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Dartmouth Physicist: When Science Shades Over Into Faith

marcelo-gleiser-headshot-1.jpgMarcelo Gleiser is a theoretical physicist at Dartmouth College who treads dangerous ground from time to time. He writes a regular commentary for NPR in which, in the past, he has admitted that even taking the origin of simple life on Earth as a given, the development of complex life poses an additional, extraordinary riddle. With only Darwinian evolution as a resource, to assume that complex biology is out there among the stars as well as on our planet is a tough one to swallow.

Now he provocatively acknowledges that science can shade over into the faith, when scientists cling to ideas beyond the point where the evidence has turned against them:

Do some scientists hold on to a belief longer than they should? Or, more provocatively phrased, when does a scientific belief become an article of faith?

To talk about faith in the context of science seems quite blasphemous. Isn’t science the antithesis of faith, given that it is supposedly based on certainties, on the explicit verification of hypotheses? This vision of science as being perfectly logical and rational is an idealization. Of course, the product of scientific research must be something concrete: Hypotheses must be either confirmed or refuted, and data from experiments should be repeatable by others. Penicillin does cure diseases, airplanes fly and Halley’s comet does come back every 76 years.

Things become more tentative at the cutting edge, where there are no certainties. What makes science so fascinating is that it aims at perfection even if it is the invention of fallible beings.

He gives supersymmetry as an illustration.

While some will abandon the theory for lack of experimental support, others will hold on to it, readjusting the parameters so that supersymmetry becomes viable at energies well beyond our reach. The theory will then be untestable for the foreseeable future, maybe indefinitely. Belief in supersymmetry will then be an article of faith.

How should we deal with this kind of situation in science? Clearly, scientists will do what they want (as long as they have funding for it); those who cling to supersymmetry will argue that it will drive them toward other hypotheses and that’s OK. Maybe something will come up that will be testable. Others will search for explanations elsewhere.

The challenge, of course, is that we don’t know the right answer. The worry is that we may never know it, in which case the program is scientifically useless. When you invest decades of your professional life in the pursuit of an idea, it’s real hard to let go. Some never do.

Read those last two sentences, which I’ve highlighted, one more time. Is it necessary to spell out the implications for the debate about design in nature? The old folks won’t let go of Darwinism. Progress depends on the young, biologists whose names you’ve not yet heard whispered. It’s another way of saying, with Max Planck, that "Science advances one funeral at a time."

UPDATE: An email correspondent points out to me Gleiser’s use of the term “zombie” theory, an idea that’s dead yet still staggering on its feet:

Like a zombie that never dies, it’s possible to come up with theories that can always be redefined to escape the reach of current experiments.

The formulation is worth taking note of.

I’m on Twitter. Follow me @d_klinghoffer.


Image source: Marcelo Gleiser.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

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