Science, Metaphor, and Aristotle's Informed Citizenry

In the recent article “Trapped in a World View" [1], string theorists recognize that one factor that may be impairing their ability to express a grand unified theory is language. David Bohm, a leading quantum theorist, believes that European languages “perfectly mirror the classical world of Newtonian physics” while languages that are rich in verbs more closely reflect the process-based expressions of quantum effects [1. p. 43]. To compensate, quantum theorists are exploring the Algonquian family of languages that incorporate a wide variety of verb forms. This new power of expression “may give physics the inspiration to leap forward” [Ibid.].

This article got me thinking about Natalie Angier's [2] text and, more specifically, how do the conventions of the English language constrain the representation of the complex concepts that Angier is trying to popularize? Is this the reason that she chose to use flowery language to convey her subject?

As I consider these questions two ideas come to mind: (1) The metaphor may be powerful but inadequate means to express abstract concepts (however imprecisely), and (2) What is the responsibility of an ‘informed citizenry’ (I am thinking of Aristotle’s concept of audience [3, Rhetorica, Book 2, Chapter 1]) in response to scientific rhetoric to “adopt, modify, or reject it” [4, p. 41; fifth assumption of rhetoric]. Perhaps the central question is: What are the responsibilities of both science and citizenry in contributing to a forum that allows meaning to be most faithfully constructed?

Science seems to be burdened with the responsibility to convey meaning and inform its audience, although Angier seems to convey frustration on the part of scientists to reach a public audience. Craig Waddell describes how the audience was carefully selected and constrained to not “repeat the somewhat chaotic experience of the two public hearings sponsored by the city council the previous summer” [5, p. 385]. In fact, Waddell provides a convincing argument that pathos was effectively used, if not to convey understanding of the science, to influence how the audience decided to view the need for that scientific research.

Certainly the essays in Richard W. Grinnell's [6] text take pains to express the purpose, challenge and role of science in layman terms. However, Carl Sagan transcends the idea of methods for articulating scientific concepts to the public and calls for an informed citizenry to take responsibility in this dialectic. For Sagan, public understanding of science is central to national security and “the submediocre performance of American youngsters in science and math, and the widespread adult ignorance and apathy about science and math, should sound an urgent alarm” [6, p. 18]. This apathy is central to the discussion; how can scientists and laypeople converse if the public doesn’t want to listen?

Of course this apathy may lie in the inability of scientists to express complex concepts – even Sagan believed that most people have an interest in science (the driver) [6, p. 12]. What if this inability to express complex occulted concepts is endemic to the English language? Certainly mathematics can express the subtleties of quantum theory but how many people can speak ‘Math?’ If physics can better be understood in non-Western languages (such as the Algonquian family) should the public be expected to have some grasp of these other languages in order to engage in the dialogue with Science?

Frankly, I have no idea. I do find the notion of exploring other languages in scientific inquiry fascinating. When I consider the Thomas article (in Grinnell) on Alchemy, I wonder what role the various languages (Arabic, Latin, etc) played in formulating that discipline and the future discipline of chemistry? What would physics be like if it had been explored, in the West, in Chinese?

All this is moot, I suppose, as science in America continues to be pursued (presumably) by English-speaking scientists and conveyed to an (primarily) English-speaking public. Still, how can this open the potential cadre of metaphors available to express abstract scientific concepts? How will science be represented to an increasingly global citizenry?

-Safari Bob

References

[1] “Trapped in a World View.” (2008, Jan. 5-11). New Scientist Vol. 192 No. 2637.

[2] Angier, N. (2007). The Canon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN: 978-0-618-24295-5

[3] Aristotle. (2001). The Basic Works of of Aristotle. Richard McKeon (Ed.). NY: The Modern Library. ISBN: 0-375-75799-6

[4] Lindemann (reference to come)

[5] Waddell, C. (1990). "The Role of Pathos in the Decision-Making Process: A Study in the Rhetoric of Science Making Policy." QJS 76: 381-400.

[6] Grinnell, R., W. (Ed.) (2007). Science and Society. NY: Pearson Longman. ISBN: 0-321-31811-0

How is Science Knowledge Created?

The last few weeks, I have been musing on a question: How is science knowledge created? I suppose that one may believe that knowledge constitutes facts or (perhaps more cynically) trivia or one may espouse the Aristotelian theorem that knowledge is sui genesis and can only be discovered. Perhaps scientific knowledge can be discovered through proper classification or through replication of experiment. At the heart of this question is a comparison of competing views of how knowledge is created.

These competing viewpoints are the key; knowledge is created by consensus. Consensus is crafted from competing conversations that clash and crystallize into a common perspective. This perspective is what Kuhn [1] would call a paradigm and Gross [2] has labeled a “field of argument.” Foucault describes this process of perspective-making as competing discourses converging to reflect an “epistemic shift.” He defines the episteme as “the total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, and possibly formalized systems…” [3, 191]. These competing dialogues essentially create a shift in thinking or in the creation of ‘truth.’ This creation of knowledge is enabled by the use of language and, more specifically, rhetoric.

Both Kuhn and Gross investigate the use of rhetoric to present new ideas and eventually establish new modes of thinking. For Kuhn the paradigm is born by anomaly and forged in crisis. For Gross, rhetoric plays a (perhaps) more prevalent role in the clashing of competing methods of inquiry. For Darian [4], rhetoric takes an active role in the creation of knowledge by actually being instrumental in the formation and definition of categories and subcategories. In all three, rhetoric is vital to construct discourse that eventually will form convention.

Baake [5] demonstrates that a chief tool of rhetoric to influence the formations of knowledge is the metaphor. When I first encountered Baake’s metaphor of harmonics I was skeptical (it reminded me of Leff’s [6] use of vibrate) but I have warmed to the usage. I especially like “an image consistent with my argument would be that of scientific knowledge as musical notes assembled into some kind of meaningful and evocative pattern” [5, p. 7]. In some ways, this view of metaphor could be consistent with Foucault’s object of formation.

Although these readings do demonstrate the important role of verbal rhetoric in shaping scientific knowledge, I do wonder about the role of diagrams and visual models in this process. For instance, Gross does note in passing: “the persuasiveness of the crucial experiment depends on its replicability; but the crucial experiment in this first paper is accompanied by neither diagram nor clear directions” [2,p. 9]. Later, in his praise of Optiks, Gross reduces the role of diagrams to only inference: “the rhetorical presence of Newton’s experimental method is enhanced by the sheer number of experiments described, and by the quantitative meticulousness with which their methods and results are reported” [2, p. 12]. What is the role of diagram in the rhetorical formation of scientific knowledge?

Certainly science communicators use diagrams to understand complex scientific ideas (the electron, proteins, and so on) but this rhetorical tool is conspicuously absent from our readings. Darian makes prodigious use of diagrams in his classification models [4, see 184 as an example] but these are little more than genealogical trees. How can visual metaphors contribute to the understanding of “complexity” or “paradigm”? A paradigm is essentially a rubric; could the notion of scaffolding better illustrate this concept? What about a Vinn diagram to illustrate the harmonics of “rules” in complexity theory?

Perhaps the lack of visuals in these readings in rhetoric demonstrates a preconception of rhetoric as speech—even though most rhetorical critics analyze texts. Most recently rhetoric is explored within the discipline of speech and yet visuals have long been a part of oration. Today PowerPoint slides are ubiquitous in all disciplines—including science. How do they contribute to the formation, explication and dissemination of theory?

I wonder if visual representations of complex concepts contribute more to a deductive (if/then) approach to investigation rather than the inductive approach that is prominent in the scientific method today. Perhaps visual representations in inductive methods are more diachronic and tend to illustrate specific steps within the process. I am not sure but this may be an interesting study.

-Safari Bob

References
[1] Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 0-226-45808-3

[2] Gross, A. G. (1988). "On the Shoulders of Giants: Seventeenth-Century Optics as an Argument Field." QJS 74 (1): 1-17

[3] Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge. A.M. Sheridan Smith (trans.). New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN: 0-394-71106-8

[4] Darin, S. (1998). "The Language of Classifying in Introductory Science Texts." In Essays in the Study of Scientific Discourse, John T. Battalio (ed.). Stanford: Ablex Publishing Company: 181-206

[5] Baake, K. (2003). Metaphor and Knowledge. Albany NY: The University of New York Press. ISBN: 0-7914-5743-5

[6] Leff. (1980, Fall). “Interpretation and the Art of the Rhetorical Critic” WJSC: 337-349

Four Common Misconceptions About Science

I am a member of a pipe-smoking forum and I encountered a thread discussing Expelled--No Intelligence Allowed. On an aside, has there ever been a title more descriptive? In any event, I was not surprised to find so many misconceptions about science and evolution. In fact, most of the people engaged in the discussion loved that movie and thought that "science is too big for its breeches". Good Lord n' Butter! Frankly, this kind of talk simply makes my butt tired. I responded by listing these four misconceptions and interestingly, this killed the thread.

1. Science is a method--not a belief system per se. This method is based (since Bacon and Newton) on inductive reasoning while theology and philosophy (like Aristotle) tends to use deductive reasoning. Inductive methodology is similar to the Sherlock Holmes manner of investigation while deductive reasoning is often expressed in a series of if/then statements (like Aquinas, Aristotle, and so on down to DesCarte). ID uses a deductive method that is loved by theology but generally reviled by science.

2. Evolution does not study the origin of life--just how it proceeds. This is important to understand because starting with an observation is important to inductive reasoning while starting with a presumption is deductive. Ideally, one may start with any observation and, through testing, follow the empirical evidence back or forward as evidence permits .

3. Empirical evidence is different in humanities and science. In humanities, empirical evidence may be derived from ethnography or interviews. In science, empirical evidence must be generalizable and repeatable as well as provide direction via predictability.

4. Scientific theories must be falsifiable which means that any model, theory, or even law can be tested in some way. Some philosophical, psychological and theological (ie social sciences) theories cannot be falsified. A classic example of this is Marxism or Freudian dream analysis. A skilled debater can argue these theories in any circumstance and, instead of being proven wrong (or false), these theories tend to fall in or out of popularity--based on current thinking rather than scientific data.

-Safari Bob

Is Science a Religion? Three Distinctions Why it is Not.

I am getting a little weary of hearing people talk of science as a religion - it is not a religion. Richard Dawkins addresses this notion as well as various religious thinkers (see this article as an example). Essentially, religious people see tenants of science as inexplicable and therefore akin to faith while scientists are consumed with evidence and therefore faith is irrelevant. In fact, Dawkins views faith as vice - in either science or religion.

For me, this question is simple because of perspective. Religious practitioners generally begin with the conclusion and then argue why this conclusion is true while scientists begin with a model (akin to the popular notion of theory) and then test it, which can lead to either validation or falsification. As evidence mounts, this model may gain more credibility and become a theory or even a law. This distinction (#1) alone convinces me.

Still, both do offer evidence to support their positions; this is to be expected and may confuse the bystander. These rules of evidence are both different and often incompatible (although I believe that any evidence that science amasses may be appropriated by a religious argument). Generally, because religion is a personal phenomenon, personal anecdote may be offered as proof for a claim while science demands evidence that is empirically verifiable and repeatable by a test or tests. Proof for a religious argument may be identified after the fact while evidence in a scientific context must be predicted before hand and demonstrated. This distinction (#2) alone convinces me.

Also, religion often uses a deductive logical structure which can be understood as a series of "if/then" statements. For instance, one may deductively reason that if God created a world and man is part of this world then God created man. This deductive reasoning was valuable to the origin of science (ie Aristotelian to Cartesian schools) but Bacon and others rejected this method in the 17th century for evidence-based inquiry. Inductive reasoning looks for evidence and, like a detective, the researcher follows the evidence to where it leads. Ironically, fictional detectives like Sherlock Holmes practice a kind of inductive reasoning although these observations are often referred to as "deductions." Essentially, religion tends to be deductive while science tends to be inductive. This distinction (#3) alone convinces me.

While these three distinctions are enough for me to decide that science is not a religion, I understand that they may not convince someone that has already decided the contrary. Feel free to leave me comments on this matter.

-Safari Bob