Scientific Method, Flawed?

Featured, Issues, Scientific Method — By Administrator on December 7, 2011 at 12:00 am

POINT:

The Power of Science

by Adam Becker

COUNTERPOINT:

Where Our Minds Fall Short

by Ryan Dougherty

Why does science produce facts about the world? What’s special about the scientific method? Sure, scientific facts are generally approximations to the truth, and we don’t have complete knowledge of nature, but science has an astonishingly impressive track record nonetheless. How does the scientific method produce approximately true knowledge of the world around us? The self-correcting nature of the scientific method plays a role, as does the overwhelming value it places on empirical data. But these both spring from a deeper and more important truth about the scientific method: it relies on inductive reasoning applied to the world around us.

Inductive reasoning is the idea that the more often something has happened before, the more likely it is to happen again. So, for example, we all think it’s extremely likely that the sun will rise tomorrow, since it rose yesterday, and the day before, and throughout all of history. Similarly, every time you’ve been hungry and you’ve eaten, you’ve felt less hungry, so eating will probably make you less hungry in the future as well. Ultimately, this is how we know everything that we know about the world, and we use inductive reasoning so often that we hardly ever think about it. It doesn’t have to work, though: just because something happened before doesn’t mean that it’ll happen again the same way, nor that it’s more likely to happen again at all. After all, as every investment banker knows, past performance does not guarantee future results, and statisticians have been dolefully chanting “correlation is not causation” for centuries now. Yet we do use induction quite frequently and very successfully.

The scientific method rests on an untestable belief: applying inductive reasoning to our perceptions can actually give us knowledge about the world. We shouldn’t hold that against science, though. It’s a basic fact of logic that you can’t draw any sort of conclusions without taking some statements for granted; logicians and mathematicians call these unproven statements axioms, and you always need a few of them, even for basic stuff like addition and multiplication.

Of course, the fact that all systems of belief have fundamentally untestable statements at their core must mean that they’re all equally arbitrary and none of them should be taken as a more legitimate way of looking at the world than any of the others, right? Well, not quite. There’s a way out of this: not all axioms are created equal. We may have to pick some axioms without logical justification if we want to get somewhere, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no way at all to pick out our axioms.

There’s that great untestable belief up there, that belief in the power of induction to tell us about the world. As untestable beliefs go, it’s the best one available. Forget science for a moment here — that claim is the weakest one you can make that will still allow you to stumble through this world with some hope of understanding what’s going on. To see what I mean, try to imagine not believing that perceptions and inductive reasoning can tell you about the nature of reality. How does your day look?

You wake up, and you go to the kitchen and pour out some cereal into a bowl. Except that you’re not sure that the bowl will hold your cereal — sure, it seemed like it did yesterday, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Hell, you don’t even know that your cereal is in the box at all. For that matter, how do you know that the floor will support your weight? Or that there is a floor? In fact, you aren’t even sure that eating the cereal will make you less hungry…
Still not convinced? Think I’m being silly by making judgments about statements that are untestable in principle? Fine. Have a look at this pair of untestable statements:

Statement A: Applying inductive reasoning to our perceptions gives us pretty good information about the world around us.

Statement B: There is a unicorn in my basement that hangs out there, but only when nobody is looking, and it never leaves any evidence that it’s been there.

If you don’t think that it’s possible to make judgments on the relative merits of untestable statements, then you have to say that Statement B is just as good as Statement A — and that’s just strange. It certainly seems like Statement A is much more plausible than Statement B, even though neither one can ever really be “tested.”

So science is based upon an untestable belief, just like everything else! But it’s got the best untestable belief — one that you already believe, and that you could hardly afford not to believe. And that’s really the only core belief that we need in order to start doing science, whereas other systems of belief seem to require a lot of bells and whistles in addition to a belief in the power of induction. The scientific method, in short, is special because it is based on a lack of faith relative to other systems of belief: we take as little on faith as we reasonably can when we do science.

Read the counterpoint...

The scientific method is a human-made miracle. It has maximized our ability to understand the universe in such a simple way, and it is mind-boggling that it took hundreds of centuries for humans to develop scientific methods. Any aspiring scientist does not pursue a field of research merely because he or she is interested in the mechanisms of certain phenomena. As humans, we are constantly looking for an ultimate explanation, itching to answer the great “Why?” We want to find the narrative that will show us how the physical world works and where the universe is heading. Developing this worldview through scientific methods is limited.

To explicate this, it’s critical to understand the limits of the human mind. Neuroscience is useful here for two reasons: (1) it gives us the grounds to understand what in the universe we can perceive and, consequently, understand, and (2) it approaches the subject of consciousness-an area the scientific method cannot grasp.

To understand our brain’s limits in understanding the universe, it’s helpful to consider the brain of a bat. Although we can never know “what [it is] like to be a bat” (as philosopher Thomas Nagel concluded), we can certainly speculate that its conscious experience is drastically different from ours. For starters, a bat has very poor eyesight. It must rely on echolocation in order to navigate its environment. From this alone we can conclude a difference in our respective perceptual worlds. If a bat were to evolve so it could design something similar to our scientific method, it certainly could not use vision as the basis of observation (observation being the first step in the scientific method). There is an entire field of physical phenomena in the universe that lies outside the bat’s comprehension. Simply because our hypothetical bat cannot use the scientific method to understand visual phenomena, these phenomena are not any less “real” or less worthy of study.

Such perceptual worlds are known as umwelts. Because they vary by species, we can conclude that there is no objective way to observe the universe. Some animals see more or fewer colors; others can smell from impressive distances and some even detect magnetic fields. Our brains constrain what we are able to infer about the universe; to this end, we are very limited by our senses. We cannot go around proclaiming that the scientific method is a find-all cure-all; we have to acknowledge the bounds of the human umwelt. For example, dark matter - a mysterious substance that composes a majority of the universe - lies completely outside the human umwelt.
As we desperately try to assert our beliefs in the world, either for some existential comfort or when scrambling to form a research presentation, the human mind is bound to be biased. Yes, inductive reasoning (which characterizes scientific rationality) is an extremely powerful tool; however, it is far from perfect. Three types of biases show up in any research. First, scientific researchers (or any curious being) will use whatever information is most accessible—the availability bias. Confirmation bias arises when people seek out information that fits with prior beliefs. Think of Robert Anton Wilson’s quote, “What the thinker thinks, the prover proves.” (And see what I just did here? I found a quotation that confirms my own belief.) Lastly, similar to the confirmation bias, there is the predictable-world bias: individuals seek to find order and patterns in phenomena, even if there are none.

Induction also troubled philosopher David Hume. He argued that it is impossible to be certain that assumptions we base on previous experiences will ever hold true in the future. Furthermore, our only basis for justifying inductive reasoning is inductive reasoning itself, a disturbing regression that undercuts the project altogether.

So what is there to do when our methodology hits a brick wall?

Consciousness—the experience and sum of mental processes—is an elusive concept, lying outside the scope of the scientific method. We cannot study consciousness inside other people because it is a subjective experience. There is no region in the brain that is responsible for creating the unified experience, and so far there is no explanation as to how a physical process can give rise to the experience of a thought, emotion or sensation. This is where reconsidering the scientific method is vital. If we wish to fully explore the basis of our reality—consciousness itself—we must be ready to employ a new, rigorous paradigm that allows for the study of the subjective experience. And don’t be fooled by the scientists who have made metaphysical assumptions about consciousness, be it reductionism (the mind is reducible to the physical brain) or dualism (the mind and brain exist on two different planes). Nobody knows, and our current model certainly won’t answer it.

If we want to predict the trajectory of a rocket or the behavior of a crayfish, the scientific method is appropriate. But as our understanding of the world grows, we’ll find that the current scientific method no longer fits us. We must adapt and be ready for great shifts in our thinking.

Read the point...

Edited by: Lexie Tourek and Melanie Kruvelis

Authors:
Adam Becker is a sixth-year Ph.D. student in the Physics Department at the University of Michigan. His blog is online at www.FreelanceAstrophysicist.com.
Ryan Dougherty is a junior in LSA. He blogs at themindexperience.tumblr.com which aims to make neuroscience and psychology more accessible to the public.

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Tags: Consciousness, logic, neuroscience, Philosophy, Science

3 Comments

Teddy A says:

December 19, 2011 at 6:59 pm

Really liked the first essay. Really didn’t like the second.

Some comments on Ryan’s essay:

“Neuroscience is useful here for two reasons: …(2) It approaches the subject of consciousness–an area the scientific method cannot grasp.”

Neuroscience is a science. Neuroscientists use the scientific method. I’m not sure what was meant here but this error didn’t really trouble me. Neuroscience isn’t really brought up again in the essay and I’m guessing he just meant to say that certain aspects of consciousness are really tough to explore and explain using scientific methods. Fair enough.

I think the argument that is made in the third and fourth paragraph is completely useless. Ryan says:
“Simply because our hypothetical bat cannot use the scientific method to understand visual phenomena, these phenomena are not any less “real” or less worthy of study.”
By analogy, we humans should not be able to use our scientific method to understand the phenomena of high-frequency sound waves that bats create and are able hear. As we all know, this is not the case. We can create devices that allow us to observe phenomena that are well beyond or below our range of sensitivity.

Ryan, how do you respond to this? Would you then make the claim that these things that we observe are themselves contingent on our human consciousness? Would a bat’s spectrometer not pick up waves in the visible range of humans because they truly don’t exist to bats? (This is a separate argument that I think would be equally wrong but I don’t mean to put words in your mouth and I don’t think you suggested this. Just postulating).

Ryan later dismisses the reductionism of those that think “the mind is reducible to the physical brain”. I would argue that there is considerable evidence, both from neuroscience and common sense, to support this claim.

If a person’s brain is destroyed, I believe that their consciousness is destroyed as well. Many would disagree with me and argue that it is entirely possible that this person’s consciousness merely enters some state where it is simply unable to communicate with corporeal minds. What, then, happens to someone who’s brain is partially damaged but not completely destroyed? Does the missing part of their consciousness wait for them in the aether until the rest dies too?

Functional neuroimaging allows us to look at brains as they, well, function. What we observe is that when two different individuals are exposed to similar stimuli, possibly designed to evoke empathy or laughter, their brains seem to do similar things. Though this may seem like pretty unremarkable evidence, when we step back and consider the two propositions (thoughts are only due to the physical processes that happen in one’s body vs. something else) on equal footing, the evidence seems pretty suggestive.

Though I disagree wholeheartedly on several of Ryan’s points, I definitely agree that science may not produce very satisfying answers for us in the realm of consciousness. Seeing an FMRI image of a person who is in love is not a very emotional experience.

I have more to say but I gotta go study. Keep ‘em coming Consider!

Reply
- Ryan Dougherty says:
  
  February 18, 2012 at 8:56 pm
  
  Thanks for the response. Here’s my thoughts:
  
  “Neuroscience is a science. Neuroscientists use the scientific method. I’m not sure what was meant here but this error didn’t really trouble me. Neuroscience isn’t really brought up again in the essay and I’m guessing he just meant to say that certain aspects of consciousness are really tough to explore and explain using scientific methods. Fair enough.”
  
  Notice that I said it “approaches” the subject of consciousness; i.e., if any scientific field were to help us make conclusions about consciousness, neuroscience is it, but it can never make any true conclusions. Why? Because science cannot study a subjective experience by it’s definition. So let me clarify myself: yes, neuroscience is limited insofar that the scientific method is limited. Lastly, I mention this because the theory of umwelt is also a philosophical problem that exists in neuroscience. In fact, my entire essay revolves around psychology (logical fallacies) and neuroscience (umwelts and consciousness).
  
  “Ryan, how do you respond to this? Would you then make the claim that these things that we observe are themselves contingent on our human consciousness? Would a bat’s spectrometer not pick up waves in the visible range of humans because they truly don’t exist to bats? (This is a separate argument that I think would be equally wrong but I don’t mean to put words in your mouth and I don’t think you suggested this. Just postulating).”
  
  I understand the objection you make here, but my claim is not that we cannot create technology to observe phenomena outside our umwelt. Like I said in the beginning, science has the power to do a lot. What I am claiming is that there may be an infinite amount of properties in the universe, many of which may be unobservable (by our mind OR mathematical deductions), because we do not have the capacity to comprehend such concepts. We could never know of their existences, entirely.
  
  “If a person’s brain is destroyed, I believe that their consciousness is destroyed as well. Many would disagree with me and argue that it is entirely possible that this person’s consciousness merely enters some state where it is simply unable to communicate with corporeal minds. What, then, happens to someone who’s brain is partially damaged but not completely destroyed? Does the missing part of their consciousness wait for them in the aether until the rest dies too?”
  
  I am not denying the importance of having a brain. That would be silly. I would have you consider that although physicalism has as much supporting evidence as it does evidence which undermines it. First off, there are mental states which do not have physical states entirely (e.g., states of depersonalization cannot be attributed to mechanisms). An objection to this may state that science has yet to uncover some of the physical states of the brain, but this brings me to my second point. It may be that our concept of the mind is biased in the sense that we cannot conceive of a mind without a brain, which is what you have done. A wonderful argument is brought forth by Gertler, which is as follows: (1) There is no universal definition of what is ‘physical,’ so let us conclude (in the philosophy of the mind) that what is physical is that which is not mental. (2) We understand which mental states we are in not by the physical states they cause, but in the way which we experience them (i.e., when we are in pain, we do not need an fMRI to tell us we are in pain). (3) If we do not need the physical brain to infer what mental states we are in, it follows that it is possible to have a mental state without a physical state, because it is not necessary to reduce our mental states to our physical states. If you don’t understand the point here, read on:
  
  You mention the ability to use fMRI’s to infer about other’s mental states. I’m not sure what you mean by “suggestive”, but if you are stating that physical processes give rise to mental experiences, then this is a common fallacy made (especially for people who have only been exposed to ‘pop psychology’). fMRIs tell us which mechanisms are CORRELATED with mental states, not which physical processes are necessary to cause a mental state. Thus, what we can conclude about pain is that pain is associated with a certain neuron firing. That is, a mental state is IDENTICAL to a certain physical state; but if they are one in the same, one cannot be the cause of the other, because nothing can be the cause of itself. It is then incomprehensible to state that the physical process gave rise to the mental state, in the same sense that it is impossible to assert the mental phenomena gave rise to the physical process. Either way, your point is entirely useless because imaging doesn’t allow us to make any conclusions without postulating other theories.
  
  It may be that the mind EMERGES from the physical brain; i.e., certain physical processes give rise to mental properties in the brain. This brings both our understanding of brain-mind correlations and consciousness together–but to the extend that the mind is dependent on the brain is unclear, and to this point, likely to be limited.
  
  Lastly, I am afraid that our physical account will bring about a sort of chauvinism–that is, we can only conceive of a mind if it only has a human brain. If we discover a new intelligent species, our fMRIs will be entirely useless, because it would be impossible to tell if they experience anything at all, and if they DO experience, how comparable are their mental states to ours? Again, science falls short in studying subjective experience. And as you have failed to object to the induction fallacy, it is certainly the case that the subjective experience certainly falls short in understanding the objective world.
  
  Reply

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Consider Magazine » Blog Archive » Endpoint (12.9.2011) - 9 Dec 2011

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