The Wind in His Fists

What if our current scientific view is all wrong?  It’s happened before.  James Clerk Maxwell once wrote that “the ether was the best confirmed entity in the whole of physical theory (Polkinghorne, John.  Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction, p. 4)”. 

In fact, there is no assurance that science provides an accurate picture of reality at all, or that it “progresses” toward a clearer and clearer picture of “reality”.  Science works from within the prevailing paradigm of the day, a paradigm that dictates the questions that are allowed to be asked, and the methods used for solving them (Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).  The progress of science toward clearer and clearer pictures of reality is an illusion created by the fact that the scientific community believes this.  The scientific community perceives itself as ever progressing toward the “truth”, and so whenever changes in methodology or theory become accepted by the community, they are seen as progress. 

If, for example, I accept quantum mechanics as the only way to find truth about atoms and sub-atomic particles, then anywhere the quantum mechanical method seems to be leading will appear as progress.  QM will delimit the scope of inquiry, identify the problems to be solved, and dictate the methods acceptable for solving them.  When QM successfully solves such problems, “progress” occurs.   When QM overcame classical mechanics, it appeared to be progress because it opened up a broad new area of inquiry, and addressed problems that were outside the scope of classical mechanics.  The illusion was strengthened by the fact that it could be made to fit with the now defunct, but still useful, classical theory.   QM “works” not because it is closer to the truth, but because it is a package, complete with its own problems to be solved.  And don’t forget, the Ptolomeic system of astronomy worked as well as the Copernican (Polanyi, Personal Knowledge), even the phlogiston theory of combustion worked well for many applications. 

And as far as “working” is concerned, that really has more to do with the engineers than the scientific theory.   I don’t think it was physicists who got us to the moon, but engineers.  If scientists are involved in such processes, such as the Manhattan project, then they are doing engineering, not science.  They develop equations and methods that work, regardless of how “true” they are.

So, it is quite possible that our current scientific understanding is all wrong, and this includes our understanding of evolution and the history of the earth.  The truth may entail a very different paradigm.