Readers Elaborate on Fashion and Truth, Fact and Theory

Abstract

Igreatly enjoyed Michael Riordan’s Opinion piece criticizing the Platonic aspects of contemporary theoretical physics. He is right that several of today’s research areas—superstrings, wormholes, and extra dimensions, for example—have cut loose almost completely from experimental reality.Unfortunately, though, Riordan’s arguments were undercut by his appeals to Charles Sanders Peirce and the pragmatist definition of truth. Although I believe Riordan is right to be proud of physicists’ discovery of quarks, that feeling would not be justified if the reality of quarks meant merely that experienced practitioners agree that quarks are a “convenient rubric,” as Riordan called it, for mocking up the observable consequences of certain experiments. That was also true of Ptolemy’s epicycles, phlogiston, and Lamarckian evolution—not to mention young-Earth creationism. No, the discovery of quarks is impressive because they are more than a useful fiction; as proved by experiment, they really do exist outside our imaginations.The pragmatist notion of truth is based on radical philosophical skepticism and leads logically to outright subjectivism—the claim that all scientific theories are mere “fanciful ideas and constructs.” And like the Platonism that Riordan criticizes, that kind of error has done real damage to physics.Consider, for example, Andreas Osiander’s plea that Copernicus didn’t really mean it, Ernst Mach’s bizarre and influential refusal to believe that atoms represented more than a useful rubric for organizing experience, and the ongoing refusal to face and fix what John Bell called the “unprofessionally vague and ambiguous” foundations of quantum theory. 1 1. J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics: Collected Papers on Quantum Philosophy, Cambridge U. Press, New York (1987), p. 173. This refusal is usually based on the claim that the wavefunction is merely a mental construct, and does not refer to physical reality (see the Opinion piece by Christopher Fuchs and Asher Peres, Physics Today, March 2000, page 70).Consider also the contemporary attacks on science from the social-construction crowd; as those attackers point out, the pragmatist conception of truth gives scientists the same claim to know reality as any other group: none.Pitting science against Platonism tells only half the story. What makes the scientific method unique is that it rejects both Platonism and skeptical subjectivism. Unlike Platonism, science demands that its conclusions be based on hard, empirical evidence. But science also rejects the idea that we are cut off from true reality, forever confined to superficial appearances, subjective constructs, and useful fictions.At its best, science neither rejects empirical evidence in favor of rationalist flights of fancy nor dismisses as impossible the task of uncovering deep truths about the external world. Instead, it demonstrates, in the face of both traditional philosophical approaches, that hidden realities can be reliably grasped by means of empirical evidence. And that is an achievement all physicists can be proud of.REFERENCESection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCE <<1. J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics: Collected Papers on Quantum Philosophy, Cambridge U. Press, New York (1987), p. 173. Google Scholar© 2003 American Institute of Physics.