Should We Trust Science?

By Mark Morgan

Marilyn Vos Savant, you're not Martin Gardner. So cut it out.

For those of you who don't know who Martin Gardner is, he was the long-running writer of the "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American. He is also the skeptic's skeptic. His 1952 book, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science is considered a seminal work in rational discussion of fringe topics and so-called "alternative" health care claims. Gardner is probably the most level-headed human being on the planet. He is still writing his long-running "Notes of a Fringe Watcher" column for Skeptical Inquirer, the organ of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal. If you have a silly claim, Martin is prepared to take your nonsense apart with a razor-sharp mind and a take-no-prisoners approach. His books should be on your bookshelf.

Then there is Marilyn Vos Savant. She writes a short column for Parade magazine mostly exploring logical puzzles, sort of a poor man's "Mathematical Games." All well and good. But then she makes the horrible mistake of taking on subject way too complex for her brief column, as if she could solve complex philosophical riddles in the same breezy manner she whips off solutions to math conundrums. In this she's no Martin Gardner, and she should stop trying to be.

What prompted this is her recent take on the Kansas Board of Education's abandonment of science in favor of ignorance. In case you have forgotten, Kansas decided that evolution--the fundamental organizing principle for the biological sciences--is no longer a part of their standardized curriculum. Creationists, incapable of getting their religion accepted as the science it's not, have changed gears and are hell-bent (pun intended) on getting evolution removed from schools. I suppose the germ theory of disease is next, since it's such a common target for those on the fringe.

In the wake of such a disaster for the education of children in Kansas, what was Ms. Savant's insightful take on the situation? To paraphrase her: "The Big Bang Theory is accepted on faith."

Go on, read that paragraph again. Her answer to a question about basic science education in this country is "The Big Bang Theory is accepted on faith." She then went on to clarify that, why, yes, she does think the decision in Kansas is wrong. Thanks, Marilyn, for getting around to that a month later. Oh--and too much science is built on faith.

Aargh! If you don't have room to make your meaning clear, don't even tackle the darn subject! Because it's clear she has a point of sorts, but the implication everyone would get out of her first response is that she agreed with the decision in Kansas. There was a letter to the editor in my local paper immediately afterwards which boiled down to this: "The world's smartest person says science is just another kind of faith. But where science is the work of Man, the Bible is based on Truth." Thanks, Marilyn, for your work on behalf of the skeptical community.

You can't just whip an answer off like this in a two paragraph note in your column like it's the topic of the day at the dinner party. The topic is too complex. Is science built on faith?

The short answer is no. Science is built on empirical evidence. You examine something empirically, and try to determine what the subject is and how it relates to the rest of the universe. Read this excellent essay over at the Skeptic's Dictionary for more on exactly how science works. But wait until you're done here, please. Just a few more minutes of your time.

Faith, by the most reasonable definition, is belief without regard to empirical evidence. There might be empirical evidence to bolster your faith. There might not be. Your faith endures without regard to this issue.

So science, which is built on an empirical foundation, is different from faith, which cares not about empirical verification. So why is Marilyn Vos Savant saying too much science is built on faith? I think she's saying two things. First, many scientists defend a subject without having read the research on the matter. So from an individual standard, if you want to be very strict about it, those scientists might be said to have faith that the research says what they think it says, and that the evidence is there.

Second, I think she is saying that some kinds of scientific inferences are just too darn shaky to be on solid ground. For example, the idea that the universe was once smaller than the size of a polka dot seems to particularly offend her. I myself haven't examined the evidence, but I would imagine that it is a very subtle and somewhat tenuous argument that leads to this conclusion. I also would imagine that what cosmologists are busily doing is testing this assumption--universe once smaller than a polka dot--and seeing if the predicts what we actually find in the universe. But since I haven't read the actual research she'd probably dismiss me as just having faith.

Now, there is a certain amount of arrogance in the scientific enterprise. There's a legitimate reason for a certain amount of it. Astronomers can't climb down out of their observatories to confront every Veliskovsky who thinks he has revolutionized science. So they become dismissive of those who don't play by the rules--research, test, publish in a peer-reviewed journal.

But if you spend enough time looking at the scientific enterprise, you develop a kind of trust in the process. For one thing, unless big business has it's patent-hungry hands in it, science is a magnificently transparent enterprise. You can't claim so much as the sky is up without having to go past the guard dogs of your peer reviewers, who will question every assumption and demand you clear up every ambiguity.

Then if you survive that, everybody in your field will now look at your research and bust you if you are at all sloppy. Part of science is repeatability, so if you publish something in a peer-reviewed journal you must be prepared for somebody else to try and repeat your activities to see if they get the same result. There is even a growing understanding of the need to watch out for fraud.

After spending any time at all examining this whole grinding wheel claims go through, you will come to the unavoidable conclusion that if a scientist is claiming something of their research, it won't be long before some other scientist points out everything that is wrong with their claim. And then some third scientist will take issue with both of them. And out of this constellation of effort, bogus claims will filter right out into the sewage.

This says to me that I don't have to read every bloody piece of research to repeat claims made in some scientific discipline. If Big Bang cosmologists have provisionally concluded that the universe began as a point smaller than a polka dot, I feel comfortable repeating that to people. The process will weed out the claim if it's bogus, and then I'll tell people the new results. I have come to the informed opinion that the scientific process can, for the most part, be trusted.

Now, I haven't examined the actual empirical evidence myself. I haven't performed the tests. I haven't cranked the math (thank the gods). So I suppose you could be strictly correct in saying I have faith in the results. But that's a far cry from the religious faith! I've come to an informed opinion about the scientific process, and from then on I will keep that opinion until I've been shown to be wrong. That's much more secure footing for accepting a claim than "It's in the Bible" or "God speaks to my heart"! And for Ms. Vos Savant to shove the two kinds of thought into the same box is just plain wrong.

I'm fairly sure that she knows all this. I see the problem that her forum, "Ask Marilyn," is jut too limited to address these issues in any kind of depth. That being the case, she shouldn't address them at all. Not only is that foolish, it is just plain arrogant. "See, in one sentence I can demolish your puny preconceptions." Please. And it's not particularly helpful in warding off the sea of nonsense that's invading our country. It's infuriating. It's not helpful. The final blow to my sensibility is the fact that this woman, like Gardner, is a CSICOP Fellow! Please don't claim to support the goals of one of the premiere skeptical organizations in the world, then go around sowing confusion in your wake. Meanwhile, I'm going to go read some Gardner and clean out my mind. Hope you are doing the same.

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