Science is Not a "Story Created by Great People"
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TL;DR
This article explains that scientific theories are not arbitrary rules decided by elites, but rather conclusions that have survived rigorous testing against reality through a global system of verification and correction.
Reading the ENGLISH translation
Whenever I encounter so-called "anti-scientific" discourse, there's something I've felt for a long time.
I suspect they think of "science" as "rules decided by important people." They imagine that some great, smart elite suddenly "decided" on the laws, principles, and theories of physics one day.
"I've got it! Let's make time and space merge and be curved! Doesn't that sound interesting?"
In this image, "great people" innocently come up with the formulas and theories in textbooks, and the surrounding scholars gratefully believe in them. Looking at science through this lens, it's no wonder people feel that the more counter-intuitive a theory is, the more it seems like a "tall tale made up by some arrogant professor."
This feeling is especially strong because science that can be understood as a simple extension of daily intuition ended in the 19th century. Since the 20th century, science has developed into realms that are extremely difficult to visualize with everyday intuition. In short, they are viewing it through the same frame as myths or religions: "stories created by great people."
Our Science is a "Conclusion"
In reality, the science we learn in books and classes is a compressed extraction of "conclusions" reached through hundreds of years of vast observation, experimentation, and calculation.
Therefore, unless one is conscious of this, it gives the impression that strange logic has "descended" from the sky. Hundreds of years of trial and error are compressed, making it look like "rules scholars decided on their own" or "mere whims."
"Because I say so, it is so. Shut up and follow."
"—How arrogant."
But in fact, behind that "conclusion" easily given in textbooks, there is a massive accumulation of trial and error, facts, and theoretical support. Theories that didn't match facts or had holes died and disappeared. In other words, the survivors become the "conclusions."
What's important here is that these "survivors" were not chosen by authority. It wasn't that an untouchable professor unilaterally and authoritatively decided, "Physical laws must follow this formula!" Rather, among the observations, experimental results, measurements, and technical applications that nature thrusts upon us, those that could explain them remained, and those that couldn't dropped out.
Nature selects the theories, rather than scientists choosing them.
Of course, in the process of establishing a theory, there may be political or authoritative aspects. However, science ultimately faces the inescapable judgment of "does it match reality?"
No matter how beautiful a theory is, or how great the person who proposed it is, if it doesn't match reality, it is corrected or, in some cases, discarded. Conversely, no matter how counter-intuitive or strange it may seem, if experimental facts can be quantitatively explained by that theory, and if it succeeds in predicting new experimental facts and is consistent with other theories and withstands counterarguments, then we have no choice but to accept it.
To begin with, this world is not kind to human intuition. Rather, the history of science is a history of humans correcting their way of perceiving the world in the face of a reality that cannot be understood intuitively.
Theories are Neither "Quotes" nor "Whims"
In the context of science communication, expressions like these are often used:
"Einstein said this," "He claimed this," "He proposed this."
This is natural as a linguistic abbreviation. I think people who believe science is "rules decided by great people" tend to interpret this literally as "he spoke those words."
In other words, they "cannot distinguish" between a "theory based on scientific evidence" and a "quote from a great person." To them, both mean "a great person said so."
The theory of relativity is not correct because Einstein is great. Einstein is great because the theory of relativity continues to withstand actual observations, experiments, and counterarguments to this day. The order is reversed.
Theories like relativity and quantum mechanics are often targeted, but these are not "mere whims." Neither was decided by a genius suddenly thinking, "Let's make the world look like this."
Certainly, in the process of their creation, there are parts triggered by "whims/flashes of insight" that ordinary people couldn't achieve, and this tends to be emphasized in science communication, but that is just the trigger. A mere whim itself is not called a "theory."
People who mix up "theory" and "quote" also mix up "whim" and "theory." In other words, they think "science" is a "quote" describing a great person's "whim."
Some might imagine a "scientific paper" as a sort of ideological essay or piece of writing that says, "I thought of this" or "I think the world is like this." (While papers vary in quality, I am focusing here on papers related to theories that remain for posterity.) If so, it is natural in a sense that scientific theories look the same as stories or religions.
I have released explanation videos for the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics on YouTube. Both are somewhat long videos that might make you sleepy for YouTube, but I try to structure them with an awareness of the long history of humans correcting their thinking while resisting the facts nature has presented, so as not to give the impression of a "great person's whim."
【Explanation】 What is the Theory of Relativity? A video to understand relativity in 1 hour
【Explanation】 What is Quantum Mechanics? ① Strange Experiments: Why is it called "Quantum"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COHahFyMyzc&list=PLskKW-uhVDXBtHirwtcfK4TcEYtE1asLJ&index=1
Science is a Division of Labor
However, a practical problem arises here. No single human being completely understands every science and theory. Human intellectual activity is too broad and deep. No matter how much one studies, it is impossible for one person to understand everything at an expert level in one lifetime.
Even taking quantum mechanics alone, you cannot redo all the experiments and calculations that are the premises of the theory yourself. If you did that, your life would end right there.
Therefore, we inevitably live while trusting things we do not completely understand. We need to "swallow whole" what someone else has done or said. This is the most difficult part that makes science look like a religion.
In both cases, it appears that you receive and believe things you cannot understand yourself through someone else's words. And this is true for scientists as well; they don't doubt every premise from scratch every time. Most research proceeds by temporarily trusting existing theories and previous studies.
However, what is being trusted here is different. In science, what is trusted is not a specific great person, a single sacred text, or the dogma of an organization.
What is trusted is the "system" itself: observing, recording, calculating, publishing, and having others verify, reproduce, and correct it if there are counterarguments. Someone somewhere doubts, someone else verifies, and yet another person applies it; if a contradiction arises, it gets stuck somewhere, and the puzzle pieces won't fit.
No matter how much one tries to distort facts or theories with political power, they will lose "consistency" with other theories and facts, and the pieces will no longer fit. If you distort physics, contradictions will appear in the engineering based on it. If you distort chemistry, contradictions will appear in material science and drug development based on it.
Science is a division of labor.
What Science Believes In
No matter how much science is said to be reproducible, you cannot reproduce every experiment yourself. In the end, you have no choice but to place trust in the community of experts. Thinking that way, I can understand the feeling of wanting to say, "In the end, isn't science just believing?"
However, what is important there is what you believe in. While religion believes in "absolute truth" or "the words of a great person," science is built on the premise that it is "not the absolute truth" and believes in a "system that is corrected as soon as an error is found."
In other words, science is not a "finished story" written by a few geniuses. It is a record of a gritty, endless collaborative effort that has been rewritten many times before the harsh judgment of reality and is being updated by all of humanity at this very moment.
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