Why review basic scientific methods? What is the issue? Well, it turns out that polarization is driven by how we determine what is true.

Let’s return briefly to Postmodern Ideology. Those unfamiliar with this belief system may be surprised to discover that its proponents’ alt-truth is advanced with a purpose: to decenter the authority of truth as demonstrated by science. Why? Because the Postmodern Ideology is a sociopolitical ideology, seeking to usher in an ideal society that aligns with its values. Widely accepted, even scientific, truth can stand in the way of immediate ideological goals. Truth (such as that based on scientific knowledge) must be decentered at least for a time to clear the way for the desired utopia.

I will be seeking to unveil an even more surprising reality.  Although alt-truth as a product of Postmodern Ideology employs a method for decentering the authority of truth, the method is mobile! The method was developed by the political left, but has been recently employed in a less sophisticated, more brutal way from the political right.  Keep in mind the strategy of attacking the media that started over five years ago in American politics: “fake news.”

Before we dive deeper into the nature of the truth vs. alt-truth conflict, we need to remind ourselves of what constitutes basic scientific knowledge.

Simple Observations

The scientific method is, first of all, about observation. We know by observation. Let’s keep it simple to determine what we know truly even though we know in part.

We learn by observation at an early age. Considering the scientific method by starting with childhood is one way to keep us grounded. Children observe things using all five senses. Seeing an object within reach, they pick it up, turn it, look at it from different angles, put it in their mouths to taste it and smell it. Children will shake it, and if it rattles, shake it again, then pound the table with it.

Before long, the child is experimenting with the law of gravity. Dropping a spoon to the floor and hearing the noise sparks a second experiment.  Throw the cereal bowl over the edge of the highchair and watch it bounce.  How about the cup?  How about throwing a piece of cracker up and watching it go down? Something is going on in the child’s mind at a very primitive level: “What happens when I push a dish over the side?” What happens is an event.  What caused it is, “Me!”

A few months later, the unseen force of gravity may be observed with small cars, but this stage’s observations can be easily missed.  For example, a car pushed on the kitchen floor goes a ways then stops.  Gravity was at work here, but most likely not noticed. Still, why did it stop? And why does the black car go further than the red car?

However, if Dad takes out a board from the dining room table and puts it on the kitchen floor, propped up at one end with a couple books, the baby can learn that just letting go of the car, not pushing it, will result in the car “going downhill.”  The same car dropped on the kitchen floor doesn’t move. Now, there is a lot going on here–wheels that turn, an inclined plane allowing the force of gravity to pull the car down the board, etc. A law of gravity is at work and more (every event has a cause).  At the bottom of the incline, the car keeps going a few feet further on the floor, even though it was not pushed and was not still going downhill. Why?

Reasoned Observations

We reason from what we know to what we don’t know; that is what learning by reasoning is all about (If P, then Q). Reasoning is the most distinctive feature of the human condition. Even by the time children are six years old, they are deep into asking why. One of my teachers observed that a true definition of a philosopher is the following: any six-year-old child. They ask all the right questions; they just won’t hang around for the answers.

Eventually, children will pick up answers from those who have struggled to explain observations.  For example, why did the car go down the board when I didn’t push it? Because of the law of gravity.

What is the law of gravity? Newton explained that gravity is a force that acts between any two objects with mass, and that force increases if the mass increases but decreases if the distance between the two objects increases. There is more, but essentially, the car has mass and the earth has mass, and they are drawn to each other. Because the car has wheels that reduce friction, gravity draws the car toward the earth even if it is on an inclined plane.

Why does the car keep going when the surface is flat when gravity’s role is just to hold the car to the table? Because of the law of inertia. An object at rest tends to stay at rest; an object in motion tends to keep moving at a constant speed in a straight line. Any child old enough to stand up and hold onto a bus’s support pole experiences the law of inertia. When the bus takes off, she has to hang on or she will fall down. “An object at rest tends to stay at rest.” When the driver puts on the brakes, she has to hold on again because “an object in motion tends to keep moving at a constant speed in a straight line.”

How are these laws known? They are known by the scientific method. Clarifying the understanding of these two laws is often attributed to the scientist Isaac Newton, but it was a host of observers following the scientific method that created this scientific knowledge we now know to be true. Science is not primarily about the opinions of scientists: it is knowledge derived from the scientific method diligently followed.

The Oxford English Dictionary breaks down this method used for centuries around the world:

The scientific method is now commonly represented as ideally comprising some or all of (a) systematic observation, measurement, and experimentation, (b) induction and the formulation of hypotheses, (c) the making of deductions from the hypotheses, (d) the experimental testing of the deductions, and (if necessary) (e) the modification of the hypotheses.

The idea is to learn inductively, starting with observations, a far cry from the alt-truth approach I will be explaining.

Summary

Central to science’s search for knowledge is the presupposition every event has a cause. The search for scientific knowledge observes natural events and what may have caused them.  We have the certainty that every event has a cause, but with a different confidence than how we know through science. Humans are made to reason, just as surely as we have eyes to see. When we follow the method of verification established by the scientific method, we accumulate scientific knowledge. What we know through science we know truly, but we know in part.

The physical sciences of physics, chemistry, and biology, fields in which the scientific method of verification can be applied, set the standard of confidence that our critical examination of reality develops reliable knowledge.  However, those who seek knowledge through science will not find the same degree of certainty in the social sciences. For example, whereas there is an attempt at being scientific in political polls, they are notoriously inaccurate in providing scientific knowledge of what people really think or how they will vote.

Even so, the rigorous application of the scientific method (where it is not a mix of some kind of science and human opinion) can generally be accepted as true.  Of this kind of science, we can say we know truly, even if we know in part.

Next: We have examined underlying presuppositions behind science with only a few allusions to Postmodern Ideology. Next, we will consider the Christian faith, a knowledge system committed to critical descriptions of reality but holding a wider scope for what constitutes reality. When we have these two knowledge systems in hand, we will go on to the more difficult examination of the presuppositions of Postmodern Ideology. What does Postmodern Ideology have in common with the other two systems? What are the points of conflict? Stay tuned.