Do Scientists Mistake Personal Opinions For Facts?

First, Kura, thank you for asking what is surely a wonderfully stimulating question, albeit, it’s a question which I personally find to be mind-breakingly complex. Your question not only refers to the nature of science itself (“finitely settled”). It also refers to those who practice science (the “scientific integrity” of scientists), all of whom are subject to the failings inherent in human nature.

I’ll begin with the first part, the “finitely settled” part. I find answering this part easy. My answer? This can never happen. Admittedly, understanding why it can’t happen can be hard. To see why, begin with the idea that current science, by design, sees linearity as the proof for truth. Here, identical outcomes to experiments equate to scientific truths.

This desire for linear outcomes explains why scientists go to such great lengths to design experiments. The more nonlinearities they can eliminate, the more linear their results can be. Admittedly, were these results to translate accurately at all scales to the real world, then science could be finitely settled. After all, one plus one is two. Over and out.

The thing is, even simple counting math is true only in theory. No two things in the real world are ever the same. So while one plus one IS two, saying one apple plus one apple equals two is never quite right. Unless you are one of those people who claims such errors do not matter, because science occasionally makes great discoveries despite these errors.

I, myself, am not one of those people.

Why not?

Imagine the discoveries science could make if it knew how to get rid of these errors. I myself would love to see science aspire to this more honest standard. With this new science, truth in the laboratory and truth in the real world would always match. Not just “almost match,” as in the case of two similar apples. “Match” the way pairs of candle flames and pairs of cumulus clouds match.

Not coincidentally, neither pairs of candle flames nor pairs of cumulus clouds are ever linear matches either. Measured in this way, they are merely two more examples of that no two things in the real world can ever be identical.

At the same time, they are identical, but in a much more elegant way.

Each pair matches fractally, and as fractals, they match perfectly.

Strangely this simple example points to a way to reconcile science’s mismatch problem: restrict scientific measures to things involving fractility.

What would this look like? A five year old can learn to correctly recognize every cumulus cloud that will ever exist. More important, once learned, this child will retain this ability for the rest of his or her life.

In a way then, this five year old is a better scientist than most people claiming this title. This aside, this example points to how I can so confidently claim science will never be finitely settled. All fractals scale up and down in an infinite network of self-similar regressions. Here we see the very thing which defines something as fractal. A fractal is a “recognizable pattern which always repeats differently,” as opposed to science’s darling; linearity, which is a “recognizable pattern which always repeats identically.”

As for the second part of your question; the questionable integrity of SOME, not all, modern scientists: to answer this question, you’ll need to set aside any motives directly driven by dishonesty. Dishonest people have no right to claim to they are scientists.

You’ll also need to set aside any people for whom science functions like a dogmatic religion. Closed-minded people have no right to claim they are scientists either.

What we’re left with then is the group of people who are truly scientists, the infinitely curious folks who genuinely want to discover the nature of our world. Here we’re talking about discovering the true, whole, actual, elegant, real world nature of our world. This includes the infinitely complex, unfolding beauty in all things natural.

People like this, true scientists, focus on things like how the same fractal patterns and forces govern the human circulatory system, Earth’s river systems, and all thoughts flowing in the mind. These patterns determine what these things look like, how they grow, shrink, and change, and how they are subject to the same physical forces.

Don’t you love the efficiency inherent in each and every thing in nature? Over and over, nature reuses each of her designs.

As to your integrity question though, I admit, by restricting my answer to those whom I define as real scientists, I effectively eliminate the problem, which by the way, I believe does exist but is in no way restricted to current times. Personality, at its core, hasn’t changed all that much during the centuries science has existed.

We all want to feel like we matter.

Discoveries tend to make one feel this way.

And basing one’s science on discovering nature’s “almost” linear things does on rare occasions yield pragmatically stunning results.

Kura, try to forgive them. They know not what they do.

Thank you again for your wonderful question.