The post b elow includes part A of chapter 5 from the book
Is Water H2O? Evidence, Realism and Pluralism by Hasok Chang , 2012. (available on amazon.com) link to complete C hapter 5: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxxczzEYA5C5aHRQUTdoN3o2d3c/view?usp=sharing Chapter 5. Pluralism in Science : A Call to Action Part A. Can Science be Pluralistic? Plurality: from acceptance to celebration Monism and pluralism Why pluralism is not relativism Is pluralism paralyzing? Can we afford it all? Plurality : from acceptance to celebration I became a pluralist about science because I could not honestly convince myself that the phlogiston theory was simply wrong — or even genuinely inferior to Lavoisier’s oxygen-based chemical theory. OK, that is an oversimplification, but I really was pulled into a pluralist way of thinking about science by a set of historical episodes in which discarded past theories turned out not to be obviously absurd on a closer look. More positively, in the course of doing the research for this book, I became convinced that there was something worth preserving in Priestley’s phlogiston, in Ritter’s elementary water, in Dalton’s HO formula for water, and so on without denying the merits of the new ideas that came to replace them. My previous work had already prepared me in this direction, for example when I realized that the caloric theory of heat had much to recommend it, and even some merits that made it superior to the early kinetic theories of heat for many decades until the middle of the 19th century. Of course it would be unwise to make generalizations from a few particular studies, but they were too suggestive to ignore. Like an itch demanding a scratch, they made a persistent call for a re-examination of some fundamental assumptions about the nature of science that were deeply ingrained into my own thinking. They made me seriously call into question the common intuition that there can only be one right answer to a scientific question, and that once science has answered a question definitively its verdict was final. All along in earlier chapters I have made various hints at a pluralism concerning science, indicating various ways in which it seemed beneficial for science to maintain multiple approaches to the same area of study. Now it is time to consolidate those hints into a coherent and systematic statement of a philosophical position. In this chapter I advance a case for pluralism based on general and abstract arguments, supported by reference to as many cases as I can invoke and also buttressed by the arguments concerning scientific realism made in Chapter 4. As in earlier chapters, there will be three parts. Part A motivates and states the general themes in a way that is accessible to non-specialists; Part B contains a systematic and thorough argument for my position; Part C addresses specific specialist or in- depth questions that would have interrupted the flow of thought in Part A As indicated above, I began with a grudging fascination with plurality in science. But the longer I examined this troublesome plurality, the more I became positively excited about it. The historical episodes that I have presented in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 exhibit the presence of multiple systems that were operating simultaneously in respectable and exciting areas of science (electrochemistry and atomic chemistry). My re-examination of the Chemical Revolution in Chapter 1 suggests that a field of science seemingly ruled by one dominant system of practice may actually embody much more plurality than meets the eye, and that it may be beneficial to increase what plurality there is. Phlogiston-based chemistry did not in fact disappear very easily, and it would have been beneficial to let it survive even longer than it did. Similar reflections arising from Chapters 2 and 3 suggest that there is nothing sacrosanct or inevitable about the notion that water is H2O. These thoughts are not crazy, and they create a refreshing and provocative view on how scientific work is, could be, and should be conducted. In the process of thinking through these cases, I began to see general reasons for which plurality would be necessary and beneficial in science. I will give a systematic presentation of these reasons in Part B of this chapter, but here are some intuitive highlights with some suggestive metaphors. The most fundamental motivation for pluralism is humility: we are limited beings trying to understand and engage with an external reality that seems vastly complex, apparently inexhaustible, and ultimately unpredictable. If we are not likely to find the one perfect system of science, it makes sense to foster multiple ones, each of which will have its own unique strengths. If we are like the proverbial blind people feeling the elephant, more of us should be rounded up in an attempt to get at all the different parts of the elephant.1 It is possible that science initially needed to be launched on the strength of hubris, which made the whole enterprise seem worth doing and doable at the same time: that we could grasp the truth about nature! Perhaps early scientists needed to believe that nature was fundamentally simple enough for them to be able to understand it. Newton had God on his side, and proceeded with the faith that there was one truth about God’s creation and with the grace of God he could find it — how else would anyone muster the conviction that one 1 And what makes us confident that seeing gets at all the different aspects of the elephant? equation was ultimately sufficient to explain what happens in all of the universe? After centuries of success modern science has reached maturity, and no longer needs the crutches of faith and hubris. We can now afford to be humble, yet confident that we will be able to continue learning about reality. Joseph Priestley had a particularly instructive notion of epistemic humility, which was dynamic: he said, “every discovery brings to our view many things of which we had no intimation before”. He had a wonderful image for this: “The greater is the circle of light, the greater is the boundary of the darkness by which it is confined.” As knowledge grows, so does ignorance (see Figure 5.1 for my rendition of this image). “But,” Priestley continued, “notwithstanding this, the more light we get, the more thankful we ought to be. For by this means we have the greater range for satisfactory contemplation. In time the bounds of light will be still farther extended; and from the infinity of the divine nature and the divine works, we may promise ourselves an endless progress in our investigation of them: a prospect truly sublime and glorious.” (Priestley 1790, 1:xviii–xix) Priestley’s thinking was based on the infinity of God, but for non-believers his picture may simply be taken as a fact of life in science.2 metaphysical doctrine, either. It just does seem that there are an indefinitely large number and diverse types of facts about nature yet to be revealed, and this makes it likely that each different system of practice would tap into a different part of that inexhaustible reservoir, and continue to tap into more of it. Figure 5.1 (next page). A graphic representation of Priestley’s metaphor concerning the growth of knowledge and ignorance. It does not need to be a highfalutin 2 Or of the “mangle of practice”, as Andrew Pickering put it. Knowledge Ignorance Knowledge We may also think in terms of the complexity of nature, rather than its plenitude. It seems that any domain of nature we choose to study reveals an indefinite degree of complexity, while human minds can only handle relatively simple schemes, no matter how much help we have from increasing computing power. So what we need is a set of various simple schemes to get at specific aspects of the phenomena in question. Against this vision of complexity many scientists and philosophers have put up a notion of reduction: all complex structures can be broken down into simpler ones, and all things in nature ultimately consist of a small number of simple physical units, so knowing the truth about those simple units can tell us everything there is to know about nature. This is the basis of the notion that elementary particle physics is the one and only science we should ever need; Ernest Rutherford reportedly said “All science is either physics or stamp collecting” (quoted in Birks 1962) — as punishment, he was given the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908. Reductionists would grant that it may be expedient to use a plurality of approximate theories when we are trying to deal directly with complex levels of phenomena, but they would insist that in principle we only need one good theory of the simple level. I cannot enter a full discussion of the reductionism question here, but I will make three pertinent observations which give me reason to think that it is unrealistic to expect the reductionist strategy to work. First, there does not seem to be an end to the process of going to more and more basic units; it would have been very nice to be able to stop at protons, neutrons and electrons, but it did not turn out that way — will it stop at superstrings? Second, as we go further and further down to more basic levels, the physics involved in it does not seem to get any simpler. Finally, wholes can be simpler than their parts, depending on our conceptual interests; for example, consider the geometric simplicity of a clean triangular piece of plastic, and the horribly complicated structure of the molecules that make up that piece of plastic. Or the point can be put in terms of prudence, which is based on a realistic pessimism about life in general: not everything will go to plan, and some things we attempt will fail — that is how reality surprises us (the way I conceive of “reality” was explained in Chapter 4, Section B1). There will be contingencies, so we need to put in structures that can handle surprises. In particular, we need to put our systems together so that if one thing fails not everything else fails as a consequence. This is reminiscent of the argument against monoculture in agriculture. Coming back to science, Peter Galison has argued that the resilient strength of modern physics has owed much to the “intercalation” of theory, experiment and instrumentation. Charles Sanders Peirce provided part of Galison’s inspiration, and Peirce’s point was a more general one: in philosophy, as well as science, we ought to “trust rather to the multitude and variety of its arguments than to the conclusiveness of any one. [Our] reasoning should not form a chain which is no stronger than its weakest link, but a cable whose fibers may be ever so slender, provided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected.”3 we rely on only one way to achieve an objective, we will be stuck if that way fails; we need other possible ways in place, so that we can have backup plans. Again, plurality serves as an antidote to the hubris of counting on uninterrupted success. When we do manage to create a successful system for doing something, we should do our best to preserve it, because workable systems are not easy to come by. As discussed in Chapter 4, a conservationist pluralism will help here. Again, basic humility should lead us to expect that any successful system of practice will sooner or later hit upon its limitations. As Kuhn argued, scientists’ desire for increasing precision and scope will push almost every paradigm to failure by revealing fresh anomalies. Success encourages ambition, and as our ambition grows, so does the scope for inadequacy. That is to say, since science is an inherently progressivist enterprise which always strives to improve things, even when it fails to do so.4 almost inevitable that our current best system will exhibit imperfections as it continues to push for more and more success, and there will be scope and necessity for other systems to make valuable contributions. Kuhn’s view is that a plurality of paradigm does and should appear only at a time of crisis in the dominant paradigm. But without at least an underlying plurality in the normal state of science, it is difficult to see how a new paradigm could suddenly arise when it is needed.5 Monism and Pluralism In politics, hardly anyone would deny that pluralism is the foundation of liberal democracy. As Hilary Putnam (1995, 1) stresses, this is a relatively new modern insight: Today we tend to take the ideas of tolerance and pluralism for granted. If we are aware that there was diversity of views and the clash of different opinions in ancient Athens, for example, or in the late Roman empire, we are likely to 3 Quoted in Bernstein (1989), 9, from Charles S. Peirce, Collected Papers, 5.265. That is to say, even when it does not manage to be progressive, it is still progressivist. See Popper (1970) and Watkins (1970) on this point. It is regard that activity as a sign of vitality in those societies. Few people realize that that is not how those societies themselves saw the mater. Classical thinkers saw diversity of opinions as a sign of decay and heresy; only since the Enlightenment have we been able to see it as a positive good. Might there not be a similar situation regarding science, so that we can now appreciate pluralism in a way that was not possible before? The modernist project of scientism, which tried to shape society on the model of science, has not really worked out; why not try to converse, shaping science on the model of what we consider a good social and political system? There are a few initial reasons for taking that suggestion seriously. Most obviously, the scientific community is a society after all, to which general principles of good governance ought to apply. Scholarship, including science and philosophy, is founded on dialogue, which is a fundamental principle of social communication (cf. Bernstein 1989). And there is an epistemic dimension to political pluralism, too — if different religions and cultures are allowed to co- exist, so will the various beliefs that they carry within them. But you may still object: “surely pluralism can’t be applied to scientific knowledge itself?” As I mentioned briefly above, there is a prevalent assumption of monism regarding science, which I now want to face down explicitly in order to create a truly viable space for pluralism. Monism about scientific knowledge springs from the notion that science is the search for the truth about nature; since there is only one world, there is only one truth about it, and only one science that should seek it. Say, either the universe began with a Big Bang or not — there is one right answer to each well-formed question, and science tries to find out that right answer, employing the one best scientific method known and employed by the relevant mainstream scientific community. To be more precise, I take the definition of monism given by Stephen Kellert, Helen Longino and C. Kenneth Waters in their recent edited collection on scientific pluralism (2006, x). In their 5-point definition of monism, two points are especially pertinent for my purposes: “1. the ultimate aim of a science is to establish a single, complete, and comprehensive account of the natural world (or the part of the world investigated by the science) based on a single set of fundamental principles; 4. methods of inquiry are to be accepted on the basis of whether they can yield such an account”.6 monists also typically suppose that there is one best method of inquiry at least in each domain. I would counter this monist position in two steps. First of all, what we want science to do is to give us an account of the natural world that serves whatever ultimate aims we may have; the monistic character of the account of nature cannot in itself be our ultimate aim. This is obvious once you’ve said it, but not many monists seem to think of it. The second step is to show that the aims of science can be served better in general by cultivating multiple interacting accounts. This does require careful argument, and that is what I will attempt to provide in the remainder of this chapter. In place of monism, I offer pluralism as an ideal of science. I would define pluralism in science as the doctrine advocating the cultivation of multiple systems of practice in any given field of science. By a “system of practice” I mean a coherent and interacting set of epistemic activities performed with a view to achieve certain aims. Each scientific system of practice embodies an account of the aspect of reality that is its subject area, and methods for creating and using such accounts. Pluralism (or monism) as I intend it is not merely a descriptive statement about how science is,7 statement about how science should be. As I said in relation to realism in Chapter 4, a proper “ism” should be an ideology, which implies a commitment to action. So, pluralism about science is a commitment to promote the presence of multiple systems of knowledge. It is not an idle pronouncement to “let a hundred flowers bloom”, but the effort of actively cultivating the other 99 flowers. (In advocating pluralism in science I am building on a considerable body of literature. In Part C, I will say a few words about what it is that I want to add to what has already been said by my eminent predecessors, and how my views differ from theirs.) I would add that or not even an armchair-normative 6 The rest of Kellert, Longino and Waters’s definition of scientific monism continues as follows: “2. the nature of the world is such that it can, at least in principle, be completely described or explained by such an account; 3. there exist, at least in principle, methods of inquiry that if correctly pursued will yield such an account”; and “5. individual theories and models in science are to be evaluated in large part on the basis of whether they can provide (or come close to providing) a comprehensive and complete account based on fundamental principles.” 7 It is especially not to be taken as a scientific theory in itself; this is one reason I avoid the phrase “scientific pluralism”, preferring to spell it out as “pluralism in science” or “pluralism regarding science”. Why Pluralism Is Not Relativism Having made an initial statement of pluralism, I now hasten to anticipate and defuse some obvious worries and objections. When I present my pluralist ideas, especially to philosophers, the most frequent and vociferous objection I receive is: “But isn’t it just relativism?” Exactly why relativism should be such a dirty word is a whole other issue, which I can’t fully go into here. More urgently, I want to distinguish pluralism from relativism. The most fundamental difference is that relativism involves a renunciation of judgment and commitment at least to a degree, which pluralism most definitely does not. The mature pluralist attitude is to tolerate and engage productively with what one disapproves of, which is very far from the feared caricature of relativism in which one says “whatever”. Curiously, although it may seem that relativism is a stronger and more radical doctrine than pluralism, relativism does not necessarily imply pluralism. If relativism only insists on the equal treatment of any alternatives that do exist, there is no requirement that there should be multiple alternatives. If everyone actually agrees on something and no one seeks any alternatives, relativism has no strong way to oppose that state of affairs. This may sound like a stupid point, but it needs to be stated clearly: the demand for plurality is the most crucial feature of pluralism. Pluralism is about the benefits of actually having multiple systems in co-existence. So, my slogan for pluralism is not “Anything goes”, but “Many things go.” Pluralism takes a clear stance against absolutism, in a way that relativism actually can't do easily. A system of practice that denies the rights of other systems to exist would have to be banned in a pluralist system of science. This is just as a truly free society needs to impose constraints on individuals and groups to prevent them from restricting the freedom of others. The fear of relativism, and its conflation with pluralism, will not go away easily. The same objection comes back, in a different guise: “If you go with pluralism, how do you choose what to believe?” Well, how do you choose? Do whatever you would do in choosing the winner in a monist scheme, and just pick two winners at the end, or put in a second prize — that would be a fine start for pluralism. Pick three winners, if you can afford to have a third prize, too. Of course we would want to be less crude and facetious than that, but I am trying to make the point that does not deliver us from the responsibility of judgment. If anything, monists have a heavier burden of choice than pluralists, since they can’t stop the process until everything except one option is eliminated. You just may not think monism involves choice because you rely on The Scientific Method, which automatically delivers the choice for you. If you have been involved in peer review, either at the giving or the receiving end, you know that scientific choices are not made by algorithm- following automata. And besides, who chose The Scientific Method, and how? It’s choices all the way down, unless you ask God or a dictator to come in and just tell us what to do. “But, but... how do you keep the crazies out?” The objection keeps coming, from many scientists and others who care about the erosion of scientific authority. They worry that pluralism would result in schools teaching Biblical creationism (or intelligent design) alongside evolution, climate-change skeptics having equal voice with majority scientists in determining environmental policy, alternative medicine gaining a foothold in the medical establishment, and so on. As John Norton once put it to me: it may sound fine to cultivate a hundred flowers, but how do you keep the weeds out? The metaphors keep coming — this, from Sandy Mitchell and Peter Machamer: how do you decide who gets to come to the table?8 question that we must take seriously, and my critics are unhappy because pluralism is not able to answer it. But this unhappiness is based on a category mistake: pluralism is a doctrine about how many places we should have at the table; it cannot be expected to answer a wholly different question, which is about the guest list. And monism doesn’t answer that question, either! Deciding that there will only be one place at the table does not determine who gets to sit there. “Me, of course”, is the unspoken presumption, but how do we keep from ending up with a room full of tables-for-one — sad, and no more productive than having one big table with an uncontrolled guest list? It should be plain that pluralism or monism, in itself, cannot determine what we actually believe in science, or even how we decide what to believe. We do need to have ideas about how we make such choices, and if relativism is a doctrine that says we should make them randomly, then pluralism and monism are equally remote from it. There is another version of the same objection which is subtler: in a monist regime, if we figure out the right way to get answers, we can just have the right answer and eliminate everything else; in a pluralist regime, we would still have to allow other, inferior answers to exist and confuse things. I think this is a very big “if”, again a manifestation of hubris. But many people do find it a realistic prospect, about some scientific questions. For example, they feel that it is impossible that Darwinian evolutionary theory is not fundamentally correct, and that to 8 These comments were part of the discussion after I presented an earlier version of these ideas at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh on 13 November 2009. This is surely an unavoidable give any platform to something as patently absurd as creationism or intelligent design would be nothing short of criminal. All right, let’s talk about creationism seriously, since this issue arouses such passions and cannot be ignored. In short, I think that a fundamentalist insistence on the truth and the sole truth of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory is an attitude that is just as immature as fundamentalism on the religious side. The first thing to remind the evolutionary fundamentalists is that creationism in itself is not such an irrational and absurd thing to believe. Hundreds and thousands of good scientists and other great thinkers — practically everyone in Europe before Darwin’s theory took root — believed it, for lack of a credible alternative. Let’s name some names: Boyle, Newton, Dalton, Faraday, Jefferson, Kant, and on and on. Of course, the rationality of a belief is largely a function of what other conceivable alternatives there are, and in the presence of the evolutionary alternative it is quite irrational to insist that only intelligent design can explain the origin and functioning of life. But why not also accept that there is a lasting mystery about how the marvelous harmony and coordination in living bodies and ecosystems could have arisen spontaneously, and insist that Darwinian evolutionary biology is making progress in solving that mystery and that it is probably the best available way to solve that mystery, while not insisting that no other method could possibly work and should not even be entertained? Why would it be so terrible to mention in biology classes a whole set of alternatives ranging from the neo-Darwinian orthodoxy through neo-Lamarckism to Biblical creationism, and give a frank assessment of how credible we think each alternative is? What are we really gaining by shutting down the debate within science and science teaching? Are we thereby producing a citizenry that is so wonderfully educated in science and excited about it? Are we making a big dent in the spread of religious fundamentalism where it has been strong? What is most objectionable about creationism is dogmatism, the commitment to taking things on faith and refusing to consider alternatives. By shutting down debate within science we only manage to pervert science into the same objectionable dogmatism. It must be possible to engage the creationists in productive ways. To be honest, I have not worked on that issue in my own life because I have not had occasions to care enough about it in comparison to many other issues that I feel more strongly about. But if you do care enough, why not at least dignify the creationist position with an argument against it? To say that it is not even worth debating is, again, hubris. There must be some reason why millions of people find creationism compelling. If you think they shouldn’t, then try to talk them out of it; if you think it is a mass delusion arising from insanity, go into psychiatry! More plausibly and creatively, why not encourage the creationists to come up with concrete methods of testing their ideas, from which we might all learn something, rather than insisting that their ideas not testable? Why not point out the uninformativeness of saying “God designed it that way” as an explanation, and encourage the devising of more specific explanations? Why not encourage pluralistic debate among creationists, by highlighting the serious contrast between those who take the account in Genesis very literally and those who take the Biblical account as metaphorical? And if you are feeling particularly belligerent, why not take the pluralist fight to the churches and demand that their teachings should include evolution as well as divine creation? There are plenty of enlightened churches and even creationists who would, and actually do, allow this. And the others can be reminded that even the Catholic Church has a record of changing its mind on important scientific matters, for example about heliocentrism and the condemnation of Galileo. With these considerations, we come back again to the inevitable political dimension of knowledge, and the ineliminable link between knowledge and politics, between science and policy. And again, scientists and others who extol the virtue of science might take a humble lesson from the messy world of politics, in which people have learned some valuable lessons over the centuries through the unspeakable suffering of millions caused by failed political systems. Without pretending that the current forms of liberal democracy are anywhere near perfect, we should also acknowledge that they are protecting us from far worse excesses. There is a simple and crude pluralist lesson: at least have a two-party system, not a one-party system; yes, pluralism is less efficient than totalitarianism in many ways, but we have to remember that efficiency creates a nightmare if it serves a nefarious aim. Science has also learned some basic lessons about its governance, including the principle of peer review. But science has not yet figured out how to prevent the system of peer review from turning into oligarchy or mob-rule, except by relying on the good will and the good judgment of the individual scientists involved in the enterprise. We need pluralist science policies. I do not pretend to have all the answers here, but I think the act of doing the kind of concrete work presented in this book is a valuable preparatory step. Is Pluralism Paralysing? Even if we can rest assured that pluralism will not drag science into a chaos ruled by crackpots and madmen, there is another kind of chaos that monists worry about. In one sense, this is a point about human psychology: scientists can only focus down on esoteric questions if they are not unduly distracted; monism is the best mind-set for this activity. This is a valid point, at least about some people’s psychology. But such necessity for a narrow mental focus is quite compatible with a minimal sort of pluralism: it is OK for pluralism if individuals or groups pursuing their own systems of knowledge are monists at heart, as long as no one prevents anyone else from pursuing their own schemes (see Section C4 for more comments on this issue). That way all the benefits of Kuhnian normal science can be had within each paradigm, while we retain multiple paradigms. Again, a political parallel may be helpful: a democratic society can let various individuals and groups pursue all sorts of outrageous views and activities, as long as they do not actively prevent others from pursuing their own. In this kind of situation, what we require is an overall social authority that enforces toleration. That is a minimal solution, and we can also go beyond it. Surely it is possible to train our minds to be more capable of switching between different systems of knowledge as needed for solving different types of problems, or even thinking simultaneously in terms of different systems. I have no hesitation in saying that I enjoy thinking about physical situations according to a whole set of different viewpoints. I sit down on the cold floor and feel the flow of coldness seeping into my body; but I also know that heat is flowing out of my body; at the same time I can calculate the rate of energy transfer that makes the molecules of the floor underneath me vibrate so much harder. Is there a problem here? Whence the fear of mixing? There was a time when many immigrants to the United States did not teach their native languages to their children, for fear that this would confuse the children and retard their learning of English. This fear has largely disappeared, and bilingualism upbringing is now widely considered a good and useful thing. If there were such a problem with learning and using two languages simultaneously, life would be impossible in places like Montreal. Language is only an imperfect metaphor for scientific thought, but it is very suggestive. In fact most of us know how to do conceptual frame-switching and frame- blending effortlessly, in scientific thinking as well as everyday communication: we view a photograph of the round earth floating around in space, full of admiration about the truth about the earth shown by modern science and technology, while standing on our feet firmly secured on what we think and feel is the immovable, flat ground. Even so, the monists will object: pluralism may be fine in the realm of thinking, but at the point of action it has to be reined in, because we cannot act effectively if we get mixed up by taking our cues from different systems all at once. This was one of Otto Neurath’s main reasons for insisting on the unity of science. But this objection is based on a misconception. Yes, effective action does need to be coherent within itself, but this does not mean that all of the beliefs we ever hold have to be of a piece, or that we have to do absolutely everything we do according to the same method. Rather, what we need to do is identify reasonably self-contained chunks of activity, to each of which we give as much coherence as we can, and within which we can act effectively. We will sometimes have to move from one such coherent domain to another, and there will be disruptions, but that is just part of life — this is what happens when we move house, change jobs, marry or divorce, lose a loved one, grow up and leave home, and so on through major life-events. There are such action-domains in scientific work, too: that is precisely what I meant by scientific “systems of practice”; after all, action and knowledge are not so separate from each other. If there are different scientific systems offering different advice in the same domain of life, those who need to use the knowledge can and will make the choice. Plurality in science provides opportunities rather than hindrance, as long as those who apply science are willing to make their own judgments. For instance, ordinary people in various parts of Asia do not have a crisis about whether to use traditional or Western medicine for a particular ailment; the choice is available to them, and the decision is up to them. One may go to the hospital or the acupuncturist for a sprained ankle; it is not uncommon for terminal cancer patients to turn to traditional remedies; there is nothing incoherent about these decisions. Sometimes what we want or need is a case-by-case integration of different systems, as Sandy Mitchell recommends (see Section B3.1). A nice cutting-edge high-tech example of such integration is the global positioning system: by means of satellites kept in place by Newtonian physics, and atomic clocks ruled by quantum mechanics and corrected by special and general relativity, this system maps the spherical surface of the round earth on a geocentric (or rather geostatic) grid, and gives advice to people on the ground from a flat- earth point of view. All of these choices and integrations are judgments to be made, enabled by a pluralist science. There is no reason to fear that pluralism will paralyze science or its application to problems of life. Can We Afford It All? Apart from the question of how much plurality scientists will be able to handle effectively, there is a more material kind of objection to pluralism: scientific research requires a great deal of time, money and talent, and it is not possible for society to support all lines of inquiry; so resources need to be pooled into one line of inquiry in each field. I have four layers of responses to this objection. (1) First of all, it is a simple logical fallacy to jump from admitting that we cannot afford all lines of inquiry to claiming that we can only afford one line of inquiry in each field. In fact I don’t think that anyone who carefully considers this issue would argue in that way. In the modern era science is not so under-resourced, despite protests by some scientists. Surely there are enough resources to go beyond a strict monopoly, and the question is just how pluralistic we can afford to go. (2) It may take a great deal of resources to pursue a line of inquiry in an intensive and focused way, but it usually does not take very much to keep them alive. Exploratory research is often very cheap, and all that is required may be salaries and academic freedom given to some unorthodox thinkers, or simply a little bit of kind encouragement to amateurs and enthusiasts who would devote their own resources to keep up their work. Many great discoveries and inventions in science, technology and medicine, at least up to the late 19th century, were made with just these kinds of low-key support. Again, let’s name some names: Priestley, Dalton, Jenner, Fleming, Tesla, the young Edison, the young Einstein working in the Swiss patent office, and so on. There is no reason why this kind of work should stop completely even in this day and age, especially in theoretical science. I remember James Lovelock, the author of the Gaia hypothesis, asking just 1% of the national science budget to be given to all the unorthodox schemes. This is not a crackpot suggestion, whatever one might think of Lovelock’s own particular scientific ideas. Consider the new Pioneer Award Scheme offered by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is specifically devoted to supporting “paradigm-breaking” research proposals: it takes up a very small portion of the NIH budget, but what a difference in outlook it could make! (3) In concentrating resources on a particular line of inquiry, we may well hit points of diminishing returns. I think that modern scientists have actually tended to put too much investment into monopolistic lines of work. Have we, for example, got a good return for our investment, by in pushing so much of the best talent in theoretical physics in recent decades into string theory? Is the current concentration on synthetic pharmaceutical research the most investment for health and well-being? Maybe, maybe not. What seems clear is that having too many people trying the same fashionable approach can be actually wasteful. So we always need to be asking whether we are making the maximally efficient investment of resources into different lines of work. We can and should question whether we can afford pluralism, but we should also be asking whether we can afford monism. (4) It is a pessimistic fallacy to assume that the amount of resources that society devotes to science will remain the same and the only thing we can decide is how we distribute the fixed amount of resources. Science is not a zero-sum game. If we inspire people, we will increase the number of people going into science and the amount of funding that public and private institutions are willing to give to science. Currently it does not seem that scientists in any nation are doing very well in inspiring young people to come into science and getting the public to develop a true appreciation of science, despite some strenuous efforts. Is it absurd to think that monism has made science narrow- minded and stultifying? Is it impossible that we might interest a wider variety of people in science if we provided a plurality of ways of learning and practicing science in a more open-minded fashion? It is true that a more pluralistic science will be mired in more debates, some of which may turn out to be fruitless, and this can be considered a waste of resources. But won’t the presence of some lively arguments actually get more people excited about science? You say we don’t have time for such wrangles? We do have time — on the whole, people in the developed countries do have plenty of time. Yes, some of us are very busy, and some others of us can’t afford any time to do anything but make a living, but think about all the time people spend in playing video games, gossiping, watching reality shows on TV, and fighting and killing each other. It cannot be denied that a great deal of time, effort and money would be required in establishing and maintaining a pluralistic system of science. But I can hardly think of a more worthwhile and necessary long-term investment for the future of human culture.
