies, then what is it?
Because there's obviously something holding it
all together. Smolin boiled it down to two ethical
principles that we all follow. So in 2013, Lee
wrote an essay, article, for Big Think, which...
is an online publication. The publication isn't
really what matters because the author is credible.
Lee Smolin is a very well -regarded philosopher
of science. Big Think is a pop science type website.
This was not in some kind of academic journal,
which is really a shame because I think he's
onto something here. Lee Smolin says there is
no scientific method. That's the name of the
article. He says that science is actually guided
by two ethical principles. He says, we agree
to tell the truth and we agree to be governed
by rational argument from public evidence. Okay.
And secondly, when the evidence is not sufficient
to decide from rational argument, whether one
point of view is right or another point of view
is right, we agree to encourage competition and
diversification. He goes on to clarify that he
does not want. Some kind of a free -for -all,
anything goes scenario. He's still talking about
science being done by accredited scientists who
had scientific training in a university. And
he's talking about the ethics within the community
of people who have that accreditation and are
working within that community. I think thinking
about science as being guided by these ethical
principles instead of being guided by some methodology
is... really useful in a lot of ways for one
our ethical principles are something that we
tend to carry around with us a lot more within
our person than some methodology that just exists
out there in the world it's really important
that when we start to get into scientific debate
with people if we start asking them about their
methodology there's all kinds of ways that they
can answer that because there's all kinds of
ways that you can do science And I'm not saying
that their methodologies would be valid, but
it's a lot easier to disguise it than if you
operate from, are they operating from these two
ethical principles that all scientists seem to
agree on? And no, I'm not talking about science
shaping public policy. I'm talking about scientific
discovery. When it comes to science shaping public
policy, obviously it should. I don't necessarily
know what the answer is when you have policymakers
who are not participating in those ethical principles
but to start to debate them when they aren't
even operating within the same framework that
you are is really a fool's errand and that's
part of what has denigrated the integrity of
the scientific community the perception of it
at least Because when you start to have scientific
debates with people that aren't even participating
in the same framework of ethical principles that
guide what make science possible, then you're
going to be led down all these rabbit holes that
have nothing to do with science. Now, why don't
people trust science inherently already? Like,
what makes them lean toward this kind of disposition
to be? in a position where they're just like
i'm easily swayed that science is false i think
one you know when they're taught a fundamental
misunderstanding of what science is when they're
taught the methodologies instead of the ethical
principles you're just talking about the things
scientists do sometimes instead of what makes
a scientist and so i think A lot of people think
that they are engaging in scientific debate when
they're not even playing by the same rules. And
they're not even doing it maliciously, right?
They're just having a different conversation.
And a lot of the time this is the result of bad
theology when it comes to people that mistrust
science for religious reasons. Most people who
don't believe in something like evolution because
of a religious... belief hold that belief because
they're usually operating from a god of the gaps
type of theology and the god of the gaps is like
wherever we don't know something that's where
god is and it's fundamentally like it's bad science
and it's bad theology because the more our understanding
of the way that the physical world operates the
smaller your god gets Right? So automatically,
people with religious beliefs that have a God
of the Gaps theology, anytime that new scientific
information is brought to light, if they're operating
from this theology, it's threatening their belief
system. There's a really great book by a former
professor of mine, my mentor, Michael Roos, called
Darwinian Be a Christian. I highly recommend
that book. He passed away last year, but he was
very important. in the history of biology and
particularly in the debate between evolution
and creationism. He was actually the expert witness
in the Arkansas trial. But the conclusion of
his book, Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? is
that yes, of course, a Darwinian can be a Christian
if you don't operate from a God of the Gaps theology.
Now what's another main reason as I start to
wrap this episode up? Another main reason that
people gain a mistrust for things in general
is when they're done for profit. I've said previously
I'm not going to get political on this show,
and I don't intend to in the sense of talking
about political candidates or even political
issues, but Frank Zappa said that politics is
the entertainment division of the military -industrial
complex. I'm not going to talk about the entertainment
division, but I will talk about the military
-industrial complex. and the medical -industrial
complex. And the combination of these two things,
just like how the fact that we were building
railroads helped determine what we were discovering
in geology, the fundamental motivator of a lot
of science being done is now financial. Now,
the geological discoveries from the railroad
were an unintended consequence of financial and
economic decisions. that were driven by a multitude
of human advancements. It's not like these people
were going out and trying to make scientific
discoveries in order to turn a profit. But that
does sound really familiar, doesn't it? Does
that process sound like something that you've
seen? Because with medicine being for profit,
with large amounts of what is being studied,
nowadays, being determined by who gets grants.
When you combine all of these complications that
go into what has shaped the scientific community
today, you really start to understand how, with
just a little bit of motivation and a fundamental
misunderstanding of what unites the scientific
community, it's not a set of methodologies, but
a set of ethical principles. The scientific method
was a heuristic tool. literally invented for
science education. There is no the scientific
method. There are scientific methods. Those change.
Those are shaped by culture. The reason that
science works is because of the understanding
and the agreement that scientists in the community
have made to do their work with integrity, present
their evidence publicly, and most importantly,
being willing to change their worldview. based
on new information. That doesn't even mean you
have to say you were wrong. Newton was wrong,
if we want to be fundamentally clear. But that
doesn't sound like the right way to characterize
Newton. Newton was the most right that anybody
was at his time. And when the scientific community
reaches a consensus about a topic, you can usually
bet that is the best understanding. That we have
about a topic at this time. No matter what drove
us to get there. Now, things not being studied.
Things being studied at certain angles. That
all impacts things. And I'm not saying it doesn't.
And I'm not saying that science wouldn't be better
off if it wasn't bound by our culture. But it
is. Just like everything humans do is. Pretending
it happens in a vacuum. only generates mistrust
when people realize that it doesn't. And emphasizing
what makes science outlast those cultural parameters
and scientific discovery be more credible than
the conditions that they were discovered in requires
a completely new understanding of the way science
works as taught in our science education system.
Thanks for listening. I'm Fedden. This has been
overeducated and underemployed. Shout out to
Lee Baines for inspiring the title. If you want
me to answer a question on the podcast, shoot
me an email. FeddenXR at gmail .com. That's F
-E -D -D -U -N -X -R at gmail .com. Check out
Fedden .net. In the next week or so, I'll be
launching Fedden's Top 40. It'll be a playlist
that rotates every week. I'll change it up a
little bit. It'll be available on both YouTube
Music and Spotify. It'll be music that I'm talking
about on the podcast, music by people I'm interviewing
on the podcast, and some of it's just music I'm
listening to and enjoying. Once again, I'm Fedden.
This has been Overeducated and Underemployed.
Thanks for listening. On the next episode, we've
got Cole Taylor from Classic City Wrestling.
He's going to tell us all about how to start
a wrestling empire. I hope you join us.