To think outside the box or inside the bag?

By Tom Armstrong on

oxo

 

Of course, what we think – what, perhaps, we can think – is constrained in all sorts of ways: by the language we speak, by the current dominant style of that language (for us, grammatically well-formed sentences making falsifiable propositions), the law, public opinion, the habits, conventions, traditions of our way of life and, no doubt (better not leave these out), age, sex and race. Our thought, in both our private and our professional lives (including that of the scientists who are the panjandrums of this world) is constrained by too many assumptions not just to list but even to identify. And most of them we are probably unaware of.

But, it does have to be insisted, these constraints do not make up a box, with rigid sides and a lid. What they do make up (if you must have a simile) is more something like a rubbery bag which can shrink and expand and change shape (and has openings for entries and exits), something within which there is plenty of room for independence of thought and the mutual criticism upon which it depends. The phrase ‘thinking outside the box’ glamourises a kind of self-sufficient independence that doesn’t go well with any conservative institution (like FSB).

 A scientist turned philosopher of science, Michael Polanyi, puts the case well for thinking inside the rubbery bag and does so using the example of Velikovsky. Velikovsky’s astronomical theories in Worlds in Collision, were, he says, condemned as utter nonsense by distinguished astronomers who frankly said that they had not read his book. He asked to be admitted to a public discussion of his views, and this was refused. He had concluded that the surface of Venus was hot and its atmosphere heavy with hydrocarbons and asked the Harvard Observatory to test this prediction; this was refused.

Even subsequent confirmation of the prediction did not succeed in getting discussion of the theory reopened: “it was rated as a curious coincidence. Authority prevailed against facts.” But not, in Polanyi’s eyes, wrongly, for:

“A vital judgement practised in science is the assessment of plausibility. Only plausible ideas are taken up, discussed and tested by scientists … . Suppose then that Velikovsky’s claims were as implausible as the parallelism between periods of gestation and the number pi; or as implausible as Lord Rayleigh’s results published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society; or, again, as implausible as the chemical transformation of elements now appears to be—or that they were to appear even more absurd than these claims (all with “evidence” adducible in their favour)—then it would certainly correspond to the current custom of science to reject them at a glance unread and to refuse to discuss them publicly with the author. Indeed to drop one’s work in order to test some of Velikovsky’s claims, as requested by him, would appear a culpable waste of time, expense, and effort. ...

This does not mean, of course, that scientists have always been right in so doing. I have myself suffered from the mistake of such judgements … my theory of adsorption was disregarded for half a century because its presuppositions were contrary to the current views about the nature of inter-molecular forces, even though it has turned out that my theory was right. But I did not complain about this mistaken exercise of authority. Hard cases make bad law. The kind of discipline which had gone wrong in my case was indispensable. Journals are bombarded with contributions offering fundamental discoveries in physics, chemistry, biology or medicine, most of which are nonsensical. Science cannot survive unless it can keep out such contributions and safeguard the basic soundness of its publications. This may lead to the neglect or even suppression of valuable contributions, but I think this risk is unavoidable. If it turned out that scientific discipline was keeping out a large number of important ideas, a relaxation of its severity might become necessary. But if this would lead to the intrusion of a great many bogus contributions, the situation could indeed become desperate. The pursuit of science can go on only so long as scientific judgements of plausibility are not too often badly mistaken.” (Michael Polanyi, Knowing and Being, pp. 75–9)

And on Covid and climate change (and sexual and racial differentiation?), judgements of plausibility have become not just mistaken but hopelessly confused by having politics beaten into them, forming a mixture that does permit science to go on but only as ‘the science’ or ‘settled science’, not so much true or false as something to be obeyed.

 

Duke Maskell

Reactionary Essays, at dukemaskell.substack.com