I spent the long weekend trying to fix the wireless router at home (I was ultimately unsuccessful), and trying to decipher the scientific and mathematical theories that were expounded on, in "Postmodernism and Big Science" (I was also ultimately unsuccessful). Take for example this inscrutable extract from the first chapter -
"According to Newton’s laws of motion, this induces an acceleration in the first particle given by F = ma. The m in this equation is called the inertial mass of the particle, and it determines the particle’s resistence to being accelerated. In the inverse-square law of gravity, however, the mass m measures the reaction of one particle to the gravitational force produced by the other particle. It is therefore called the passive gravitational mass. But Newton’s third law of motion also states that if body A exerts a force on body B then body B exerts a force on body A which is equal and opposite. This means that m must also be the active gravitational mass (if you like, the gravitational charge) produced by the particle. In Newton’s theory, all three of these masses - the initial mass, the active and passive gravitational masses - are equivalent. But there seems to be no reason, on the face of it, why this should be the case".
My two failed efforts partly explain why I opted to study the humanities instead of the sciences after secondary school ! (Though I doubt every science student will be able to make sense of the above paragraph - because it’s not written in the form of an equation !)
Anyway, the other not so scientifically / mathematically abstract parts of the book that I found interesting ruminated over the intrusion of scientific methods and ideas into spheres that have traditionally been the preserve of metaphysics and religion.
In regard to this issue, astrophysicist Peter Coles argues that scientists, in their desire for fame and funding, sometimes push their research one-sidedly to the media, and that this combined with the pervasiveness of the media, its eagerness to crown the next Einstein and the intellectual gulf separating the scientist from the common man, result in the elevation of scientists to some kind of cosmic priesthood, where the public image of the scientist is blown "out of proportion to his place in history and science" -
"Instant access to the media tends to generate more noise and a stronger feedback, distorting and amplifying the popular significance of a person or event until its original status is lost."
To illustrate his point, Coles cites the example of Stephen Hawking. While admitting his brilliance, and that his work has yielded new insights, Coles points out that Hawking "has not by any stretch of the imagination, revolutionised his subject [ie. science]", at least certainly not in the same way that Einstein did. Coles further argues that -
"… the huge sales of ‘A Brief History of Time’ do not necessarily imply that Hawking’s ideas are widely understood. I would even doubt whether the majority who bought the book read it … (ed : this sounds familiar - aren’t Christians doing the same in regard to the Bible ?) … [ and that Hawking's use of the ] phrase ‘to know the mind of God’ is just one example of a border infringement [ of science into religion and metaphysics ]. … [B]y playing the God card, Hawking has cleverly fanned the flames of his own publicity, appealing directly to the popular allure of the scientist-as-priest."
In the light of the above, we have to ask - is science becoming, if not already, like a religion ? Here Coles makes another interesting observation -
"… the media don’t seem to like representing science the way it actually is, as an arena in which ideas are vigorously debated and each result is presented with caveats and careful analysis of possible error. They prefer to portray scientists as priests, laying down the law without equivocation. The more esoteric the theory, the further it is beyond the grasp of the non-specialist, the more exalted is the priest. It is not that the public want to know - they want not to know but to believe."
For us laymen (especially those humanities students like me who are generally hopeless at the sciences) and worshippers of the god of science, this means that we need to exercise greater care before accepting that latest newspaper or internet article as the final word on the origins of the universe, or as another nail on the coffin of religion.
Coles, in his closing comments on the Hawking’s phenomena (ie. as in his elevation to cosmic priesthood), says -
"I am not a religious man, but I know enough about Christianity to understand that ‘knowing the mind of God’ is at best meaningless and at worst blasphemous when seen in the context of that particular religion. But Hawking himself has been quoted frequently as saying that he does not believe in anything resembling the Christian God. Indeed, his notion of a world with no boundary (and hence no beginning and no end), described in all its aspects by a single mathematical ‘Theory of Everything’, has no place for a Creator at all. Hawking nevertheless believes that when (if) the Theory of Everything is discovered, it will explain ‘whether the universe has a meaning, and what our role is in it’, as well as enable us ‘to know why the universe exists at all’. He thinks it possible to replace religion and metaphysics with a mathematical theory that encodes all the laws of nature. But the philosophical questions to be asked about the universe will inevitably involve some that cannot be answered in the framework of mathematics. Perhaps it will only be when a Theory of Everything is derived that physicists will realise that it falls short of this goal. Then, perhaps, cosmologists will begin to explore the metaphysical foundations of their subject more satisfactorily than they have done so far".
I say, amen.
