The Unnatural Nature of Science [Paperback]

Wolpert's book is an examination of the wonder of the world, and how we can appreciate it more when we understand it.

I love the idea that we should reject the intuitive, from the simple idea that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, which we all take for granted, when in fact the real truth is that we are spinning in space around our own axis, whilst orbiting the sun.

Wolpert has important things to say about science education, particularly at primary level, where it is often sloppily taught.

He also has a great turn in amazing facts - in describing how small a water molecule is he explains that if you could label every molecule of water in a tumbler, so that you could detect a single one, poured that water into the sea and allowed time for it to mix with all the oceans in the world, and then dipped a tumbler back in, the chances are that you would have at least one of those original molecules in the glass, because there are more molecules of water in a single tumbler, than there are tumblers of water in all the oceans of the world.

Prepare to be amazed if you are a general reader. Consider it essential if you are a teacher or educator.

Lewis Wolpert has written an important book which should be read by all critical of Western Culture, and in particular by those swept away by the fashionable denigration of science. It confirms my own observations that rational thought is a fragile attribute of humans, easily overwhelmed by our passions, which generate spurious rationalisations for our blind irrationality! It is a pleasure to read and coupled with his Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, make significant contributions to challenge the tide of psuedo science that forever threatens the gains of honest humble scientific work. And work it truely is. We so easily deceive ourselves and others, that we need the rigours of science to contain our capacities for deception.

Why is it that science, incomparably successful in explaining the natural world, is still alien to many people's thoughts?

Lewis Wolpert provides a lucid, succinct and clear exposition of why this is the case. The basic premise is that science has no relation to common sense. Much of it is based on mathematics, rationalist and abstract in its expression, unrelated to everyday language. Common sense thinking is not necessarily naïve but the way the universe works is not the way our common sense reasoning works. The most natural state for an object is for it to be in motion, at a constant speed, and not stationary, as common sense would suppose (p.3) You throw a ball and it falls back to Earth - it is in fact pushed back down to Earth by the force of gravity. Without it, the ball would carry on forever, until it encountered an obstacle or a force. Much of science is counter-intuitive, contrary to common sense.

Aristotle supposed that if two objects were dropped from the same height the heaviest of the pair would hit the ground first. It took 1,800 years before Galileo showed that this was not true. Both objects would hit the ground simultaneously (provided they are of the same material). So much for common sense (p 44 -45)! If something fits with common sense, then it is not science (p.11).

Second, technology and science are conflated when they are in fact very separate human endeavours. We have no idea for example who invented the telescope: it was probably a lens-maker who looked through an aligned pair of lenses, one convex and one concave, and discovered the effect. Science is not inventiveness. Until the 19th Century, most technological and engineering innovations borrowed nothing from science: `all the beautiful cathedrals with their great domes and high naves were built by engineers who based their buildings on practical experience, not on science. (p29). This may seem a surprising contention to make but as Wolpert explains, the final product of science is an idea; the final product of technology is an artefact (31). Japan, that great powerhouse of manufacturing, owed nothing of its success to a strong scientific base.

Is it not the case that all cultures do science? No, says Wolpert. He attributes the first scientist as the Greek Thales (c. 600 B.C), who tried to explain the world not in terms of myth but in terms that might be subject to verification (p.35). Thales thought that the world was made of water which was fantastical and wrong but akin to science because of the `unnatural nature' of the thought. It doesn't matter if it was mistaken - what matters is the positing of a theory, and specifying what facts would be needed to confirm the theory.

Did other cultures possess this essentially scientific curiosity? No: `for thousands of years the mythology and cosmology of almost all cultures entertained neither a critical tradition nor curiosity about nature. The idea that man is innately curious is a partial myth: man's curiosity only extends to what affects his conduct.' Most societies are not curious in nature for its own sake.

This contention also confutes philosopher John Gray's contention that the well-spring of science and religion is the same: a desire to control nature. This is not valid. The Voyager probe is one giant exercise in curiosity-satisfaction for its own sake, providing further confirmation of the unnatural nature of science. The probe doesn't seek to control the solar system but to understand it. The religious, mystical impulse is perhaps universal but the scientific one is not.

Neither is science to be confused with the creative process in the arts. Creativity in arts is intensely personal while science is a social affair, at once collaborative and competitive, constrained by the rules of the scientific community, and is about discovering or understanding the parameters of nature, not producing original cultural artifacts. Bold, imaginative thinking can play a role in the scientific advance, and scientists' work is often imbued with a sense of the awe of nature. But the pathway for progress in science means that if Alexander Fleming had never lived, others would have discovered penicillin. But if Shakespeare had never lived, we would not have had Hamlet. True Eureka moments are rare. When Fleming observed that famous petri dish, he was able to interpret the observations based on the bedrock of understanding already laid down by the patient accumulation of tested facts and observations.

Wolpert gives short shrift to relativism, especially those that claim science is a mere social construct. Power struggles and jealousies may well influence whether or not a theory is accepted. For decades, the theory of continental drift was delayed by social factors but the evidence accumulating in favour of it overcame these objections. Theory may be couched in florid, forceful rhetoric but scientific progress is not based on theory but data. A theory is just that without the data to back it up.

What about rival claims to knowledge and understanding, such as the paranormal. Wolpert does not rule out that telepathy may be a real phenomenon (and the Queen may well be a Russian spy) but the evidence against the proposition doesn't support not least (in the first case at any rate) because it would entail some fundamental revisions about the way the world is known to work. Science does not deal in absolute truth but evidence, and this is a distinction that many do not grasp. Certain mysteries have defeated all attempts to explain them - when did the first cell exist? How did the universe begin? How did something come from nothing? Profound mysteries no doubt. But positing a supernatural entity as their solution advances our understanding of the natural world not one jot.

Wolpert concludes with a brief survey of the social and ethical implications of science. He points out the physics that allowed the concept of an atomic bomb to be devised was separate from the political decision taken by Franklin D Roosevelt to build the bomb. It may be that the bomb would never have been built but for the exigencies of the war (but I doubt this: a democratic society at peace might not have taken the decision but the same cannot be said for a totalitarian one like the Soviet Union).

Scientists should not be barred from undertaking and publishing research on sensitive areas. Nothing should be off-limits - race and intelligence being one controversial example mentioned. But scientists should be aware of the political and ethical implications of their research. Science cannot tell us how to live. It can inform, but not necessarily resolve, knotty political and social problems.

All in all, an excellent exposition of the unnatural nature of science: the best explanation there is for why nature is the way it is.