Phototracks
04-02-2006, 05:09 PM
New poster here.
I have recently taken note of the plethora of recent popular accounts of Modern physics(especially high energy physics) and noticed a trend in these accounts to diverge from science and into the realm of metaphysical speculation.
It appears this all began back in the early 80's with the rise of such books as 'The Tao of Physics' and 'The Dancing Wu Li Masters'. Ever since that time scientists seemed to take notice of the interest and started to push out numerous works about wormholes, Black Holes, time travel, you name it. This phenomenon would aptly be titled the 'Golly Gee Whiz' presentation of modern science.
Also, it doesn't help that the scientific community is currently enamored with String Theory and are doing a major PR push to capture the imagination of the public. Just about every recent popular science book on the shelf has something to do with String Theory either directrly or indirectly.
On the one hand this is to be commended as it keeps the general public interested and informed about advancement in science. This interest may spark a young reader to pursue a career in science or technology for instance. On the other hand the obvious danger here is the public at large(and impressionable young minds) might start to think of the Scientific method in the same manner they would an episode of Star Trek.
As any student of philosophy knows most of our personal 'scientific' knowledge about the world is obtained from a source of authority and not first-hand observation or experimentation. For instance most new students in Physics have never arrived at the mass of an Electron through calculation or direct experiment but accept the value for the mass that is presented in textbooks as true based on the argument of authority.
The problem is too much reliance on authority can hinder any attempt to engage in critical reasoning. When this happens our intellect simply becomes a slave to authoirity. Such reliance on authority leads to conclusions like 'what I read must be factual since the author is a brilliant physicist whose knowledge and intellect surpasses mine. Therefore it must be true. It follows that I really am living in a 10 dimensional world and there are an infinite number of paralell universes. Time travel is possible if I can construct a 'warp drive' to create a wormhole and then fall into it etc etc.'
It appears we are not teaching impressionable young minds to form rational opinions of their own that are based on facts. In fact many don't even know what the known facts are since the subjects in such accounts are presented in such an ambiguos and skewed manor. In the end what this tells the public is science arrives at truth simply by ad-hoc speculation and mathematical inference. These popular accounts might in fact be fostering a type of scientific illiteracy.
It appears educators aren't helping much either. It is a distinct possibility that some in the theoretical community might even be losing touch with the reality of the scientific enterprise itself. Recently String Theorists put together a presentation to be given to science educators in public school districts around the US so they could educate their students on the latest fad. Having seen paperwork from a presentation I was totally dumbfounded. An example of a concluding statement in the teacher's presentation: ['Scientists are highly confident that experimental evidence for String Theory will emerge when the Large Hadron Collider opens in 2006. At this point we can safely say the theory itself is going to be proven true. It may need some refinements(as most theories do) but as it stands now it would be a safe bet to state the theory as fact. We also know String Theory is correct because when the scientists work out the equations they arrive at solutions that are consistent with our understanding of gravity. Nobody has been able to do this before prior to String Theory. ']
This is absolutely unbelievable and entirely unexcusbale.
Evidence may in fact arrise that String Theory has a basis in physical reality. Then again it may not. The problem with the above is not just that it presents science in a false light but that it presents the ideas in such a way that will cause the student and public to lose confidence in science to arrive at factual conclusions should the theory turn out to be a dead end.
Unfortunately if one looks at the average popular science book on the shelf one finds a similar tone. Ideas and speculative oddities are presented as facts. Rarely will an author even mention that such ideas have yet to be cooberated by experimental evidence. When they do so it is presented as an afterthought as if it is inconsequential.
I understand that due to the experimental limitations inherent in the field of high energy physics scientists have had to rely more heavily on theory than they have in the past when forming a paradigm. However, it appears many in the theoretical community has given into temptation and inferred the nature of the reality underlying the phenomenon based solely on mathematical inferences and conjectures. When this happens science loses it's identity and simply becomes another branch of mathematics. Science is an empirical undertaking and theory and mathematics will always be a means to an end. In the scientific enterprise theoretical reasoning is always subservient to observation. The ultimate litmus test of any theory is always experimentation. This is the one fact that is left out of almost all accounts of Popular Science.
I have recently taken note of the plethora of recent popular accounts of Modern physics(especially high energy physics) and noticed a trend in these accounts to diverge from science and into the realm of metaphysical speculation.
It appears this all began back in the early 80's with the rise of such books as 'The Tao of Physics' and 'The Dancing Wu Li Masters'. Ever since that time scientists seemed to take notice of the interest and started to push out numerous works about wormholes, Black Holes, time travel, you name it. This phenomenon would aptly be titled the 'Golly Gee Whiz' presentation of modern science.
Also, it doesn't help that the scientific community is currently enamored with String Theory and are doing a major PR push to capture the imagination of the public. Just about every recent popular science book on the shelf has something to do with String Theory either directrly or indirectly.
On the one hand this is to be commended as it keeps the general public interested and informed about advancement in science. This interest may spark a young reader to pursue a career in science or technology for instance. On the other hand the obvious danger here is the public at large(and impressionable young minds) might start to think of the Scientific method in the same manner they would an episode of Star Trek.
As any student of philosophy knows most of our personal 'scientific' knowledge about the world is obtained from a source of authority and not first-hand observation or experimentation. For instance most new students in Physics have never arrived at the mass of an Electron through calculation or direct experiment but accept the value for the mass that is presented in textbooks as true based on the argument of authority.
The problem is too much reliance on authority can hinder any attempt to engage in critical reasoning. When this happens our intellect simply becomes a slave to authoirity. Such reliance on authority leads to conclusions like 'what I read must be factual since the author is a brilliant physicist whose knowledge and intellect surpasses mine. Therefore it must be true. It follows that I really am living in a 10 dimensional world and there are an infinite number of paralell universes. Time travel is possible if I can construct a 'warp drive' to create a wormhole and then fall into it etc etc.'
It appears we are not teaching impressionable young minds to form rational opinions of their own that are based on facts. In fact many don't even know what the known facts are since the subjects in such accounts are presented in such an ambiguos and skewed manor. In the end what this tells the public is science arrives at truth simply by ad-hoc speculation and mathematical inference. These popular accounts might in fact be fostering a type of scientific illiteracy.
It appears educators aren't helping much either. It is a distinct possibility that some in the theoretical community might even be losing touch with the reality of the scientific enterprise itself. Recently String Theorists put together a presentation to be given to science educators in public school districts around the US so they could educate their students on the latest fad. Having seen paperwork from a presentation I was totally dumbfounded. An example of a concluding statement in the teacher's presentation: ['Scientists are highly confident that experimental evidence for String Theory will emerge when the Large Hadron Collider opens in 2006. At this point we can safely say the theory itself is going to be proven true. It may need some refinements(as most theories do) but as it stands now it would be a safe bet to state the theory as fact. We also know String Theory is correct because when the scientists work out the equations they arrive at solutions that are consistent with our understanding of gravity. Nobody has been able to do this before prior to String Theory. ']
This is absolutely unbelievable and entirely unexcusbale.
Evidence may in fact arrise that String Theory has a basis in physical reality. Then again it may not. The problem with the above is not just that it presents science in a false light but that it presents the ideas in such a way that will cause the student and public to lose confidence in science to arrive at factual conclusions should the theory turn out to be a dead end.
Unfortunately if one looks at the average popular science book on the shelf one finds a similar tone. Ideas and speculative oddities are presented as facts. Rarely will an author even mention that such ideas have yet to be cooberated by experimental evidence. When they do so it is presented as an afterthought as if it is inconsequential.
I understand that due to the experimental limitations inherent in the field of high energy physics scientists have had to rely more heavily on theory than they have in the past when forming a paradigm. However, it appears many in the theoretical community has given into temptation and inferred the nature of the reality underlying the phenomenon based solely on mathematical inferences and conjectures. When this happens science loses it's identity and simply becomes another branch of mathematics. Science is an empirical undertaking and theory and mathematics will always be a means to an end. In the scientific enterprise theoretical reasoning is always subservient to observation. The ultimate litmus test of any theory is always experimentation. This is the one fact that is left out of almost all accounts of Popular Science.