Science and Realism
I do not subscribe to the notion that Science is one of several “narratives,” all of which are equally valid. Its proponents –mainly the postmodern cultural and epistemic relativists– conflate myths, legends, religious texts and scientific theories in that category of “narratives.” Lately, those relativists have been in the defensive, after many blunders and indefensible anti-intellectual postures.
I subscribe to the “realist” posture, which is opposed to the positivist-solipsistic position and to the cognitive relativism mostly associated with the post-modernist camp. Therefore, my epistemological point of departure is that there is an “objective reality,” which is independent of humans and of our ability -or inability- to “perceive” or to “grasp” it. Under that posture, reality “is what it is,” and all sound attempts to acquire the most complete understanding of reality emerge as a worthy human endeavor.
That epistemological posture is central to the Natural Sciences, allowing our advances in the understanding of nature and of exclusively human, social phenomena. Social Sciences must cope with more complex phenomena than the Natural Sciences, a circumstance which stresses the need for the realist posture. For the realist position, see Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientists’ Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature (1993); Steven Weinberg, Facing Up: Science and its Cultural Adversaries (2003); David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World 369 (2011). For a formidable opposition to the postmodern postures, see Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science (1998).
Contrary to the religious-minded and to the speculators, the practitioners of Natural Sciences do their best to extract information from nature, to unearth the facts. They also devise theories which explain those facts and give the data intelligibility and internal coherence. Science has virtually nothing in common with mere speculation, or with religious or otherwise cultural belief systems. There is no factual or logical justification for including Science in that category of cultural “narratives.”
In short, Science emerges as unique, in great part because it works. Due to its ethos and methodologies, Science has been successful precisely where those “narratives” could never claim the slightest breakthrough in the understanding of the natural and social worlds. Also, it is typical of many to reject Science, but to embrace technology, not realizing that the latter is the product of the former. Cell phones and computers work because quantum theory works. Those who do not “believe” in science should try to build a computer from scratch relying on prayer or voodoo; or to correct a cardiac condition with magic chants.
Nowadays, natural scientists come from every culture on the planet, including Middle East, Asian, Latin American, African and European countries. Certainly, their differing cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds do not get in the way of what is a truly universal community of physicists, chemists and biologists who share common methods, languages, goals and theoretical frameworks. Einstein’s theory of gravity, best known as general relativity, is one of those theories understood and applied daily by Muslim, Jewish, Atheist, African and Latin American scientists all over the planet.
Moreover, it is a bad idea to pay attention to those who offer dumbed-down, simplistic explanations about complex phenomena. Myths, legends and speculation had a role in the pre-scientific era, mainly to make intelligible the mysterious, to put it in familiar terms in order to come to grips with a reality that could be mind-boggling and even frightening.
With the development of what we call Science, myths and speculation are no longer needed to come to terms with the Universe that spawned and sustains us. Not only do we breathe and live here, but in the last five hundred years some of us have had the luxury of exploring reality in a systematic fashion and to realize that we are part of the Universe in very concrete ways.
