SKEPTICISM IN SCIENCE

At the heart of science is a balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes: an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. – Carl Sagan

Skepticism is an attitude of mind that doubts everything except the contention that it is impossible to achieve correct knowledge. The Hymn of Creation of the Vedas describes how the universe came to be, and concludes thus:

Who really knows, and who can swear, How creation arose, when or where!

Even gods came after creation’s day, Who really knows, who can truly say When and how did creation start?

Socrates’ declaration, “All that I know is that I know nothing,” is an expression of skeptical modesty. Pyrrho and Aenesidemus in ancient Greece, Cicero and Empiricus in Rome, Carvaka and Nagarjuna in ancient India, Zhuang Zhou and Wang Chong in China, Cornelius Agrippa of Renaissance Europe were all skeptics of one kind or another. Some of them, like Carvaka and Wang Chong, attacked the religious beliefs of their times, while others, like Agrippa, ridiculed the cocksureness of the scientists of their times. Skeptics of the modern period have generally been suspicious of all that goes by the name of incontrovertible knowledge; and this includes science. These are all philosophical skeptics.

The skepticism of scientists consists not in the denial of our ability to acquire knowledge, but in the conviction that we must be guided by doubt in our quest. Whereas philosophical skepticism holds that totally reliable knowledge is impossible, scientists believe that the human mind can explain and understand the realm of natural phenomena, but only by the careful and collective exercise of human epistemic faculties.

What is common to philosophical as well as scientific skepticism is that both hesitate to accept as true whatever may appear to be so at first sight.

The term skepticism is derived from a Greek word meaning to consider, to examine. In this etymological sense, the scientist is a true skeptic since what one does is to carefully examine every datum of experience and every statement about the physical world. This habit of thorough examination is ingrained in the scientific value system. In older schools of dogmatic philosophy, there was resistance to challenges of long-established notions and traditionally accepted truths; in the scientific enterprise also, there is resistance to attempts at introducing totally new ideas.

One may be tempted to conclude that the net effect of the two attitudes would be the same. But this is not so, because of an important difference. Challenge to a well-sanctioned holy truths is blasphemy in the world of religious and ideological dogmatism. In the intellectual world of science, such challenges are not only wholeheartedly tolerated, but encouraged. A good deal of scientific research involves efforts to alter older views and usher in new insights. However, the contributions and conclusions of the would-be idol-breaker are subjected to careful dissection by the whole body of experts in the field before they are given even a provisional hearing (publication in a professional journal). This inevitable fate of a scientist’s thinking and findings encourages, indeed compels, the ardent searcher to think twice, indeed twenty times, before he/she presents the findings to the scientific community at large.

The cold-blooded skepticism of the scientific community vis-a-vis the findings of any one of its members has two major consequences: one positive, and the other, not quite so. First, because of the checking and re-checking that go into play before conclusions are reached; because of the detailed scrutiny to which every new idea is subjected; because, in short, of the extreme caution which the scientist is obliged to exercise in his professional activity, facts and comments that the world of science enunciates are relatively more reliable than those emanating from other sources that claim institutional authority. This is not to say that scientists cannot err, or that they may not be ignorant of aspects of the world yet unexplored. But what does seem reasonable is that in matters where disinterested people have probed, in matters which have been examined and re-examined by people from different backgrounds, we are likely to find more dependable knowledge and information.

A second consequence of the collective scientific skepticism is twofold, part amusing, part unfortunate. There are always people who are convinced that they have arrived at some important truths about one aspect of the world or another. They present their conclusions to the scientific community for acceptance, but may find, to their chagrin, that their proclamations are summarily rejected by scientific journals; or if published, coolly ignored.

It may also happen that the proponent of a new idea or discovery does have something important to say. He/she may really have accomplished a breakthrough in the frontiers of human knowledge. But his/her results could be rejected either because of lack of sufficient interest in the field on the part of the vast majority of the scientific community, or because they were too complex and radical in their content. In any case, science suffers.