1.3: Science is Social

Science is often portrayed as an activity carried out by isolated (and often crazy, "brilliant", or otherwise deranged) individuals.^[36] The image of the mad scientist comes to mind (→). Reality is different, science is a fundamentally social activity. It works because it depends upon an interactive community who keep each other, in the long run, honest and anchored in objective, observable and reproducible reality. Scientists present their observations, hypotheses, and conclusions in the form of scientific papers, where their relevance and accuracy can be evaluated, more or less dispassionately, by others with a working knowledge of the topic under study.

Over the long term, these socratic interactions that leads to a logical, evidence-based consensus. Certain ideas and observations are so well established that they appear to be universally valid, whereas others are extremely unlikely to be true. We can be confident that perpetual motion machines and zero-waste processes (versions of the same idea) are impossible. As we see it, modern biology is based on a small set of assumptions that include the Physicochemical and Cell Theories of Life, and the Theory of Evolution.^[37] That said, as scientists we keep our minds open to novel observations and work to understand them and their implications. The openness of science means that one person, taking a new observation or idea seriously, can challenge and change accepted scientific understanding. That is not to say that it is easy to change the way scientists think about the world. Most theories are based on large bodies of evidence and have been confirmed on multiple occasions using multiple methods. It turns out that most “revolutionary” observations are either mistaken, misinterpreted, or can be explained within the context of established theories. It is, however, worth keeping in mind that it is not at all clear that all phenomena can be put into a single “theory of everything.” It has certainly proven difficult to reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity (or so have been told)^[38].

A final point, mentioned before, is that the sciences are not independent of one another. Ideas about the behavior of biological systems cannot contradict well established observations and theories in chemistry or physics. If they did, one or the other would need to be modified. For example, there is substantial evidence for the dating of rocks based on the behavior of radioactive isotopes. There are well established patterns of where rock layers of specific ages are found. When we consider the dating of fossils, we use rules and evidence established by geologists. We cannot change the age we assign to a fossil, making it inconsistent with the rocks that surround it, without challenging our understanding of the atomic nature of matter, the quantum mechanical principles involved in isotope stability, or a range of geological mechanisms and established patterns of Earth history.

A classic example involves the physicist William Thompson (1824-1907), also known as Lord Kelvin. Based on thermodynamic principles, he estimated the age of the Earth to be between ~20 to ~100 million years. He assumed that the Earth was once completely molten together with the known rate of heat dissipation of such a massive molten object.^[39] This was a time-span that seemed too short for a number of geological and evolutionary processes, and greatly troubled Charles Darwin. Somebody was wrong, or better put, current scientific understanding was incomplete or incorrect. The answer in this case was with the fact that Thompson ignored the effects of radioactive decay, not surprising since radioactivity had not yet been discovered. Including the heat released by radioactive decay in such calculations led to an increase in the estimated age of the Earth to ~4.54 billion years, an age compatible with both evolutionary and geological processes.

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