We scientists like to think of ourselves as the objective-thinking type. We school ourselves in the scientific method and how to use statistics to either accept or reject the null hypothesis.
All this is well and good inside the walls of academia, but outside those walls and essay-question tests, something much different is occurring.
I cannot seem to figure out whether this shift is due to the inadequate academic preparation of junior scientists or whether it is due to the enormous cultural influence of the modern media on scientists. I also wonder if this shift in scientific thinking from the objective to the subjective will hasten as we adopt more media-driven solutions provided by web 2.0 (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.)-but that is for another post.
I will choose here to specifically pick on American culture, particularly on the influence of Hollywood, mainly because Hollywood is our only real cultural export.
The nature of storytelling has been discussed in many other forums and has casually (not causally) been linked to evolution. The conclusion of many of these discussions is that storytelling is a particularly human way of making sense of seemingly disparate pieces of information and synthesizing them into a coherent whole.
What does this have to do with science? It should be fairly obvious that this is usually what we think of when we publish papers as scientists. Some would argue that as scientists, we tell stories.
This is particularly evident in the discussion section of published papers, where we try to link our work to the broader context of our particular field. In fact, papers with titles like this one: Revisiting Science in Culture: Science as Story Telling and Story Revising underscore this view of science-as-storytelling. I fear that we tread on dangerous ground with this sort of hand-wavy thinking about science publication.
For instance, in the previously mentioned paper, the author (Grobstein, 2005) writes:
“What follows from this consideration of scientific method is that scientific statements are not either claims or approximations to ‘Truth,’ but provisional stories, reflecting human perspectives, that get progressively less wrong.”
On the surface, this statement might seem OK to the untrained eye, but the author throughout this paper makes a major blunder that I see replicated time and time again.
It is a mistake I have been observing more and more as I review scientific papers. The author conflates the idea of doubt, uncertainty and skepticism (strengths of science) with that of relativism (something we are told is essentially scientific). The author concludes that all data and their interpretations are relativistic, because we can’t conclude any objective truth from our scientific stories.
This is strike one and strike two, and both stem from the media-driven popularization of the idea of relativity, and from Hollywood’s portrayal of the ideas of Einstein.
An oft used quote from Einstein, and one that sums up the pop-culture view of science is:
“Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world”
Although this view sells books like “Einstein’s Dreams” or is romanticized in pseudo-documentaries like What The Bleep Do We Know, and even is discussed on Oprah, this seemingly innocent interpretation of Einstein also has a sinister side.
This sort of “everything is relative” philosophy also finds its way into a culture that is sympathetic towards cultural relativity (good) and uses that sympathy as an opening into which it can inject itself into our scientific teaching and writing (bad).
So what can we conclude thus far? Hollywood-driven pop science culture has injected a large dose of pop-relativity into the American ethos and this filters into American science.
Strike three comes from Hollywood as well. It is the simple idea that all stories must have a happy ending, an ending that ties everything together and allows the cowboy to ride off into the sunset, or the conflict to be resolved, or whatever.
This can be seen in papers that I read/review, where the authors have a number of possible interpretations for their data, but choose the interpretation that allows them to tell a compelling story, or stick with an established storyline of the lab, or even agree with the storyline of other labs.
The pressures to publish combined with the pop-science-culture injection of “the coolness of relativity” and the desire to tell a story with a congruent, Hollywood-style ending is lurking under the surface of modern scientific publishing.
I think more often then we allow ourselves to believe, scientists are fitting the data to the story by choosing the interpretations they want, rather than taking Robert Frost’s Road Not Taken.
Even those of us who think we are objective can’t escape the influence of American media in the sciences.
When will we begin to become concerned about this?
Have you been talking to social scientists? Don’t let the bastards get you down…
I liked your point that people mistakenly conflate uncertainty with relativism – too true.
Michael, But surely science is more about trust than “doubt…and skepticism (strengths of science)” – every day scientists are required to trust their own data, the data their colleagues gather, the instruments they use, the papers they read, etc.
If we were sceptical we wouldn’t discover anything, we’d just keep repeating the experiments of others to check they really worked (who actually does this?).
Scientists are no more or less sceptical than anyone else. (I am freely plagizaring this from the historian of science Simon Schaffer, but it rings true if you think about the daily work of science).
I’m not sure if it comes from Hollywood or not, but to frame your papers in a way that leaves no major loose ends and is basically in agreement with your previously reported results, as well as those from other labs, certainly helps you a lot in getting published. I think it has to do with the idea that there is actually an external truth out there, and that when everything falls neatly into place we are actually uncovering, which is what most scientist believe science is about in the first place
Well, I admit that I am an ordinary crackpot, and that I’m probably a product of all this Hollywood-like science stories. The result is that I have found my own personal “theory of everything”, sent to the Astrophysical Jornal 05.10.08 and rejectet 12.03.09. Read it as a good joke, and have a good laugh :-) Here it is:
Title: C and gravitation
(Sent to The Astrophysical Journal 05.10.08
Rejected 12.03.09)
C measured accurately by the basic definitions in the “International System of Units” (SI) to “299 792 458 metres” per “duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom”, may reveal a new model of the relationship between the large and small in our universe, when we put this basic definition of C into the theory of general relativity.
I have chosen not to illustrate this new model mathematically, because I do not have the complete formal competence to do so. Therefore, I have chosen to describe the model verbal, so that it can be explored further in the mathematical forms by other professionals.
This basic definition of C exclude the term ”time”. Instead it include the term ”motion inside a particle”. When this basic C is used in the theory of general relativity, we will have a new expression of the physical relationship between mass and energy, and what happens when particles moves until they reach the speed of light. This new expression (equation) leads to the following consequences :
1: Motion inside a particle changes in line with the change in the particle’s movement through space.
When a particle accelerates through space, the motion inside the particle will go slower.
When a particle is close to the speed of light, the motion inside the particle will almost cease.
Space affect motion inside the particle in line with the change in the particle’s movement through space.
Space affects through resistance against the particles.
The resistance from space against the particles increases in line with the increase in the particle’s movement through space.
An increased resistance from space against an accelerating particle slows the motion inside the particle.
When a particle is close to the speed of light, the resistance from space will cause the motion inside the particle to almost cease.
2: The resistance from space against a particle reaching the speed of light will lead to a singularity.
3: A singularity is all particles original state.
4: This original state, the singularity, surround the universe.
5: The force of gravitation from this singularity that surround the universe pulls all the particles inside the universe to itself, and causes the particles to accelerate the further out the particles in the universe come.
6: When an object, or a particle, is approaching another object, or a particle, the amount of resistance from space decrease between them, while the amount of resistance will be unchanged behind the objects/particles out towards the rest of the space. This difference in the amount of resistance from space, causes space to press the two objects against each other. This is the physical process behind gravitation.
7: The resistance from space (the physical process behind gravitation) serves as an environment around the particles and can therefore not be detected as part of the contents inside the particles by an accelerator that collides them.
8: Vice-versa: A particle’s movement affect space through the particle’s resistance against space. A frequency of changes in a particle’s movement through space will cause a frequency of changes in the structure of, and resistance from, space. This frequency of changes in the structure of, and resistance from, space, caused by the frequency of changes in the particle’s movement through space, spreads outwards with the speed of light, C. When this frequency of changes in the structure of, and resistance from, space is approaching another particle, it will cause a frequency of changes in this particle’s movement. This is the physical process behind the electromagnetic wave/particle force.
Best regards
me
William, you write “Michael, But surely science is more about trust than “doubt…and skepticism (strengths of science)” – every day scientists are required to trust their own data, the data their colleagues gather, the instruments they use, the papers they read, etc.”
I think this is the problem. There is too much trust and not enough verifiability. What happened to the notion that another lab needs to replicate your results before they are considered valid? I don’t think we have enough skeptics around these days, and I think that things like Disney and Oprah have helped quench that fire in the minds of most (including scientists.)