The theoretician's prayer:
"Dear lord, forgive me the sin of arrogance,
and Lord,
by arrogance I mean the following..."
~Leon Lederman
1988 Nobel Laureate in Physics
for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the
doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of
the muon neutrino.
Q.[interview 1992 U of San Francisco] How is the scientific method of hypothesis, experimentation and analysis, different than what people do in terms of decision-making?
A.[Leon Lederman]. Well the scientific method, it takes different ways of thinking about it for different scientists. We teach our kids that the scientific method is one in which everything is governed by empirical facts. You've got to have a hypothesis: start out with a hypothesis, you find out what its implications are in the laboratory, you do your experiments, if the experiments are correct the hypothesis has been supported, if the experiments turn out to not be what was predicted, then the hypothesis is relegated to the dust bin--and to history, if the experiment was right. So that is what we call, everything must be subject to experimental test. And then there is a logic that goes with science, that usually involves what the students in horror call math.
I teach liberal arts students so I know their reaction when you write down an equation. AxB=C. Oh, they say, math, I don't want math. It's not that they can't solve the equation, it's that equations are the basis of thought. They are a way of organizing your thinking logically and I think our math instruction in the schools doesn't convey that clearly enough, that you are empowered by mathematics. But that's another aspect of the scientific method, is a certain strict logic which is subject to review and criticism and so on. Now how does this differ from (other endeavors), well it certainly differs from anything you might call artistic activity, which doesn't have criteria, it doesn't have a body of--well it has a body of heritage which science has, but it's not a rigorous heritage, and it's a heritage which you can easily depart from freely as a creative artist or musician.
In science you cannot give up the heritage unless you have a very good reason. On the other hand, one of the interesting things about science which is not understood is something called the Establishment in science. That is another part of the scientific (endeavor): there is an establishment. I'm part of the establishment. Swedish holy water sprinkled on me. I'm part of the establishment, but you get to be part of the establishment by destroying the establishment, by blowing it up. That's the way you make your reputation.
So every establishment member has in his turn been an intellectual bomb-thrower, a revolutionary. Because every time you destroy the established dogma or the established body of knowledge, the accepted body of knowledge, you are going to get something better to take its place, at least that's the hope. Although nobody likes his own theory to be overturned, that's a human endeavor. You grouse, and if you're more of a human being and less of a scientist you're going to feel very bad about it and defend your theory as best you can. But at some point deep down inside the scientist will creep in and say gee, but this gives possibility of a different theory which might even be better. Of course if you find it you feel real good, if someone else finds it you feel awful. So I think that's all, there's a big difference. We have objective criteria for what's good and what's bad, whereas you know, there are critics of modern art and there are critics of atonal music and you can't convince them that this music is right and that music is wrong. That's the big difference.
Or this economic theory is right and that economic theory is wrong. Economics is a good example of an artistic expression, which sometimes masquerades as a science, philosophy is another case where there is no philosophy that is wrong, just by definition philosophy can't be wrong. Science can be wrong. |
