Science Forum Lecture No. 42: Science Matters (November 9)
2007.11.07
Peking University Forum on the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Lecture No. 42
Time: Friday, November 9, 2007, 2:00–4:00 p.m.
Venue: Academic Lecture Hall, Center for the Study of Science and Society, Chengzeyuan
Speaker: Lin Lei (Professor, Department of Physics, San Jose State University, California, USA)
Topic: Science Matters: The Newest and Largest Interdisciplinary Field
Commentator: Wu Guosheng
Brief introduction to the talk:
What is science? The answer is: “everything in the natural world is part of science.” What are generally called the “natural sciences” are in fact sciences of simple systems; the humanities/social sciences—fields of learning related to human beings—belong to the sciences of complex systems. This article discusses the origins of the two cultures (the humanities and “science”) and clarifies related issues. The very phrasing of “the blending of the literary and the rational” is problematic, because the humanities are also science. Science Matters (abbreviated SciMat) is the newest and largest interdisciplinary field, encompassing all fields of learning related to human beings. Its viewpoint and method are: inherit Aristotle’s excellent tradition, apply the successful experience of physics (especially statistical physics) and other disciplines, and from the perspective of complex systems, study the humanities and social sciences as a part of the natural sciences. We take historical physics as an example to explain how Science Matters works.
About the speaker:
Lin Lei holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Hong Kong, a PhD from Columbia University in the United States, and is Professor of Physics at San Jose State University in California, as well as a visiting professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Association for Science and Technology. Professor Lin Lei invented one of the three kinds of liquid crystals in the world: bowl-shaped liquid crystals (1982), a new paradigm in the study of complex systems: active walking (1992), and a new discipline: historical physics (2002). He has published more than 160 papers and 11 monographs. He is the founder and editor of two English-language book series, Science Matters (published by World Scientific) and Partially Ordered Systems (Springer), an editorial board member of Physics and Popular Science Research, the founder of the International Liquid Crystal Society (1990), and a co-founder of the Chinese Liquid Crystal Society (1980).
Today’s topic is very interesting. I had only heard Wu the teacher say, “let science return to the humanities,” and now, well and good, along comes “let the humanities return to science.” Of course, after listening, I felt rather disappointed; it seems that Mr. Lin, just as Wu the teacher said, is not only a scientismist, but also a physicist-ist.
It could even be said that, compared with the usual physicist-ist who tries to reduce everything to physics, Mr. Lin is even more overbearing. He does not say that one must still carry out reduction step by step, and that only after many achievements that are in fact impossible (or difficult to obtain in the short term) can such a “reduction” be completed. He does not need reduction; he says that all fields of learning “were originally” physics.
This “were originally” does not merely refer to origin, as in saying that in the beginning the humanities and science were one. That is something we can all readily accept. But just as we can admit that humans and apes were originally the same, we would not say that humans and apes are still the same now, with no distinction.
Wu the teacher must surely also agree that science and the humanities share the same root and source (rooted in “freedom”), but modern science has increasingly drifted away from the root of the humanities; precisely for this reason does one speak of “return.” Yet Mr. Lin simply denies the fact that science and the humanities have already split into two. What is going on here?
In my view, when Mr. Lin says “the humanities are also science,” he is neither speaking from a historical angle, nor from observation of reality, nor as a projection of an ideal. In fact, what Mr. Lin truly wants to emphasize is something normative—the humanities must be science, and should be science; otherwise you are “misunderstanding,” or to put it bluntly, just making a mess of things.
Of course, Mr. Lin’s claim can also be weakened into the statement that physics methods can be applied to any field. This is also something we can readily agree with. But we would say that the application of physics methods in history is only auxiliary, helpful in broadening one’s horizons and opening up new ways of thinking (as Wu the teacher said), but not fundamental. Yet from Mr. Lin’s remarks, it seems that he wants to elevate physics methods into the fundamental law of the land.
If the claim were only in this weakened form, then Mr. Lin’s idea would be more or less the same as the usual talk of “blending the literary and the rational”: it would simply mean that the humanities and social sciences should introduce more methods and results from the natural sciences, communicate and draw from one another more, and actively open up interdisciplinary fields, and so on. Of course this is good, and it is also the point on which Wu the teacher expressed agreement. But between the lines, Mr. Lin’s attitude toward the humanities and social sciences is clearly one of the strong bullying the weak—historical scholars simply do not understand physics and cannot do this.
But what counts as understanding physics? Mr. Lin said that at minimum one must serve as an apprentice for three to five years, perhaps obtain a PhD, and so on. The meaning of this statement is actually quite sound—science is not merely book knowledge, but also contains some technical elements that must be transmitted and grasped in the manner of an “apprenticeship.” However, such a requirement is obviously too overbearing; as one senior fellow mentioned, that would mean Einstein himself did not meet this standard when he first started out.
In fact, it is not only Einstein. We can see that in the “heroic age” of physics in the early twentieth century, many breakthrough advances were made by young people in their twenties, which is why some people call quantum mechanics “boys’ physics.” As for mathematics, that goes without saying even more: by the time a mathematician is in his thirties, he basically ought to retire. By contrast, the humanities require a much longer accumulation of time; especially as a philosopher or historian, one is probably only beginning to achieve some modest success in one’s forties. Others might also say—and in fact I really would like to say this—that if Mr. Lin had not followed veteran historians for several years and been steeped in their influence, he would have no idea at all how history is done. Yet now Mr. Lin has not said that he is unqualified to study history; instead, he says that those historians who do not understand physics are unqualified to study history. Although he says he does not want to change historians’ original ways of doing things, but only to add a new field, according to his SciMat, it is precisely that newly added part that is science, that is, the essence of history; all the other ways of doing things are “misunderstandings.”
It does not seem very appropriate to have failed to ask questions on the spot and then come back here to point fingers, so I will not say too much. Still, in the interest of enlivening the board, I think I myself can at least insist on posting a little comment here after every Science Forum lecture, so I may as well write it down here. Wu the teacher is right: the “commentator” system is meant to stimulate the questions and discussion that follow; someone has to throw the first brick, and only then can others speak more freely and more relaxedly.
November 9, 2007
Latest comments
- Suiyuan
2007-11-09 21:57:49 Anonymous 124.17.16.209
Not bad, not bad, thumbs-up! I think my younger fellow student is more qualified than Mr. Lin to get up there and talk about what “blending the literary and the rational” means.
Have a great weekend!
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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