One of the more wonderful experiences of life is being involved in the sciences. The rich diversity of facts and conjectures makes each day an opportunity to see the world much like a small child does: with sparkling delight. How sad it is that personal ideologies can, not must or should, impart a slant to science. While I recognize that from quantum physics, observation can be said to collapse the wave function into a particular state (as per the Copenhagen interpretation) and that, therefore, the observer influences the observation, why add to this bias voluntarily?
It turns out that some great men, like Isaac Newton for example, had great biases. It turns out that these men, who often attained powerful and influential positions, were not above using their personal influence to maintain their personal viewpoint of how the universe is constructed or functions. It also turns out that the scientific community, at large, can be equally influential, in the negative sense. I’m thinking here of the unfortunate suicide of the great German physicist Ludwig Boltzmann’s in 1906, partially because of his stance on the existence of atoms – he believed in them without the existence of direct proof.
These personal biases can show up in the most unexpected places: Einstein was writing papers, as late as 1939, claiming that the “dark star” (we call them black holes) could not arise through natural processes and were, therefore, not really possible. This despite that solutions to his own equations for general relativity was the origin of the concept! This is a strong bias from a very flexible thinker!
So how does one exclude ideological bias? If you’ve worked very hard, for a long time on some conjecture that you believe describes a certain phenomena in the universe, it’s extremely difficult to accept that your efforts have been for naught. The spirit rebells! But, isn’t this really just putting the importance of your ego before the importance of accurately observing and conjecturing about the universe? What a delight to be of a scientific mind, to be apart from that clinging nature of unexplored faith! Yet, when we each have to personally allow our own creations to be silenced (or stillborn if we’re not quite ready to publish), it is a difficult thing to do. So a good scientist must strive to be a man of good character. If you want admiration, become a movie star! If you want respect from a learned few, do good science. Note: I did not say “popular” science. To rise against the dogma of what’s “true” can make one feel like Martin Luther all over again! Which stands as a testament and a test to those of us who review the works of others: are we upholding the best that science has to offer or are we using this venue to concrete in our own points of view. Many times in my life I have had to abandon promising lines of inquiry because new data came to light which rather clearly, and sometimes embarrassingly, showed that my efforts described a world in conflict with the world containing this new data. In a phrase: I was wrong! So I start over, incorporate the new data, and see what implications fall out from reflection of this new perspective.
The lesson is that separating ideology from science is a measure of your respect for science, as expressed by your personal strength of character. Much like a small child learning to throw the ball back to Daddy, most of the early attempts fly awry. But with corrective practice, the child can learn to throw the ball. Similarly, yes we are human, frail, etc., but we are not chained to this impulsive state. As humans can, and sometimes do, perform heroic feats of bravery, so can we, as humans, perform heroic acts of character by observing what’s there, as opposed to what we want to be there (because of what we believe). Easy – no. Doable – yes!
