The Wonder of Science

Science is a puzzle to me, one I suspect I will never fully understand. Not the subject itself - I studied science at university, and have even conducted the odd bit of research and published the occasional paper. It is the reaction of the majority to science that I just don't follow. So many people seem to find science "boring", "hard", or even "dangerous". Which I find strange, since I see science as "intriguing", "straight-forward", and "empowering".

The strangest of all, to me, is the clash between science and religion, fact and myth, reason and spirit. This clash takes many forms, from the creationists who insist that the theory of evolution is discredited by their overly literal reading of the bible, to those who claim science a failure because it cannot currently explain some experience they or another claim to have experienced. I've seen books whose introductions claim they should not be read by those who hold a rational view of the universe. Where does this hostility come from?

Let me get some basic misconceptions out of the way this week, then I'll get to the meat of the argument in my next column. First, lets move away from the ridiculous idea that because science can't explain something now, it has somehow failed. This is the main theme of most of the early episodes of the X Files. Scully, the "scientist", can't explain the phenomenon she and Mulder observe. The viewer, of course, knows these are real - at least within the confines of the program - and is invited to scoff at the foolish Scully as she refuses to acknowledge the reality of something science can't explain. The aim is to show science as a failure - in fact Scully is not a scientist. Any real scientist faced with an unexpected, unexplained observation would try to examine it, theorise about it, test it.

Let me try another example - hypnotism. Many people place belief in hypnotism into the supernatural world, something unexplained (and therefore, somehow, unexplainable) by science. Something Scully wouldn't believe in. I don't believe in hypnotism. I don't believe in the chair I'm sitting in or the computer I'm typing on either. I know all three are real - belief hardly comes into it. Unless Paul McKenna has hundreds, probably thousands, of people on his pay roll, he's doing something on stage. If it looks like hypnotism, works like hypnotism, we might as well call it hypnotism. So how do I explain hypnotism? I can't. As far as I'm aware, hypnotism has not been properly studied yet - some studies have suggested that certain rhythms might induce effects on the brain similar to certain drugs, but I'm not aware of a generally accepted, complete theory having yet been developed. But this in no way means that such a theory cannot be developed. Fifty years ago, the structure of DNA was revealed. Fifty years before that, could we have reasonably said that the basis for reproduction, genetic inheritance and evolution was unexplainable by science? Of course not - it's now been explained, so must have always been potentially explainable. So why is hypnotism different? While we may never understand hypnotism perfectly, there is no reason to suppose that we can't get as close as our desire and time allows. After all, hypnotism is a sufficiently explicable phenomenon that some people (Paul McKenna again) can be trained to consistently produce predictable results.

Some people would argue that explaining hypnotism would take away the wonder. I don't see how. Another example should help, this time based on the work of the mathematician Chris Langton. Imagine an infinite, flat world, divided into equal, small squares. Each square can be white or black, but to start with they're all white. Now place an ant on one of the squares. Not a real ant, but a simple creature that follows the rules we give it :

1. Change the colour of the square you're on. (If it's white make it black, if it's black make it white.)
2. Step forward onto the next square.
3. Look at the colour of the square - if it's black turn left, otherwise turn right.
4. Start again at 1.

That's it. The entire rules of existence for this imaginary creature. Of itself, quite dull. But set the beast in motion, and things become more interesting. For the first few moves, everything is predictable. Most people can see what will happen for maybe a dozen moves - if you can work out much more than that in your head, your memory is much better than mine! After that, the ant's movement becomes chaotic, seemingly random. Until the ant has taken about 10,000 steps. Then something extraordinary happens - the ant starts to build a road, diagonally off into the distance. (Anyone wanting to see this for themselves can find numerous versions on the internet - there's a good one at http://www.math.ubc.ca/people/faculty/cass/www/ant.html.) This is a virtual world in which everything is understood, yet most people would find the ant's final behaviour very surprising. Does the explanation remove the wonder? Or is the fact that such simple rules give rise to such behaviour in itself wonderful? I would argue that a knowledge of the rules underlying Langton's Ant enhances the wonder of this little beast. If that is true of the ant, why not hypnotism? Or anything else?

Humans are essentially curious. We want to know about ourselves, each other, the world. We like to have answers to questions of what, why, who, where. The success of everything from religion and newspapers to soap operas and reality TV relies on this. Why should science be any different? Admittedly, soap operas are designed to be entertaining, as well as feeding into our innate curiosity, but this hardly applies to reality TV or religion, in both of which cases the great attraction for the participants is their supposed truth. I would argue that the great insights of science are just as satisfying for our sense of curiosity as those that come from any other source. That when science is presented with enthusiasm and without the complexities of mathematics and long words, the result is as fascinating as any other, and given the counter-intuitive and surprising nature of many results of modern science, potentially more so.

Which brings me neatly to the third great objection to science. It is hard. Which I must admit is true. Science is also straightforward. It is simply a matter of how you participate. The work of science - constructing experiments, formulating theories, building mathematical models - is hard, and often dull. However, this is equally true of, say, music - endless hours practising guitar or violin, arranging music, rehearsals. Just as no one would suggest that you need to be a concert violinist in order to enjoy music, there is no need to be a practising scientist to enjoy science. Unfortunately, this is exactly the impression many people have gained from school - science is maths, formula, experiments. Hard. To an extent this is necessary - anyone who is going to become a practising scientists needs to know about maths, formula, experiments. But at its basis science is about telling stories. Stories that conform to some standard of truth, certainly, but stories none the less. The behaviour of Langton's Ant can be described without maths, you can watch it build its highway without needing to program the computer yourself. There are many other stories - the story of the big bang, the story of evolution, the story of teleporting particles. Not heard of the last one? There is a small chance that any object will suddenly not be where it is, but over there instead. The chance gets bigger for smaller objects - so electrons and the like do this all the time - that's how we know. Indeed, this ability of electrons makes the computer I'm using right now work. It is possible for you to teleport too. Don't use this as an excuse if you're ever caught in the local bank vault, though - the chances are so small that it will almost certainly never happen to you, or indeed any other animal on this planet. See how easy that was? Science - intriguing, straightforward, empowering.

Which leaves just two major problems that people have with science - the dangers to which it can be put, and the clash between the natural and supernatural. They'll have to wait till next week - I'm out of space.

Graham Robinson. 2nd April 2003.

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