The Philosophy of Popular Science

Next to the long and noble tradition under the heading ‘the philosophy of science’ - which includes brilliant thinkers from Aristotle to Karl Popper - , there is another question which receives somewhat less attention, and which one might title ‘the philosophy of popular science.’

Under this second heading one might ask about non-scientists and how they understand and interpret science. This would include, but not be limited to, the impact of science on, and the images of science projected by, popular culture, popular literature, and popular news media.

Some scholars note that scientific thought is often popularly perceived as monolithic. Phrases such as “scientists have found …” or “science reveals …” generate the notion, among reading non-scientists, that there is a body of scientists, and a conceptual construct called ‘science,’ which speak uniformly.

The popular notion of science rarely includes serious yet conflicting hypotheses, or attention to truly open questions which are the object of investigation. Liam Scheff writes:

When an official from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) throws out an edict (“Get vaccinated for bird flu!”), or the World Health Organization (WHO) makes one of its famously failed predictions (“One in 5 American citizens will have AIDS by 1990!”), it’s front-page news around the globe. We’re not allowed to think; we’re just supposed to swallow. And when scientific claims do turn out to be false, we don’t get angry. “Better safe than sorry,” we tell ourselves. “Anyway, we all know that a bird-flu pandemic awaits us.”

If science were monolithic, then when a prediction fails, or when one hypothesis is substituted for another, then the public would be left to assume that science has changed its mind, and to assume further that science is to be trusted in these matters. Given the popular understanding of science as univocal, the public does so assume.

On the one hand, there is science as understood both by scientists themselves and by philosophers of science. On the other hand, there is this popular understanding of science. Between them, there is a great gap. Thus when the results of scientific inquiry, or the words of a scientist, are reported to the public, they are misunderstood.

The notion, for example, of competing theories which equally map known data points is not part of the common understanding of science. While the public wishes to know which theory is true, the philosopher sees two theories as two different ways of characterizing a set a data.

The popular press seeks a simple declaration which it can report, and runs roughshod over the process by which a theory is constructed. Liam Scheff, noting how the natural sciences are reduced to the assertion of simple propositions in the popular press, writes:

But what if there was good evidence that these things weren’t true? Would Fox and CNN report it? What if serious, established researchers had strongly disparate views on an issue? Should they be allowed to debate each other on the nightly news?

The popular media do not see the natural sciences as addressing a long list of open questions. They wish to present sciences as a set of “proven” or “accepted” propositions - and even at that, they sidestep any discussion about the meaning of ‘proven’ or ‘accepted.’

Matters which are largely accepted - e.g., that a water molecule contains two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom - are matters which are, in and of themselves, of little interest to science. More interesting are the questions which are truly open - e.g., how a certain molecule, injected into a cell, seems to know where inside the cell it belongs.

Because the popular press wants to reports results and not investigations - assertions and not questions - it furthers the illusion that the natural sciences are monolithic. It is telling that the few questions found about scientific topics in popular reports are either rhetorical questions, or questions about mundane possible future practical applications, and not questions about the matters themselves. Liam Scheff continues:

The major media work hard to create the illusion that science is uniform: a single-minded group of hard-working researchers, joined hand in hand, in a race against the clock, seeking the chemical cures that will save humanity from obesity, cancer, AIDS, death, and all of the other ravages of nature that must be conquered.

Scientists themselves, along with philosophers of science, are more prone to pose questions than those who report about science. Often, the questions which engage researchers are questions which won’t have a clear and simple answer any time soon, if ever. But such questions aren’t satisfying to readers, or writers, of popular news outlets.

Simple and sensational propositions feed the common taste. Understood within most methodologies of science, a prediction is an opportunity to test a hypothesis or a theory. But in the popular media, these predictions are understood not as tests, but as simple assertions. One scholar, Charles St. Onge, writes:

Consider predictions about future events. No one has been to the future, so it cannot be observed scientifically. But based on past events that have been observed, we can apply scientific models to predict what might happen in the future. Such predictions are always tentative. The further into the future we try to predict, the less accurate our predictions can become. This is especially true as we account for a lot of variables, as weather and climate forecasters must do.

Eventually, the effects of the popular reports about science begin to work in the other direction, and affect science itself. Governments, universities, and the foundations which grant funding to scientists begin to have a stake, not in the quality of the questions posed, and not in the quality of the analysis about the data, but rather in the bold assertions which they are able to make in the press.

Having once entered into the business of producing results in the form of simple propositions for the media, instead of reflecting on theory construction, scientists and those who fund them find that they have territory to protect. This shifts the scientists from exploring to defending. Or, as Charles St. Onge phrases it,

Because of this reluctance to give up a model or theory, it is possible for almost everyone in the scientific community to be wrong about a certain idea. The late Michael Crichton, famous doctor and science fiction writer, pointed this out in a lecture at the California Institute of Technology. He reminded his audience that science, unlike politics, is not about consensus; science is about getting things right.

It is bad enough when the popular media distort science for the public; it is even worse when these distortions begin to steer the investigations of science itself.

Parsing Rorty

In a memorable passage, Richard Rorty makes a number of comments about labor unions, religion, and morality. This texts presents good examples for analysis and interpretation.

One task facing the reader is to sort out what is philosophically interesting and what is historically interesting. Simply to know that a certain historical individual asserted a certain proposition, or believed it, may be historically interesting, but is not philosophically interesting.

Knowing, however, that a certain individual asserted that proposition allows us to ask whether that proposition is consistent with the other propositions which he asserted, and may allow us to decide whether some of the competing interpretations of that individual’s philosophical system may be evaluated based on the knowledge that he asserted this proposition.

To know that Marx saw labor unions as an embryonic version of a revolutionary communist party is an empirical fact which may interest historians but which does not, by itself, interest philosophers.

On the other hand, knowing that Marx did hold such a view allows us to ask two questions: Is that view consistent with other central propositions in Marx’s philosophical system? Does Marx’s assertion of this proposition rule in, or rule out, some of the many competing interpretations of Marx’s system?

Using powerful but ambiguous vocabulary, Rorty goes on to assert that organized labor is an instance of specific “Christian virtues” - and not only an instance, but the “most inspiring” instance.

The use of the word ‘Christian’ raises an entire flock of new questions - the attempt to establish a clear definition of this word can fill hundreds of pages with debate - but we need not arrive at the complete and comprehensive definition of ‘Christian’ for our purposes, because Rorty is concerned, at least at this point in his text, only with “Christian virtues,” and not the entirety of what might fall under the heading of ‘Christian.’

This allows us to table the larger task of defining ‘Christian’ and busy ourselves instead with the somewhat smaller, but still complex, task of defining ‘Christian virtues.’ Without arriving at a final list of what those might be, we may proceed with the vague assumption that this list would include, e.g., altruism, honesty, pacifism, etc.

Rorty specifically asserts that “self-sacrifice” and “fraternal agape” are among the Christian virtues. Regarding the former, ‘self-sacrifice’ is perhaps an under-determining phrase, because a more complete expression would include some idea about the recipient of the sacrifice - for what does one sacrifice?

Even an avowed and explicit anti-Christian would endorse the notion of self-sacrifice, perhaps self-sacrifice in the service of opposing Christianity. So when Rorty lists “self-sacrifice” among the Christian virtues, he should refine the statement, either by stipulating self-sacrifice becomes virtuous self-sacrifice when made for certain purposes (e.g., self-sacrifice for achieving peace is virtuous, while self-sacrifice made for the purpose of bringing about war is not), or by stipulating that “self-sacrifice” is virtuous if and only if when it is part of a multi-virtue bundle including certain other enumerated virtues.

The phrase ‘fraternal agape’ poses additional interpretive challenges. What does Rorty mean by this phrase? As is already well-known, agape is one of several Greek words which are rendered into English as ‘love’ and stands in distinction to several other Greek words which are likewise translated.

The philology and hermeneutics of agape stretches over centuries and are complex. At the core of it lies a concept of self-sacrifice. But given the Rorty has already used the term ‘self-sacrifice’ in a separate phrase, we will extend charity by assuming that he has a separate and distinct referent for this word.

In general, exegesis of agape denotes not only self-sacrifice, but self-sacrifice for the sake of another: giving, at one’s own cost, for the benefit of person without expectation of any return or repayment.

What, then, does Rorty intend by adding the adjective ‘fraternal’ to agape? How does “fraternal agape” differ from non-fraternal agape?

One popular dictionary defines ‘fraternal’ as

of or denoting an organization or order for people, esp. men, that have common interests or beliefs.

The usual understanding of agape would not limit altruistic self-sacrifice as being for the sake of those who share “common interests or beliefs.” Rather, agape is a sense of sacrificing selflessly, and without any expectation of recompense. To sacrifice only for those with “common interests or beliefs” would imply and entail some sense of recompense, inasmuch as sacrificing for the sake of one’s fellow believers would be achieving a goal in the form of progress for the community of believers.

An argument - a persuasive and plausible argument - can be made for the proposition that there is an internal tension in the phrase “fraternal agape.” Under the usual understanding, agape is given without expectation of reciprocation, and therefore is not to be extended only to co-believers, but rather to all humans. Rorty writes:

The trade union movement, which Marx and Engels thought of as only a transition to the establishment of revolutionary political parties, has turned out to be the most inspiring embodiment of the Christian virtues of self-sacrifice and of fraternal agape in recorded history.

Four words attract attention in Rorty’s continuance of the passage: ‘most’ and ‘purest’ and ‘unselfish’ and ‘heroism.’ How do these terms apply to collective bargaining?

Can we argue that, “morally speaking,” organized labor is the “most encouraging” phenomenon of recent years? More than, e.g., German Lutherans and German Roman Catholics who crossed denominational lines to form a united Christian underground resistance against Hitler’s Nazi government? More than white Americans who willingly offered their lives to ensure that African-Americans would receive their constitutional voting rights?

Probably some efforts by labor leaders were unselfish, but were they the ‘most’ and ‘purest’ unselfish actions? While there were unselfish aspects to those actions, there were also elements of self-interest in better wages, better working conditions, and union dues paid to those who led such efforts.

While heroic, were the efforts of labor leaders the ‘most’ and ‘purest’ examples of heroism in recent decades? If herosim is defined, roughly, as “bravery,” we might ask about soldiers in battle, mothers in labor, and other examples, - and ask whether collective bargaining is the “most” and “purest” example of bravery. Rorty continues:

The rise of the trade unions, morally speaking, is the most encouraging development of modern times. It witnessed the purest and most unselfish heroism.

Rorty then proceeds to compare organized labor to (1) churches, (2) corporations, (3) governments, and (4) universities. He argues that labor unions have greater “moral stature” than these.

He makes this claim based on the assertion that union leaders had “an enormous amount to lose.” One tacit premise in his argument is that people in churches, corporations, governments, and universities had little or less to lose. The truth-value of his assertion will be determined in part by empirical facts: an accounting of who lost what.

One side of Rorty’s claim is, then, philosophically uninteresting, but historically interesting. We may make a tally of lives lost, and of other things lost, by various organizations, and decide who lost the most.

But another side of Rorty’s argument is philosophically interesting. Two claims in particular, both of which are unstated but implied, attract philosophical attention. First, he seems to be asserting the proposition that those who lose more gain “moral stature.” Second, he is operating with some definition of ‘church’ which needs to be made explicit.

Defining ‘church’ is perhap as thorny a task, or nearly so, as defining ‘Christian’ - but, under most plausible definitions, it would include millions of martyrs - from those killed under Roman rule prior to 313 A.D. to those currently being killed in places like North Korea.

There are, to be sure, competing definitions of ‘church’ - but even the most cynical of these would have to include the martyrs along with those who were part of a worldly power structure which called itself ‘church’ but lacked virtues which would normally qualify it to bear that name, or included the vices which would normally disqualify it.

Does Rorty really mean to say that the labor unions have a higher moral standing than the hundreds of thousands who went willingly to their own deaths simply so that others could experience altruism, pacifism, and communal harmony? He writes:

Though many trade unions have become corrupt, and many others have ossified, the moral stature of the unions towers above that of the churches and the corporations, the governments and the universities. The unions were founded by men and women who had an enormous amount to lose ‑ they risked losing the chance of work altogether, the chance to bring food home to their families. They took that risk for the sake of a better human future. We are all deeply in their debt. The organizations they founded are sanctified by their sacrifices.

If Rorty truly believes that an organization is “sanctified by” sacrifices, then, by his own calculus, churches would be more holy than collective bargaining. If he truly means to assert that the moral standing of a group is based on its willingness to seek “a better human future,” then the church, which introduced the notion that every human life is valuable and should be respected, should have such a moral stature beyond organized labor.