Science Says

Introduction

In the winter of 1675, Sir Isaac Newton wrote a letter to his fellow scientist Robert Hooke in which he used a phrase that has become as famous as almost any in science. "If I have seen further," he wrote, "it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Ever since, scientists have been standing on each other's shoulders in their ongoing efforts to glimpse even a small part of the answers to the mysteries that surround us. And one of the ways they lift themselves onto those august shoulders is by referring back to the work--and the words--of their predecessors. Thus, from the perspective of the scientist, gathering together the thoughts of scientists (as well as nonscientists) on the history, meaning, and practice of the discipline of science is a particularly appropriate endeavor.

And yet, Science Says is by no means intended only for the scientist, but--perhaps even more--for the nonscientist as well. We live in an increasingly chaotic and complex world--much of that chaos and complexity brought on by science--beginning perhaps with the splitting of the atom more than fifty years ago and the creation of a nuclear cloud that has hung over our heads ever since. As a result, science and those who eloquently speak and write about it have become central to how we view ourselves and the world. We look to interpreters of science for wisdom and answers, for insights into the nature of the universe and who we are, as well as for explanations of the everyday world in which we live. In fact, the words of scientists and science writers have taken the place once reserved for the pronouncements of philosophers, theologians, and literary figures. There is a great irony in this, particularly because, as James George Frazer put it in The Golden Bough more than a hundred years ago:

"The history of thought should warn us against concluding that because the scientific theory of the world is the best that has yet been formulated, it is necessarily complete and final. We must remember that at bottom the generalizations of science or, in common parlance, the laws of nature are merely hypotheses devised to explain that ever-shifting phantasmagoria of thought which we dignify with the high-sounding names of the world and the universe. In the last analysis magic, religion, and science are nothing but theories of thought."

Even so, a century later the nonscientific community--that is, the majority of humankind--has still not grasped this truth. As Louis Kronenberger said nearly fifty years ago, "Nominally a great age of scientific inquiry, ours has actually become an age of superstition about the infallibility of science; of almost mystical faith in its non-mystical methods.... "Or, as Thomas Stirton, one of my professors in college, put it more succinctly, "Science is our favorite modern superstition."

Paradoxically, although nonscientists consider science to be something akin to a religion, with immutable laws that cannot be questioned, scientists recognize its limitations and are always aware of the possibility--even probability--that beliefs must change to accommodate new information. They are eminently aware that the latest theories, however acceptable they may be at the moment, may well be overturned tomorrow as new evidence comes to light. This understanding is a theme echoed throughout the pages that follow, an understanding that represents the essential spirit of science.

This spirit of science can be expressed in many ways, and this book is accordingly divided into fourteen subject areas covering everything from the meeting--and more than occasional clash--between science, spirit, and religion, to a variety of expressions of how scientists do science; from attempts to answer the question of where we've come from and where we're headed, to what we can know and what must remain a mystery; from the interface of science and society, to the place in science of imagination, intuition, curiosity, and creativity; and from efforts to define what science is and is not, to the thoughts of scientists on humankind's place in the universe. In all, the following pages contain nearly a thousand expressions of the spirit of science. But perhaps none put it as eloquently as did Francis Albert Eley Crew in his essay, "The Meaning of Death":

"A few of the results of my activities as a scientist have become embedded in the very texture of the science I tried to serve--this is the immortality that every scientist hopes for. I have enjoyed the privilege, as a university teacher, of being in a position to influence the thought of many hundreds of young people and in them and in their lives I shall continue to live vicariously for a while. All the things I care for will continue for they will be served by those who come after me. I find great pleasure in the thought that those who stand on my shoulders will see much farther than I did in my time. What more could any man want?"

What indeed?

Rob Kaplan

Cortlandt Manor, NY

January 2000