Is Science in Crisis?

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

In a thought-provoking piece for The New Atlantis (“Saving Science” Spring/Summer 2016), Daniel Sarewitz makes the case that the field of science is in grave danger from internal problems. He explains that many published scientific studies have been shown to be faulty because they do not produce the same results when repeated, and that published studies often show correlations that either don’t exist or are too small to be significant. He believes that science is at a point of crisis.

Where It Started

Dr. Sarewitz explains that science’s downward spiral began after World War II, when MIT engineer Vannevar Bush proposed a “beautiful lie” about science:

“Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown.”

This lie was able to take root during an explosion of interest and funding for science during the Cold War, when Americans directed our energy toward defeating Communism. Science flourished, Dr. Sarewitz argues, because of the Military-Industrial Complex; the Department of Defense was willing to invest heavily in endeavors that likely wouldn’t have received funding in the free market, like communications systems and rocket propulsion.

Because of this huge influx of cash, tied to measurable goals to which scientists were accountable, science in America advanced at an incredible rate, but many people didn’t stop to consider why. They just believed Bush’s beautiful lie that the success was all about scientists freely following their curiosity, even though that wasn’t really happening.

Science and Goals

Here we come to Dr. Sarewitz’s main point: science needs clear goals and accountability in order to flourish. If it proceeds without goals, what we get is what we have: scientists who study a whole lot of things with little significance or real-world impact, in order to advance their careers by getting grants or tenure. We get peer-reviewed scientific journals that pump out literally hundreds of thousands of seriously flawed articles, because they exist for “feeding the beast” of the science industry. We get government and university grants that waste tens of millions of dollars every year funding research that leads nowhere in hopes that scientists “stumble across” something revolutionary. Science without goals creates an unhealthy ecosystem of work and spending that doesn’t really serve mankind the way it should or could.

Dr. Sarewitz provides examples. In addition to noting the good that the Cold War and Military-Industrial Complex did for science, he writes about the fight to end breast cancer, which, even after spending untold millions of dollars over decades, has not found a cure. Dr. Sarewitz writes about a group of activists who began to work with the government (the military, oddly enough) to focus research dollars toward specific goals under the umbrella of cancer research. With a 2020 goal for curing breast cancer (or at least making significant progress), the partnership is making headway, after years of throwing money somewhat randomly at cancer-related studies has failed.

Dr. Sarewitz also believes that technology plays a huge role in setting goals for science. Because technology companies need to make stuff that works (or they’ll go out of business), using science to advance technology has been hugely successful. Consider how far we’ve come in computing over the last fifty years. Hardly anyone predicted in the 1970s that the next generation would carry more computing power in their pockets than used to be contained in entire buildings. The business of technology pushes science to reach measurable, real-world goals.

What do we make of this information?

What are we to make of Dr. Sarewitz’s harsh assessment of modern science? It’s tough to argue with the point that science works best when it is directed toward clear and noble goals, with real ways to measure success and failure. That’s why engineering and physics are the most accountable and least-corrected sciences; unlike disciplines like psychology, there are often clear ways to test results and see how they actually work.

There are goals for science that are less than worthy. These occur often in academia, where researchers are in stiff competition for tenure, reputation, and grant dollars. The fact that the government isn’t fighting a Cold War or racing to the moon has drained its grant apparatus of goals and motivation, even though we keep funneling in cash from taxpayers. More recently, some have tried to provide those big goals in the form of fighting global warming, landing people on Mars, or creating things like self-driving cars or artificial intelligence (unfortunately, little progress has been made in the important area of dinosaur de-extinction). While these goals have led to some cool inventions and clever ideas, they haven’t caught on in the public imagination the way getting to the moon did.

Dr. Sarewitz makes a great point that technology is a bright spot for science, providing measurable goals and obvious benefits. The past two hundred years have been a period of fantastic technological progress. The flip side of that, though, is that when commercial interests guide science (by the checkbook), they spend a lot of money funding “studies” that prove that their products are the best things ever. Drug and medical companies are especially tempted to provide “proof” of results that will justify insurance companies shelling out money to pay for their products.

Working myself in the nonprofit conservation field, unattached to a university or commercial science enterprise, I haven’t had to read peer-reviewed journals. But they form part of the culture of science at large, and they’re treated as legitimate beyond the academic world.

Science in the News

For average citizens, their main contact with the scientific community is what they see in the news. It used to be that people engaged more often with science, or at least engineering, in their daily lives. But as Matthew B. Crawford explains in his bestselling Shop Class as Soulcraft (2009), our technology is now opaque to us. You aren’t supposed to know how your iPhone works. You’re not even supposed to know how your car works; you push a button and leave the engine (that’s the thing under the hood that goes vroom vroom) to professionals. We don’t engage with the physical world the way we used to, and we learn about physical research from the news.

But the news is a terrible place to get science information. Outlets only report things that are shocking enough to draw eyeballs for advertising, and they aren’t held accountable when they get things totally wrong; in most cases, by the time they go back and offer a correction, it’s a new cycle and the public has moved on to the next big story.

Other threats to science

One other threat to science that Dr. Sarewitz doesn’t address in his essay is the problem of scientists posing as philosophers. The “New Atheists” like Richard Dawkins (and the “New Agnostics” like Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson) spout off on religious and philosophical issues as though their training in scientific fields gives them some kind of special insight into the supernatural. But it doesn’t, and they can’t produce any evidence that it does. In fact, even if they’re great scientists, they’re lousy philosophers and can’t even stick to a consistent and coherent Atheism. The general public has fallen for the “expertise” fallacy, which says that being smart in one academic field means you must be smart in everything. That is silly.

If you go into Barnes & Noble, you can find books about Atheism shelved under Science, because that’s where the authors and publishers say to put them. But science as we know it today was founded in medieval Christendom, funded largely by the Catholic Church. There’s nothing naturally Atheistic about science, but Atheists sometimes try to turn science into a religion. What these people don’t want to admit is that Atheism is already a religion: it makes definite, un-provable claims about the supernatural realm, and accepts them by faith. Atheist books should be kept under religion, or, if we want to compromise, under philosophy. If anyone has a right to take up space on the science shelves, it’s Catholics. (I’m not Catholic, but I can give credit where credit is due.)

Science is not a religion, and when you try to turn it into one (in Scientism or Naturalism), things fall apart pretty quickly. As C. S. Lewis proved in his book Miracles (and others have done elsewhere), naturalism leads to determinism, which removes any hope that our thoughts are real insights. So, if there is no supernatural, we would have no way of knowing it, because we could not trust our own thoughts. Naturalism is logically self-defeating.

Science is still great

I love science. And while I’m concerned about certain aspects of how science is carried out today, I know that there is much to be excited about. We are living in a golden age of science, and it’s exciting.

I am also a Christian, and my faith tells me that because of sin, human beings can’t help but screw up everything to some degree. Science is imperfect now, but when Jesus returns to make all things new, He will redeem science and we’ll be able to use it to discover God’s amazing creations for all of eternity. We won’t have to worry about bias or deceit or bad motives; we’ll simply be able to follow our curiosity and continually find that God’s creativity is never-ending. Scientists will find those longings that are only partially fulfilled on Earth to be completely satisfied on the New Earth. I don’t know what our goals will be then, but I’m sure they will be good.

Science is awesome, and as we continue to improve it and make it as good as possible, we are cooperating with God in His redeeming work and preparing the world for His return. Science is good, but only God is perfect.