TRP and Science 2 (was: Science Plays God)

[Joseph Tracy]

I fully agree that what you describe is an ideal way to do science, and many scientists will also agree; probably a sizable majority will embrace this. But there are quite a few prominent scientists who speak in very non-provisional and at times absolutist language. Both Hawking and Stephen Gould come to mind. And there  are even more scientists who scoff at and resign to the category of not worthy of investigation phenomena/experimental data etc. that are either unexplained or suggest a flaw in current theory. Part of this is a battle for grant money, and a valid desire not to waste time, but hasn't a kind of orthodoxy in particular fields sometimes inhibited important science?  So this is not a a put down of all science but an observation that the enterprise  sometimes has qualities more reminiscent of theological arguments or battles over who will have an authoritative voice than testable provisionality. I sometimes read science journals on controversial topics and the response of reader scientists can be shockingly disparate, and often vehemently mean-spirited.  To the layman this doesn't sound like what you are talking about.

On Jun 13, 2013, at 10:34 AM, Monte Davis wrote:

> AW> science is more prone to this lie [claiming truth] than the makers of wit and fiction
>  
> That’s the nub of it, isn’t it? Sadly, like so many Aliceisms, it falls apart under examination. Scientific “truth” is always provisional, with explicit procedures for testing it. When you publish experimental results and offer your explanation, the journal will send it back if it doesn’t have a section on “what are the other possible explanations, and what are the detailed reasons for choosing mine over any of the others?”… and another on “if I’m right, that implies corollaries and consequences that should be tested by further experiments A, B and C.”  
>  
> One does come across that in the best history, criticism, etc., but less frequently and typically with  much less rigor.
>  
> The idea that scientists go around thinking “I have the cold stone Truth, unlike those vague fuzzy generalizations they have over in the arts and letters quad,” is pure – what’s that word you like so much? – projection.
>  
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of alice wellintown
> Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2013 11:48 PM
> To: pynchon -l
> Subject: Re: TRP and Science 2 (was: Science Plays God)
>  
> I don't get the two cultures thing you are  stuck on. There is pleasure in science, and in art, in math, and in fiction. Fiction, as Huck says, is stretches of what is mainly truth, but it don't make no claims to it.  And, as for pleasure, there is more in lies, in invention, in fiction, than in truth. Who claims truth....as Wicks says...and science is more prone to this lie than the makers of wit and fiction and that, as a wise poet once said, makes all the difference when you come to the fork in the road and take it.