Is Science Real?

I just read a series of blog posts by some guy about science and culture. He's summarizing a book by a French philosopher of science named Bruno Latour, who makes a distinction between Science and Research.

The basic thrust of Latour's ideas (as summarized by Some Guy) is that scientists are not objective observers of Reality, but exist in society constructing their own subjective reality. And if he didn't use the word reality, (and maybe that's Some Guy's language, not Latour's) I'd be on board. I think it's obviously true that scientists are biased and discover things that confirm their biases. It took a long time for the dangers of asbestos to become known. When it was put in every building in the nation, science was a wonder machine of discovery. Then we became aware of the possibility that some of these new discoveries could poison us, and we started looking for new patterns, and they showed up. We ignored those clues before, as well as the people who tried to warn us, because they didn't fit into the dominant cultural paradigm.

That's all true. But that doesn't change the underlying reality. Asbestos WAS harmful all along. We didn't construct a new REALITY by figuring out the danger. We revised our BELIEFS about reality. Our CULTURE changed, not reality itself.

When astronomers recategorized Pluto as a dwarf planet, the ball of rock and ice we call Pluto didn't change in the slightest. It kept orbiting the sun and its "moon" just the same as it has done for billions of years. There is a new socially constructed concept of what that means, but it does not change the actual facts.

I think it is valuable to point out that scientists are deeply fallible, and easily prone to ignoring significant evidence. And it's important to cultivate humility - knowledge that our discoveries go only as far as our technology allows. I often scoff at people who didn't take basic sanitary steps in hospitals before the discovery of microbes, but I should remember that before the microscope allowed us to detect disease organisms, it would have been quite the leap of faith to suspect that tiny invisible things in the air or water caused diseases. We WILL look just as foolish 100 years from now - it would serve us well to remember that.

But that point acknowledged, science does have the advantage of answering to reality. It may take a long time for our culture and our technology to sort it out, but I believe the facts will eventually be revealed. If science is a total cultural construction with no connection to reality, then there's no reason to prefer it to any other culturally constructed set of beliefs. And that means that we should teach Creationism and the Flying Spaghetti Monster in "Science" class.

But we should not go that way. Other ways of finding meaning in the world are good and valuable. Art and religion make us better people in ways science cannot. But science DOES answer to reality in a way religion never will. Science is a human enterprise, and full of human flaws and frailty. But it's got something special that must not be abandoned. As They Might Be Giants put it, Science Is Real.