Bacon believed that the purpose of science was to “torture out nature’s mysteries”; nature must be “pursued relentlessly as she wanders,” made into a “slave,” and “forced to render service.” (This paragraph is from the internet; the source is to be verified.)
I
For now I will not dwell on the “rape” metaphor for modern science, but instead note that the word “torture” is itself an extremely apt metaphor for a key feature of modern science.
In the “rape” metaphor, science’s subject is implied to be “male domination,” while nature, though always “female,” has fallen from “mother” to “female slave”; the “method” of scientific research is “relentless pursuit,” its “attitude” is “brutality,” and science’s “purpose” is “conquest” (the satisfaction of human carnal desire?); and what of science’s “effect”? Just as the more men strive to conquer women physically, the further they drift from them spiritually, so too, even if women temporarily submit, once they resist again, they become all the less controllable. The conquest of nature by science is likewise: the deeper humanity’s “exploration” of nature goes, the further it moves away from nature; the more nature appears to submit on the surface, the more likely it is to be harboring a greater danger that may erupt at any moment…
By comparison, the metaphor of “torture” is much milder. In this metaphor, the role played by human beings is that of the “judge,” while nature’s role is that of the “criminal”; the “method” of scientific research is “interrogation,” its “attitude” is “solemn (?),” and “looking down from a position of superiority”; and science’s “purpose” is to obtain a “confession.” And what of the “effect” obtained? Is what is extorted through severe punishment from above necessarily richer, more reliable, and more truthful than what is obtained by listening to nature’s narration with reverence and humility? Is what is wrung from the mouth of a prisoner really more precious, more trustworthy, than what is received from one’s mother…
I think both of these metaphors are quite illuminating. Of course, what follows will discuss only the second metaphor.
Let us first look at humanity’s role—the “judge.” This is a reversal! For all along, the one playing judge has been nature, not human beings. Nature’s “laws” are also “principles,” “rules,” and “law” (law); nature ought to be the maker of these laws, while human beings ought to be the subjects who follow them. If human beings foolishly attempt to act against natural law, it will be human beings who are “tried.”
The rise of Christianity made some adjustments to these roles: the role of lawgiver and judge was taken over by “God.”
But by the time of modern science, human beings themselves had taken on the role of judge, and turned around to interrogate nature.
If what human beings hope to obtain by questioning nature is the “laws of nature,” and “laws” are precisely “laws.” A judge tortures a criminal in order to make the criminal reveal the law? —What does that mean? It turns out that in modern times the “legal” sense of natural law has been weakened and forgotten, or rather, if natural laws are still some kind of rule, then they are no longer rules demanding human reverence and obedience, but rules that those “natural things” are required to follow. Then what law is human society using when it interrogates nature? In fact, rather than saying that human beings are judges who prize democracy and fairness, it is better to say they are autocrats whose creed is “I am the ultimate principle.”
Of course, nature was originally an “autocrat” too, and people had only to honestly conform to her wishes. Precisely for this reason, human beings wanted revolution; they wanted to rise up and become masters; they wanted to try that long-ruling autocrat who had governed us for so long!
Since this is interrogation, naturally the other side ought to be a criminal; she has committed a crime!
Yes, she is guilty. Apart from having once been an autocrat, her greatest sin is “not obeying,” “not being honest,” “not being compliant”! Nature is always unwilling to follow human will; unwilling to bring favorable wind and timely rain year after year; from time to time she insists on making some “disasters,” harming human interests!
One purpose of science is precisely to interrogate how nature creates disasters, so that nature’s “tools of crime” can be confiscated. Fighting disasters and preventing disasters are among the major achievements science has been extolled for most in modern times. Yet many of those disasters were originally warnings and punishments from nature against human sin; but now that the judge is human, how can the criminal in turn punish the judge? Thus, all that business of warnings and punishments from nature is no longer something we consider.
II
Well then, at any rate, human beings have already become judges; should they not do their job properly? If we are not autocrats, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be fair and good judges?
Thus science, like a trial, is most concerned with evidence and most emphasizes rigor; this is also the quality of science that people most often praise to the skies.
There is no denying that science is indeed very rigorous. Just like a trial, to establish a crime, the elements required and the way they operate may be compared with a trial as follows:
Logic — The importance of logical deduction needs no elaboration.
Evidence — Ideally, a series of pieces of evidence forms a “chain,” with each item of evidence supporting the others. Perhaps a single piece of evidence is not enough to strictly derive a conclusion, but if a whole mass of evidence points to a certain conclusion, and these pieces of evidence can “corroborate” one another, then there is good reason to regard the conclusion as established.
Motive — Although not as crucial as evidence, if a judge wants to determine guilt with greater confidence, one always hopes to find the reason why the criminal committed the crime, so that the crime is easier to understand. In science too, people hope to identify the causes behind facts. Initially, people tried to search for them in “purpose” and “the good”; later, people’s attention gradually shifted—often with “God” as an intermediary—to “order,” “harmony,” “simplicity,” and eventually “beauty.” Every great scientist must surely possess a persistent obsession with tracing the “motive” of nature through scientific exploration. There are many scientists who, even more than evidence, attach importance to conformity with “motive”; for example, Einstein rejected quantum mechanics because he firmly believed that “God does not play dice.”
Testimony — We know that other people’s words are not always entirely reliable; nevertheless, more witnesses is always a good thing, and the credibility of the verdict will be greatly enhanced. In many cases, the role of several witnesses of high moral standing is often no less important than providing physical evidence. In science, that is precisely the role played by scientists who appear in the guise of “authorities.”
Confession — Although in situations where the criminal has not yet confessed, or is unwilling to confess, or cannot confess (for example, if the criminal is dead), one can still pronounce a verdict of guilt, it is of course best if the criminal can admit it in his own words and sign and leave a thumbprint. The problem is that criminals often do not confess easily. Thus, before obtaining information from the criminal’s mouth, we often need first to find some evidence, infer a motive, design the method of the crime, collect some witness testimony, and so on, and then use our preliminary conclusion to probe the criminal. If the criminal confesses, he will often supply some other evidence, which people then search out, thereby further supporting and strengthening the original inference. At the same time, after finding more evidence, one may discover new crimes the criminal has not yet admitted, and then return to interrogate him further. The development and progress of science is precisely the process of revealing more and more of the criminal’s offenses, and it proceeds through the model of “constructing hypotheses—probing by interrogation—seeking confirmation—improving theory—constructing new hypotheses.”
Forcing a confession — Sometimes a stubborn criminal remains silent. As the saying goes, “confess and you’ll be treated leniently; resist and you’ll be treated harshly.” Since he is being dishonest, special measures become necessary. Of course, perhaps the other party really did not commit a crime and naturally is unwilling to admit it; but when the physical evidence and testimonies are linked together one after another, the judge is also extremely unwilling to admit that his judgment is mistaken. Yet just as even the most fair court cannot avoid wrongful convictions, the “forcing of confessions” in science often becomes “beating a confession out of someone.” For example, the Piltdown Man skull, once identified as an intermediate link between ape and human and thus taken to confirm evolution—this was an evidentiary error. A possible case of coercion in the matter of confession is the “peppered moth” of natural selection (see Jonathan Wells, The Icons of Evolution. I do not entirely trust his account, but his criticism of evolution is indeed worthy of attention). This is the “industrial melanism” phenomenon mentioned in almost every secondary-school biology textbook: people have repeatedly conducted experiments observing peppered moths and obtained results supporting the theory of natural selection. Yet it seems these experiments were all hasty—“peppered moths do not, under normal circumstances, obey orders to stay on tree trunks!”
Presumption of innocence — If there is insufficient evidence, the court will presume the defendant “not guilty.” In science too, there is the “principle of Occam’s razor,” namely “do not multiply entities beyond necessity” — if a certain hypothesis cannot be supported by any direct or indirect evidence, such a hypothesis will be presumed not to exist.
Law — All evidence and confessions must ultimately be organized logically together with the legal text, so that a verdict can finally be pronounced in accordance with the wording of the law. The legal text itself does not alter the facts already established, but it determines how those facts are understood. In other words, what the criminal’s offense “means” depends on the legal text. However, in reality there is no sufficiently vast body of legal text that is completely self-consistent; contradictions inevitably lurk among the provisions, and the same act may be classified as different crimes. At the same time, legal texts arise from “convention” and are closely related to social and cultural backgrounds. In science, a single scientific claim is also often interpreted in many different ways; for example, creationists and atheists will offer drastically different explanations of the theory of the Big Bang. Of course, although the scientific system is also “constructed” on the basis of “convention,” the degree to which this is so is far weaker than in the making of laws.
Jury — No matter how confident the judge is in his verdict, if the whole jury were to throw eggs at him, he would probably be unable to withstand it. Under the universal rejection of the public, a judge with slightly less confidence would likely waver in his reasoning and change the verdict to suit public opinion; while a judge who sticks to his own view will remain under public scrutiny at all times. Since other fellow judges and even his superiors may also be influenced by public opinion, that stubborn judge will probably have a hard time keeping his job. In science, the influence of the scientific community and even broader social currents on a scientist cannot be ignored.
Gravity — Whether or not the court’s judgment is entirely fair, the process of trial and the result of the verdict are always “solemn,” even “sacred.” Even if we admit that the court can make mistakes, it still always looks down from a position of superiority; science is the same. A certain degree of “solemnity” and “sacredness” is not a bad thing for maintaining the healthy functioning of social institutions, but it must never be overdone, or made absolute. Even in a very democratic society, the court still will not and should not lose its solemnity, but in a despotic society the solemnity of the court is often misused.
Money — Lawsuits cost money. If you do not pay, then even if justice is on your side, the court will not help you render judgment! Unless it is some major case, a case of great importance, or a serious criminal case. Of course, if you win the lawsuit, you can often make the losing party pay the costs, while the winner receives compensation. Of course, this also means that a lawsuit always entails some risk, and the higher the compensation you apply for, the more procedures you have to go through; the more evidence you need the judge to help verify and authenticate, the more money you must pay. On the other hand, the larger the amount claimed and the more evidence there is, the larger and more reliable the compensation you may receive. For example, in reality one often sees claims for several hundred thousand or even millions in compensation for emotional distress, yet what is awarded is often only a few thousand if one is lucky. But if, from the outset, you only ask for ten-thousand-odd yuan, perhaps you will be given only a little over a thousand. This shows that even no matter how solemn and fair the court may be, it still cannot do without economic factors. Science is likewise so, especially modern science: in order to study the smallest things, the funds poured into building particle accelerators are nonetheless incalculable. Particle colliders can at least blast out something; the investment that fails in scientific research is even more innumerable.
Reliability — Science, like any trial, cannot guarantee “absolute correctness.” A judge cannot evade responsibility by saying, “Since any trial can make mistakes, it is understandable if my trial is mistaken too.” A trial always “seeks” rigor and fairness. Likewise, for the public—if we are in a relatively good social environment—the court remains a sufficiently reliable and trustworthy place, because the court cannot achieve absolute fairness and therefore, for example, to throw in with the underworld would obviously be even more inappropriate.
Note:
Although this is a reflection on a film after reading it, because I wrote it mainly in order to make the comment I left on my blog “more detailed,” I astonishingly did not mention the film even once. Of course, since this is a “post-screening reflection” rather than a “film review,” as long as my article truly was written after being inspired by viewing the film, it should meet the requirements, right?
3:00 a.m., May 26, 2006
Plato Café
Slightly revised at 2:00 a.m., May 27, 2006 (with the addition of the item “Money”; this also shows that this thing called money is something that is often left out when considering scientific research. That stuff is certainly not the most important thing, but it really is indispensable.)
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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