The need to doubt in science

I was recently accused of being anti-science by a certain RM Bernardo who wrote a scathing paper entitled "Philippine Bucking of Science Deepest Finds" sent to me by a certain Poch Suzara. His paper was a reaction to my column entitled "No Soul?" (April 29, 2004). He says he belongs to a group called Rational Humanists Society who feel like a "Chihuahua in a dog world" since they comprise only one percent of the Philippine population, barking at the rest whom they feel are all strangers to reason and are given to superstition if they do not look to science for the answers to it all.

One of the most important points in his paper was his claim that I was "a typical "Fil… unable to bioculturally absorb deepest scientific reason fully in the lifelong struggle for liberation from ignorance, superstition, and thoroughly dishonest thoughtways." This was because I was critical of the ideas of Nobel Laureate Francis Crick and renowned mathematician Roger Penrose that had to do with ALL of human consciousness being accounted for by microtubules in our neurons. In my column, I said that "intellectually enriching as those ideas may be, it is devoid of the enchantment to which consciousness dances." Mr. Bernardo even said that it was "Third Worldish" of me to buck scientific ideas like this. This was very puzzling for me because science feeds on "dissent" and "doubt" for growth. Independent thought is the hallmark of science where I am required to carefully study and appreciate scientific ideas with the march of my own thought. Science is the only path where I can come to a place in my mind where I can take on a Nobel Laureate like Crick, pit his ideas against other scientists’ and Nobels and come up with my own assessment without risking jail term, persona non-grata status or excommunication. All ideas are fair game in science for criticism, even those by Nobel Laureates.

I thrive on dissent and doubt. I cannot write my science if my thinking days will be strewn with the most interesting and fascinating ideas but are hands-off just because some scientific god said it and won a Nobel for it, like dogma is to religion. ‘Science gods" – that is an oxymoron. To believe a scientific idea wholesale is to be a fundamentalist, no less dangerous than the religious fanatics. It is flawed reasoning to say that just because I do not agree with Crick’s scientific idea, I am necessarily superstitious. The only way a society can improve is to always leave room for doubt, no matter how seemingly exhaustive or beautiful an explanation of something is. Mr. Bernardo dared me to consult Feynman, among other brilliant scientists, certain that Feynman will put me and my "doubt" to shame. But Richard Feynman, one of my favorite physicists, a Nobel Laureate, had always been on the side of "doubt," saying, "in order to make progress, one must leave the door ajar – ajar only. It is our (scientists’) responsibility not to give the answer to what it is all about, to drive everybody down in that direction" because to do so "we will be chained to the limits of our present imagination." (Feynman, Richard. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: 2000; Perseus Publishing, Cambridge Massachusetts). Even mathematician Jacob Bronowski, who wrote the "Ascent of Man," wrote in Science and Human Values: "Dissent is the native activity of the scientist… but if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be man."

I doubt too, Dr. Bronowski, if she will be woman. As this female columnist, whom the presumably all-gentlemen members of the Rational Humanist Society, made it a point to notice that I am a woman in these words – "that even a female science intellectual as The Philippine Star’s columnist Maria Isabel Garcia could so typically buck science…" – as if first, being a woman in science was such a surprise; second, that being intellectual meant I should NOT buck any ideas by famous scientists and lastly, having done so makes me so "ordinary" a "typical Fil," and "Third Worldish," just like the rest of the dog world where members of the Rational Humanist Society feel like they are Chihuahuas with their total belief that science will provide the answer to all the deepest questions of humanity. What makes a dog a typical dog is that it barks. All dogs bark. But instead of barking on how devoid of science our public life is in Sunday meets, I find it more useful and personally joyful to do something about it and through these weekly pieces, column by column, idea per idea, write about science. That is my dance. I prefer to dance rather than bark. A dancing dog is perhaps a "useless" anomaly or an exercise in futility but certainly not typical.

In that "No Soul?" column, I also said "we should not look for personal meaning in science" which fired Mr. Bernardo up to say that was a "bum rap and dishonest way of thinking." It is odd that Mr. Bernardo’s paper came at a time when I have just started to write a personal letter to physicist named Van Allen, who was responsible for the Hubble space telescope, about a former advisee of his who, under his mentorship, became a plasma physicist, the first Filipino to be one and for a long time, was the only one. I have been trying to bring myself to write that letter for two years now but could not. I began the letter by stating to Van Allen the title of the plasma physicist’s dissertation: "The Scattering of Charged Particles in Plasma Fluctuations." I have had that title imprinted on my mind for 14 years now. I told Van Allen that the plasma physicist had died two years ago and that he had wanted Van Allen to know that he considered his Ph.D. days one of the happiest and most intellectually fulfilling of his life and that before he died, he wrote a manuscript on the meaning of science in his life. Below is an excerpt:

"This is a story of my personal voyage from physics to philosophy. It is a chronicle of my adventure from a technical physicist without caring much about the significance of theories as long as they work. Now we must distinguish between theories that simply work and those that are consistent with our life’s philosophy, in our quest for meaning; those that are simply approximations and those that we believe to be true because they seem to be beautiful. This will eliminate 90 percent of we do as physics and make them engineering work. I should have taught physics this way, with complete freedom. I will discuss things unlimited by a prescribed curriculum. It will be shamelessly philosophical in approach. It would be physics the way I want it taught to me when I was a student. It would be too radical for a textbook. It would be too personal to be of value to anybody else."

I am the plasma physicist’s widow. The pleasure and meaning of the life I shared with a scientist gifted me with an understanding and appreciation for science, for its powers as well as its limitations. When he left, the meaning that romances in my mind, the one clothes my life and character now includes not only knowledge of the existence of "charged particles in plasma fluctuations" and other fascinating scientific ideas which I chase after to understand, but the quality of the scientific mind who creatively worked it out in his mind, the brilliant mentor who supervised his work, the life of science he led and the community of scientific minds to which he belonged, the humanities and the arts he loved, the people he cared about, the world he fell in love with over and over again till the very end, even if he could not make sense of it all. Science enables you to find things out in Nature. Personal meaning is something you come home in your mind for and creatively weave for yourself, with reason, a sense of wonder, intuition and emotion as the elements you work with to mold and mesh in the context of your own life. It may include science but it cannot just be science. Like a painting is more than a play of light and texture, like music is more than sound made by keys, we are more than our microtubules, Mr. Bernardo. And I have a hunch Dr. Crick also secretly thinks or wishes so. I will write to him and let you know.

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