Rejecting Science: Fallism!

The video below outlines a theme that is becoming more and more prevalent in Western Universities: The destruction of science. Or, FALLISM. Fallism is usually peddled under the heading "post-modernism."

I recently completed an M.A. in the English department of a major U.S. university. Apart from the fact that we still studied the great literature of the Western Canon (Shakespeare etc), one obvious underlying theme of the program was that science is simply a construct of Western culture, and that its primary role is the subjugation of women and non-whites through patriarchy and colonialism.

While there is certainly a kernel of truth to the idea that science is/has been instrumental in exploitation around the world and throughout history, the idea that the scientific method can be rejected is worse than false. It is self-contradictory.

All living organism must use a (rudimentary) version of the scientific method (including plants and animals). Even magical thinking and religious experience rely on the scientific method. Contrary to what most people believe, modern science and religion (for example) are not different in the respect that science uses the scientific method, and religion does not. Rather their difference lays in the fact that modern science has explicitly recognized, formalized, and made rigorous the method that ALL organisms utilize to gain knowledge. Namely, the scientific method.

Here are the steps in the scientific method:

1. Observation: noticing something relevant to our interest.
2. Hypothesis: forming a general opinion on its nature and cause.
3. Testing: a formal or informal noticing whether our hypothesis is correct (and therefore has predictive value)
4. Theory: enough confirmations strengthen the hypothesis into a theory that becomes used for navigating the world.
5. Laws, facts etc..... No known dis-confirmations of the theory etc...

This process applies, and is applied by all living organisms. It cannot be otherwise.

Take for example, crossing the road and not getting hit. We can only accomplish this because we unconsciously apply the scientific method. In the past we have observed that being hit by solid objects hurts. We have observed that the faster and larger those objects are, the more they hurt when they hit us. As children this was observed in play. Initially it was an hypothesis, but over time it was confirmed through the 'experimental' tests of experience. It has since solidified into a theory along the lines of: large, fast-moving objects can hurt or kill me. Thus, we do not walk in front of moving cars.

Animals are subject to this very same logic, the logic of the scientific method. Their flaw is that their ability to generalize is far less effective than humans, and their 'theories' often only apply to large objects that are very similar to ones that they have had experience with already. Nonetheless, they are using a rudimentary form of the scientific method: "this causes that."

It is the same with magic and religion. A youth might notice people praying (observation). She forms a hypothesis (prayer works). She tries it (testing). She observes that it works (which of course is likely just coincidence, or the result of the particular benefits of meditation-type activities). She forms a theory that prayer works, and uses it to improve her life.

The reason that the modern science is far more efficacious than religion for achieving desired (technical) ends, is NOT that science uses the scientific method, while religions does not. Both use it and must use it. The difference is that science consciously acknowledges its methodology and has attempted to eliminate various pitfalls. Religion remains unconscious of its own methodology, and therefore ignores its pitfalls (for example: loose definitions or logic, confirmation bias, lack of controls etc).

In the video, the young lady talks about how certain culture's believe that they can direct lightening bolts to strike their opponents. She cites this as an alternative to science. It is not. The belief is obviously based upon an informal usage of the scientific method. It is a theory about cause and effect.

In summation: there is no way to reject the scientific method, and therefore no way to reject science. It's very rejection would require its use. Thus, the Fallists aren't rejecting science, they are simply recommending worse science over better science.