The Demon-Haunted World_ Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan [18]
Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No, no scientist enjoys it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection for his or her ideas and findings. Even so, you don’t reply to critics, wait a minute; this is a really good idea; I’m very fond of it; it’s done you no harm; please leave it alone. Instead, the hard but just rule is that if the ideas don’t work, you must throw them away. Don’t waste neurons on what doesn’t work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. The British physicist Michael Faraday warned of the powerful temptation
to seek for such evidence and appearances as are in the favour of our desires, and to disregard those which oppose them... We receive as friendly that which agrees with [us], we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.
Valid criticism does you a favour.
Some people consider science arrogant - especially when it purports to contradict beliefs of long standing or when it introduces bizarre concepts that seem contradictory to common sense; like an earthquake that rattles our faith in the very ground we’re standing on, challenging our accustomed beliefs, shaking the doctrines we have grown to rely upon, can be profoundly disturbing. Nevertheless, I maintain that science is part and parcel humility. Scientists do not seek to impose their needs and wants on Nature, but instead humbly interrogate Nature and take seriously what they find. We are aware that revered scientists have been wrong. We understand human imperfection. We insist on independent and - to the extent possible - quantitative verification of proposed tenets of belief. We are constantly prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs.
Here’s one of many examples: the laws of motion and the inverse square law of gravitation associated with the name of Isaac
Newton are properly considered among the crowning achievements of the human species. Three hundred years later we use Newtonian dynamics to predict those eclipses. Years after launch, billions of miles from Earth (with only tiny corrections from Einstein), the spacecraft beautifully arrives at a predetermined point in the orbit of the target world, just as the world comes ambling by. The accuracy is astonishing. Plainly, Newton knew what he was doing.
But scientists have not been content to leave well enough alone. They have persistently sought chinks in the Newtonian armour. At high speeds and strong gravities, Newtonian physics breaks down. This is one of the great findings of Albert Einstein’s Special and General Relativity, and is one of the reasons his memory is so greatly honoured. Newtonian physics is valid over a wide range of conditions including those of everyday life. But in certain circumstances highly unusual for human beings - we are not, after all, in the habit of travelling near light speed - it simply doesn’t give the right answer; it does not conform to observations of Nature. Special and General Relativity are indistinguishable from Newtonian physics in its realm of validity, but make very different predictions - predictions in excellent accord with observation - in those other regimes (high speed, strong gravity). Newtonian physics turns out to be an approximation to the truth, good in circumstances with which we are routinely familiar, bad in others. It is a splendid and justly celebrated accomplishment of the human mind, but it has its limitations.
However, in accord with our understanding of human fallibility,