Philosophical thinking and philosophical method of inquiry can help scientists in identifying and clarifying the goal of science. Scientists can take a step back and ask “What is it exactly that they are trying to achieve when they ‘do’ science ?”. In the following essay I will argue why this is an important question and how it can benefit science – specially physics – because all other sciences e.g. biology, chemistry, medicine etc. can be viewed as physics working of different scales.
David Deutsch in his book “The Fabric of Reality” mentions a view called Instrumentalism, which is essentially a belief that science merely serves as an instrument to probe the physical reality as we see it and thus the goal of science is limited to construction of coherent models which are valid in an instrumental sense. Instrumentalists hold that science can ever be used only has a tool to predict and never as an explanation of phenomenon, the explanatory aspect of a theory is merely a ‘psychological prop’.
Renowned physicist and author Stephen Hawking in his book “The Grand Design” introduces the notion of Model-dependent realism. It can be understood by means of an example, whenever physicists observe a phenomenon, they construct an abstract (often mathematical) model corresponding to that phenomenon. However, in so doing, some of the features of phenomenon and its description are distorted. By analogy, a scene would appear very different to someone observing it in visible spectrum versus someone who observes the same scene in (say) infrared. Hence, we can’t say that a scene has such and such color because how a scene looks depends on the observer.
The Rationality of Theory choice serves as a good example of an “auditing” mechanism for scientific theories. Since theories are constructed to explain observed phenomenon and to predict experimental results, it is indeed important that we consider the case in which two rival theories do an equally good job of explaining and predicting phenomenon albeit using entirely different hypothesis i.e. although they predict the same result their explanation for the result is remarkably different. This also calls into question the role of science as an inquirer of ultimate fundamental truth or the ultimate underlying objective reality of physical universe.
The development of Quantum Mechanics can serve as a very good case study for Rationality of Theory choice, as many ad hoc theories and explanations were suggested to reconcile the theories with experimental results before physicists finally started to realize that something was not quite right at a more fundamental level. It took quite a few decades to revise the then well established Newtonian physics in favor of a more elaborate and experimentally accurate albeit radically different Quantum Physical view of reality. Interested reader is referred to John Gribbin’s book “In search of Schrodinger’s Cat” for an interesting account of development of this new field of physics.
In essence, Philosophical reflection can help us understand the goal of scientific theories and guide us on how should we interpret the results and predictions these theories make. We have seen that defining the regime of science is not a trivial task and many different opinions exist on the matter. Quantum physics showed us the inherent uncertainty in the phenomenon we observe and shattered every hope for the kind of absolute determinism which Newtonian Physics boasted. It is indeed important that scientists be watchful of the weight they ascribe to their theories and explanations.
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