Once Before Time - Martin Bojowald [150]
During the same pre-Socratic times, an entirely different tradition ruled in cosmology and philosophy: one of open contests among small schools such as those of the philosophers mentioned in the chapter on cosmogony. Here the dominant viewpoint was that of critical rationalism: Theories were developed rationally but examined critically. Through these contests, a long line of highly innovative insights and cosmological worldviews was generated. In the quality of other results as well, such as the astronomical ones of Parmenides, these philosophers were not at all second to the Pythagoreans.
Such different traits can be found also in modern research, depending on the personalities of the researchers involved.1 The all-too-human component of science, all objectivity notwithstanding, is not to be underestimated. Our basic perceptions and their processing mechanisms initially emerged through evolutionary adaptation to conditions on Earth; now they are being strained in an effort to understand the whole universe, on both small and large scales. The human mind has led to unexpected successes, in which mathematics as ordering power has played a decisive role. But can we be sure that this is not a wrong path, or that essential ingredients of the world are not being overlooked by our repurposed senses?
Science can never rule out the possibility of taking a wrong path, but it can reduce its likelihood. The approved means is the versatility of critical rationalism as it was lived by the pre-Socratics: It is damaging if the majority of scientists in one area, such as quantum gravity, work uncritically on the same methods. Diverse approaches must not only be admitted but supported actively, especially in cases in which no observations can yet indicate the correctness of the approaches taken. Too strong a formation of scientific subgroups—secret or open—is certainly a disadvantage, since individual research is too easily suppressed. At the end of science, or so one hopes, stands Truth. For this a strong guarantee exists thanks to observation and its ultimate objective confirmation by Nature, for Nature cannot be bribed (even though bribery attempts can be made). But only that truth can win that has been given a chance to compete.
Unfortunately, a strong focus on a single or few directions occurs all too easily in the current research situation: Once having arrived at an influential position, often determined by chance or fashion, a research direction can easily strengthen itself by attracting funds and influencing new hiring. Frontier areas of research are tenuously secured and are correspondingly occupied sparsely. Even slight fluctuations in the balance of forces between different approaches can have much further-reaching implications in these fledgling areas than in larger, more established scientific fields, where they can easily be compensated for. From a research-political perspective, it is in fact in the interest of an upstart discipline to suppress the direct competition of alternative approaches. Too strong a drive to exclusion can be counteracted only by independent oversight committees, which serve to rule out intellectual nepotism.
Despite the almost intoxicating progress of science, one must always keep in mind its limitations, which become clear especially at its frontiers. We have