It's Evidence Only If I Say So

Is "science" really synonymous for "reality?" The mindset we have been examining treats science as definitionally equivalent to truth/fact and non-science (or perhaps "non-sense") as equivalent to preference or value. This is a prevailing view in contemporary Western society, recently put on display by apologists for the current US administration. Hold onto this thought, and also to this one: "To scientific naturalists the notion that there could be a reality outside of science is literally unthinkable."

Thomas Kuhn developed a paradigm model of science, an explanation of how science progresses that reminds one of saltationism. "Normal science" prevails most of the time, but gets interrupted or reset by occasional revolutions or "paradigm shifts." A paradigm, of course, is a way of looking at reality, a worldview or perspective or interpretative lens by which one sees and interacts with the world. Scientists, being humans, operate according to a set of values or principles or "ground rules" that influence the way they perceive reality. So long as a particular paradigm holds sway it dictates the approach to doing science. It becomes a form of "groupthink" that actually enhances the ability of scientists to communicate and collaborate. But this often means that phenomena that do not fit the paradigm are not seen or ignored because they are not being looked for. One sees what one knows or recognizes. Adherents to paradigms are typically conservative (not necessarily in the political sense), unwilling to suffer challenges to the paradigm and willing to defend it even at substantial cost. Only when the "crisis"--the overwhelming accumulation of observations contrary to the prevailing paradigm--occurs can they get past their loyalty to the old paradigm. But no matter what there must be a paradigm. "To reject one paradigm without substituting another is to reject science itself." This is what puts evolutionary biologists in a quandary. To them, there is no alternative to the naturalistic explanation they have devised for the development of life on earth. According to their paradigm, it is true and cannot be seen as otherwise. The questions for all of us, scientists and others, are whether they are right and whether they properly may control the public discussion of these matters as they currently do.