Science and Democracy: the essential partnership

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Science and Democracy the essential partnership

• Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social
  Science (CPNSS) annual lecture

Lee SmolinPerimeter Institute, Canada Jeremy
ButterfieldChair
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Science and democracy the essential
partnershipLee SmolinPerimeter Institute for
Theoretical Physicsand Dept of Physics, Univ of
Waterloo

• How does science work?
• Global Soul Food
• Do scientific ideas evolve in parallel with our
  understanding of democracy?
• Cosmology, evolution and democracy
• Relationalism vrs relativism
• Science and art

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• Why talk about the partnership of science and
  democracy?

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• Why talk about the partnership of science and
  democracy?
• To defend and explain our civilization
• To those who question it, or to ourselves.

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• Why talk about the partnership of science and
  democracy?
• To defend and explain our civilization
• To those who question it, or to ourselves.
• Because they dont work very well
• (even if they each work much better than the
  alternatives)

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• Why talk about the partnership of science and
  democracy?
• To defend and explain our civilization
• To those who question it, or to ourselves.
• Because they dont work very well
• (even if they each work much better than the
  alternatives)
• Why do we assume that the present organizations
  of
• society, science and the academy are the best
  possible?

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• Why talk about the partnership of science and
  democracy?
• To defend and explain our civilization
• To those who question it, or to ourselves.
• Because they dont work very well
• (even if they each work much better than the
  alternatives)
• Why do we assume that the present organizations
  of
• society, science and the academy are the best
  possible?
• We may no longer want to revolutionize our
  societies,
• But shouldnt we still seek to evolutionize them?

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• Why talk about the partnership of science and
  democracy?
• To defend and explain our civilization
• To those who question it, or to ourselves.
• Because they dont work very well
• (even if they each work much better than the
  alternatives)
• Why do we assume that the present organizations
  of
• society, science and the academy are the best
  possible?
• We may no longer want to revolutionize our
  societies,
• But shouldnt we still seek to evolutionize them?
• Shouldnt we experiment with our own
  organizations?

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Slide 2
Slide 2
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How does science work?

• Logical positivism The meaning of a sentence is
  the instructions to verify it.
• Popper Statements cannot be verified. They can
  be falsified.
• Kuhn The structure of scientific revolutions
• Normal science vrs revolutionary science
• But how does one tell which is which?
• Feyerabend There is no scientific method.
• Scientists are opportunists
• Name any rule. A great scientist broke it (and
  had to break it to make progress.)

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So how does science really work?

• There is no scientific method.
• Both the scientific and the democratic processes
  require reasoning from shared, but incomplete,
  evidence to limited, but ever expanding,
  consensus.
• How can this work?

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Science works because of some features of
nature There are easily recorded patterns in
the sky, seasons, life cycles of humans,
animals and plants. It functions in a way that
reflects aspects of our nature We are masters
at quickly drawing conclusions from incomplete
information. This makes it easy to act
quickly.but it makes it easy to fool ourselves
and others. We are able to invent and learn
crafts that greatly increase the reliability of
our observations and reasoning.
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Science in one form or another has been with us
as long as we have been human. From the earliest
days people were people we struggled to
understand and master the worlds that determined
our lives nature, society, the imagination, the
spirit. From these struggles emerged crafts and
practices that are now called science, politics,
art and religion. Why and how science works
cannot be divorced from the mastery of crafts
that long experience has taught us work to
discover errors in our reasoning. Science is a
community of people trained in these crafts and
committed to the ethics of their use to unmask
error.
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A community constituted by commitment to a craft
and associated ethic An ethical community
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• Ethical principles underlying science
• If an issue can be decided by people of good
  faith, applying rational argument to publicly
  available evidence, then it must be regarded as
  so decided.
• 2. If, on the other hand, rational argument from
  the publicly available evidence does not succeed
  in bringing people of good faith to agreement on
  an issue, society must allow and even encourage
  people to draw diverse conclusions.

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• Ethical principles underlying science
• If an issue can be decided by people of good
  faith, applying rational argument to publicly
  available evidence, then it must be regarded as
  so decided.
• 2. If, on the other hand, rational argument from
  the publicly available evidence does not succeed
  in bringing people of good faith to agreement on
  an issue, society must allow and even encourage
  people to draw diverse conclusions.
• These same ethics underlie pluralistic democracies

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• These principles require us to do certain things
• We agree to argue rationally, and in good faith,
  from shared evidence, to whatever degree of
  shared conclusions are warranted.
• Each individual scientist is free to develop his
  or her own conclusions from the evidence. But
  each scientist is also required to put forward
  arguments for those conclusions for the
  consideration of the whole community.
• The evidence, the means by which the evidence was
  obtained, and the logic of the arguments used to
  deduce conclusions from the evidence must be
  shared and open to examination by all members.

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• The ability of scientists to deduce reliable
  conclusions from the shared evidence is based on
  the mastery of tools and procedures developed
  over many years. Every scientist trained in such
  a craft is deeply aware of the capacity for
  error and self-delusion.
• At the same time, each member of the scientific
  community recognizes that the eventual goal is
  to establish consensus.
• The ultimate judges of scientific work are future
  members of the community, at a time
  sufficiently far in the future that they can
  better evaluate the evidence objectively.
• While a scientific program may temporarily
  succeed in gathering adherents, no program,
  claim, or point of view can succeed in the long
  run unless it produces sufficient evidence to
  persuade the skeptics.

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• Entry to the community is, based on two criteria
• The mastery of at least one of the crafts of a
  scientific subfield to the point where you can
  independently produce work judged by other
  members to be of high quality.
• Allegiance and continued adherence to the shared
  ethic.
• While orthodoxies may become established
  temporarily in a given subfield, the community
  recognizes that contrary opinions and research
  programs are necessary for the communitys
  continued health.

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Our principles suggest that scientists should
disagree until forced to agree by the
evidence. Diversity of views and research
programs, dissent and controversy are essential
for science to progress. There will always be
those who try to force consensus prematurely.
The academy is unstable to takeover by large
research programs that make aggressive claims to
be the dominant paradigm. When they succeed,
it can greatly slow progress. Examples string
theory, artificial intelligence.
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Hence Doing science teaches us how to
be citizens of a democracy.
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Scientific communities are also imaginative
communities

• A community that is oriented to the future and
  open to novel ideas and practices.
• That incorporates structures and practices that
  allow members to imagine novel solutions to
  problems and to experiment with their adoption.
• That can continually evolve, in response both to
  ever-changing circumstances and the deepening of
  our ideas about society,
• A community that can evolve without violence or
  revolution.

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• To remain vibrant and healthy, a democratic
  society must be both an ethical and an
  imaginative community.
• We can learn, from examination of the scientific
  community, how a community can be both
  imaginative and ethical

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Scientific communities are pluralistic

• We are members of a growing community of Global
  Souls in Pico Iyers formulation.
• You are a global soul if you
• were educated or are working in a country
  different from that of your birth
• have a partner or spouse from a different
  country.
• Spend more time on airplanes and in airports than
  you do with your parents and siblings.

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Pi scientists come fromArgentina, Austria,
Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia,
England, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran,
Israel, Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, Poland, Russia,
Spain, United States.
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An exponentially increasing number of people in
science, arts, management, entertainment,
finance, academics, etc are global souls.
Global Souls are increasingly influential in
terms of ideas/science/arts/business/the economy.
But increasingly disenfranchised relative to
local politics. Where do we vote? Should we
have a seat in the UN?
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Is there a pluralistic model of democracy
appropriate to a community of global
souls?Might it be the scientific
community?Can we imagine a democratic society
as a network of ethical and imaginative
communities?Can we get any insight into these
questions from science itself?
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How do scientific ideas evolve in parallel with
our understanding of democracy?

• Our concepts of society have paralleled our
  understanding of space and time
• Three Stages...

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The hierarchical universe

• All properties defined with respect to hierarchy
• Observer/God is in perfect realm outside the
  universe
• Aristotelian cosmology
• Medieval society

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The Newtonian liberal universe

• Properties (rights) all defined with respect to
  an eternal absolute background of space and time
• All atoms equal, all have properties (rights)
  independent of relations to the others.
• Omniscient observer, god, is outside the
  universe.
• Newtonian physics
• liberal political and legal theory

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The relational/pluralistic universe

• The universe is nothing but an ever-evolving
  network of relationships.
• All properties are about relations between
  subsystems.
• No view or observer from outside the universe
  only internal observers with partial views.
• General relativity
• Quantum theory
• Critical legal studies

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Fundamental physics is about networks and their
evolution.
Quantum black hole
Quantum space-time
(As explained by Loop Quantum Gravity)
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Even logic may be made more relational

• Classical logic assumes an eternal Platonic realm
  of truth in which all propositions are for all
  time either true or false.
• Intuitionalistic logic assumes that truth values
  are determined by an agent who cannot determine
  the truth or falsity of all propositions-hence no
  excluded middle (A or not A.)
• She is situated in time, and it is assumed that
  her knowledge grows in time.

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What about social theory?Is it also becoming
more relational?
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Social theory and cosmology according to Roberto
Mangabeira Unger

• You can trace properties of the present universe
  back to properties it must have had at the
  beginning. But you cannot show that these are
  the only properties that the universe might have
  hadEarlier or later universe might have had
  entirely different lawsTo state the laws of
  nature is not to describe or explain all possible
  histories of all possible universes. Only a
  relative distinction exists between law like
  explanation and narration of a one time
  historical sequence.

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If you are asked what you mean by the necessity
of the laws of nature (that is to say by the
necessity of the most necessary relations), you
can legitimately respond only by laying out the
substance of your cosmological and other
scientific ideas. People who appeal to fixed
conceptions of necessity, contingency and
possibility are simply confused.
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• It is always an I who says we.
• -Jacques Derrida

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Relationalism and Darwinism

• The main slogan of relational physics is that
  There is nothing outside the universe
• This means that there is no absolute, eternal
  maker to impose order.
• Nor can order be explained by eternal laws.
• So, in relational universe, order and complexity
  must be explained by processes of
  self-organization.

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• Darwin taught us that there are processes of
  self-organization sufficient to explain the
  observed complexity
• Conversely, natural selection acts only on
  relational properties.
• Hence, natural selection only makes sense in
• a relational universe.
• Gravity!!!!

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To suppose universal laws of nature capable of
being apprehended by the mind and yet having no
reason for their special forms, but standing
inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a
justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely
the sort of facts that need to be accounted for.
Law is par excellence the thing that wants a
reason. Now the only possible way of accounting
for the laws of nature, and for uniformity in
general, is to suppose them results of
evolution. -Charles Sanders Pierce, 1891
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Hence, the two pillars of 20th century thought,
Darwinism, in biology and relationalism, in
relativity and quantum theory, are deeply
intertwined. They together will be the basis of
our twenty-first century world view. for science
and society. Democracy, seen from this
perspective, is a process of continual evolution
by which we humans act to organize our
continually evolving networks of relationships.
Such a democracy is necessarily pluralistic and
experimental.
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Relationalism is not relativism

• Relativism falls into the trap that if there is
  no absolute reference point, every act is
  equivalent morally, aesthetically and with regard
  to truth. Truth and beauty become suspect
  categories.
• A relativist would argue that if there is no
  absolute rules for scientific method, science is
  just sociology and cannot lead to truth.

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In relationalism

• All points of view and all experiences are not
  equally valid.
• To be taken seriously you must argue ethically
  and you must practice your craft well.
• There is a commitment that when there is shared
  evidence we will argue till we come to consensus.
• This allows science to progress without belief in
  an absolute eternal judgement.

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What about postmodernism?We can learn from the
artists who have grappled with it.The real two
culture split Those who work with texts
humanists, critics, historians Those who
work with their hands visual artists,
scientists, architects, engineersThe third
culture scientists, artists, digirati...
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If the purpose of modernism in art was to burn
the old classical house down, all that
postmodernism has been doing is playing with
the little charred pieces that are left, which
is a pretty puerile thing to be doing
considering that winter is coming.-Saint
Clair Cemin
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Homage to Darwin
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Homage to Sartre
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At the tribunal of ones life 1987
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One and many
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First lesson 1992
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Air Travel 2002 Donna Moylan
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Nomad Target 2002 Donna Moylan
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Elizabeth Turk
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Elizabeth Turk
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Elizabeth Turk Marble Lace
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Ray Smith Smoke 1999
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Ray Smith Reindas 2000
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Ray Smith Mariana 2000
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Beauty and truth are no less real for not being
anchorable in any eternal, absolute, transcendent
background. Given our situation as limited
observers in a natural world, the search for
truth and beauty is an ethical choice, and
experience shows that ethical communities do find
them. In a pluralistic world, where artists and
scientists are members of ethical and imaginative
communities, there can be progress in art,
science and society. Truth and beauty exist, but
they are fragile, ever open to challenge, to
surprise and novelty. It is our job to discover
them and protect them. One can believe that we
will know more in the future without believing
that at some time some one will know everything
or that there is some abstract, Platonic sense in
which truth already exists outside of time.
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"This interconnection (or accommodation) of all
created things to each other, brings it about
that each simple substance has relations that
express all the others, and consequently, that
each simple substance is a perpetual, living
mirror of the universe. Just as the same city
viewed from different directions appears
entirely different and, as it were, multiplied
perspectively, in just the same way it happens
that, because of the infinite multitude of
simple substances, there are, as it were, just
as many different universes, which are,
nevertheless, only perspectives on a single one,
...
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And this is the way of obtaining as much
variety as possible, but with the greatest order
possible. That is, it is the way of obtaining
as much perfection as possible" -G. W.
Leibniz, Monadology, 1714
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Elizabeth Turk
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Spring 2000 Bastad Sweden
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Donna Moylan The Proof
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Elizabeth Turk Water Santa Barbara Museum of
Contemporary Art