Where Have You Gone, Isaac Newton?
More and more today, we are inundated with foolishness masquerading as
science. Psychic hotlines proliferate, politicians consult astrologers,
and people reject their doctor's advice in favor of "alternative
healing" dispensed by quacks. In the past, defenders of real science
could be relied upon to expose and debunk such nonsense. So where are
these defenders today?
Unfortunately, they are too busy dreaming up foolishness of their own.
This is not, of course, the first time in history that people have
believed their fates could be read in the stars and their diseases
could be cured by prayers. Before the scientific revolution in the 17th
century, such ideas were the popular rage. Women were convicted of
witchcraft and burned at the stake. Pigs with unpleasant dispositions
and hens with unusual appearances were put on trial, convicted of
demonic possession and executed.
Then came the Age of
Reason, when Isaac Newton called for an end to such lunacy. He famously
declared that he "framed no hypotheses"—meaning that he dismissed any
idea that was unsupported by observational evidence. After Newton,
peddlers of nonsense were banished to the disreputable realm of
pseudo-science.
Until recently.
Today,
physicists suppose that a particle can travel many different paths
simultaneously, or travel backwards in time, or randomly pop into and
out of existence from nothingness. They enjoy treating the entire
universe as a "fluctuation of the vacuum," or as an insignificant
member of an infinite ensemble of universes, or even as a hologram. The
fabric of this strange universe is a non-entity called "spacetime,"
which expands, curves, attends yoga classes, and may have twenty-six
dimensions.
In short, the recent literature on physics makes one nostalgic for
anything as reasonable as a witch trial.
For the past decade many physicists have been wandering the streets
with signs that read: "The End of Physics Is Near." They claim to be
developing a final "theory of everything," which will leave future
physicists with nothing to do but play computer games. We can dismiss
their megalomania, yet still be tempted to agree with their message.
The end that seems near, however, is not a climactic rise to
omniscience but an embarrassing descent into pseudo-science.
The blushing has already begun. Last year, there was a widely
publicized controversy over the research of two physicists in France
(the brothers Igor and Grichka Bogdanov). At issue was whether the
published work of the Bogdanovs, which consisted of speculations about
the universe before the Big Bang, was intended seriously or as a parody
of contemporary cosmology. The truth turned out to be more damning than
any parody: the Bogdanovs were serious but nobody could tell—so their
colleagues were forced to admit that much research today is
indistinguishable from a joke.
Physicists didn't reach
this state of intellectual bankruptcy overnight. Early in the 20th
century, Einstein explicitly rejected Newton's scientific method. "We
now realize," Einstein wrote, "how much in error are those theorists
who believe that theory comes inductively from experience." Instead, he
insisted that theories are "free creations of the human mind." The
inevitable result of such freedom is the currently fashionable "fantasy
physics."
Of course, physicists don't admit that they are
engaged in fantasy. They say they are following the
"hypothetico-deductive method," which sounds much more scientific. This
method, however, allows them to dream up any "theory" that tickles
their fancy, provided they can deduce at least one consequence that
might be observable sometime, somewhere, by somebody.
Real
knowledge is the hard-won reward of a step-by-step process that takes
us from observations to abstractions, generalizations and theories. In
contrast, daydreaming requires little effort. That explains why
theorists have been able to reach the "end of physics" so quickly and
easily. Unfortunately, their stories about make-believe worlds are of
no value to people living in the actual world.
History
teaches us the crucial role of physics in human life. Throughout the
Western world, knowledge of physics has raised man from a superstitious
savage who cringes before nature to an efficacious thinker who conquers
nature. The practical benefits of this transformation are too numerous
and too obvious to list.
But there is even more at stake
than future technology. As the legacy of Isaac Newton fades and physics
continues its neurotic withdrawal from reality, our culture begins to
lose sight of the glory of human nature: the faculty of reason. That is
a frightening thought—because if man is not "the rational animal," then
he is just an animal.
Click here to return to TRA's Issue XVIII Index.
Learn about Mr. Stolyarov's novel, Eden against the Colossus, here.Read Mr. Stolyarov's comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, here.