THE LIVING WORLD
Unit One. The Study of Life
1. The Science of Biology
1.8. Theory and Certainty
A theory is a unifying explanation for a broad range of observations. Thus we speak of the theory of gravity, the theory of evolution, and the theory of the atom. Theories are the solid ground of science, that of which we are the most certain. There is no absolute truth in science, however, only varying degrees of uncertainty. The possibility always remains that future evidence will cause a theory to be revised. A scientist’s acceptance of a theory is always provisional. For example, in another scientist’s experiment, evidence that is inconsistent with a theory may be revealed. As information is shared throughout the scientific community, previous hypotheses and theories may be modified, and scientists may formulate new ideas.
Very active areas of science are often alive with controversy, as scientists grope with new and challenging ideas. This uncertainty is not a sign of poor science but rather of the push and pull that is the heart of the scientific process. The hypothesis that the world’s climate is growing warmer due to humanity’s excessive production of carbon dioxide (CO2), for example, has been quite controversial, although the weight of evidence has increasingly supported the hypothesis.
The word theory is thus used very differently by scientists than by the general public. To a scientist, a theory represents that for which he or she is most certain; to the general public, the word theory implies a lack of knowledge or a guess. How often have you heard someone say, “It’s only a theory!”? As you can imagine, confusion often results. In this text the word theory will always be used in its scientific sense, in reference to a generally accepted scientific principle.
The Scientific "Method"
It was once fashionable to claim that scientific progress is the result of applying a series of steps called the scientific method; that is, a series of logical “either/or” predictions tested by experiments to reject one alternative. The assumption was that trial-and-error testing would inevitably lead one through the maze of uncertainty that always slows scientific progress. If this were indeed true, a computer would make a good scientist—but science is not done this way! If you ask successful scientists like Farman how they do their work, you will discover that without exception they design their experiments with a pretty fair idea of how they will come out. Environmental scientists understood the chemistry of chlorine and ozone when they formulated the CFC hypothesis, and they could imagine how the chlorine in CFCs would attack ozone molecules. A hypothesis that a successful scientist tests is not just any hypothesis. Rather, it is a “hunch” or educated guess in which the scientist integrates all that he or she knows. The scientist also allows his or her imagination full play, in an attempt to get a sense of what might be true. It is because insight and imagination play such a large role in scientific progress that some scientists are so much better at science than others (figure 1.9)—just as Beethoven and Mozart stand out among composers.
Figure 1.9. Nobel Prize winner.
Sherwood Rowland, along with Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen, won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering how CFCs act to catalytically break down atmospheric ozone in the stratosphere, the chemistry responsible for the "ozone hole" over the Antarctic.
The Limitations of Science
Scientific study is limited to organisms and processes that we are able to observe and measure. Supernatural and religious phenomena are beyond the realm of scientific analysis because they cannot be scientifically studied, analyzed, or explained. Supernatural explanations can be used to explain any result, and cannot be disproven by experiment or observation. Scientists in their work are limited to objective interpretations of observable phenomena.
It is also important to recognize that there are practical limits to what science can accomplish. While scientific study has revolutionized our world, it cannot be relied upon to solve all problems. For example, we cannot pollute the environment and squander its resources today, in the blind hope that somehow science will make it all right sometime in the future. Nor can science restore an extinct species. Science identifies solutions to problems when solutions exist, but it cannot invent solutions when they don’t.
Key Learning Outcome 1.8. A scientist does not follow a fixed method to form hypotheses but relies also on judgement and intuition.
Author’s Corner
Where Are All My Socks Going?
All my life, for as far back as I can remember, I have been losing socks. Not pairs of socks, mind you, but single socks. I first became aware of this peculiar phenomenon when, as a young man, I went away to college. When Thanksgiving rolled around that first year, I brought an enormous duffle bag of laundry home. My mother, instead of braining me, dumped the lot into the washer and dryer, and so discovered what I had not noticed—that few of my socks matched anymore.
That was over 40 years ago, but it might as well have been yesterday. All my life, I have continued to lose socks. This last Christmas I threw out a sock drawer full of socks that didn't match, and took advantage of sales to buy a dozen pairs of brand-new ones. Last week, when I did a body count, three of the new pairs had lost a sock!
Enough. I set out to solve the mystery of the missing socks. How? The way Sherlock Holmes would have, scientifically. Holmes worked by eliminating those possibilities that he found not to be true. A scientist calls possibilities "hypotheses” and, like Sherlock, rejects those that do not fit the facts. Sherlock tells us that when only one possibility remains unrejected, then—however unlikely—it must be true.
Hypothesis 1: It's the socks. I have four pairs of socks bought as Christmas gifts but forgotten until recently. Deep in my sock drawer, they have remained undisturbed for five months. If socks disappear because of some intrinsic property (say the manufacturer has somehow designed them to disappear to generate new sales), then I could expect at least one of these undisturbed ones to have left the scene by now. However, when I looked, all four pairs were complete. Undisturbed socks don't disappear. Thus I reject the hypothesis that the problem is caused by the socks themselves.
Hypothesis 2: Transformation, a fanciful suggestion by science fiction writer Avram Davidson in his 1958 story "Or All the Seas with Oysters” that I cannot get out of the quirky corner of my mind. I discard the socks I have worn each evening in a laundry basket in my closet. Over many years, I have noticed a tendency for socks I have placed in the closet to disappear. Over that same long period, as my socks are disappearing, there is something in my closet that seems to multiply—COAT HANGERS! Socks are larval coat hangers! To test this outlandish hypothesis, I had only to move the laundry basket out of the closet. Several months later, I was still losing socks, so this hypothesis is rejected.
Hypothesis 3: Static cling. The missing single socks may have been hiding within the sleeves of sweatshirts or jackets, inside trouser legs, or curled up within seldom-worn garments. Rubbing around in the dryer, socks can garner quite a bit of static electricity, easily enough to cause them to cling to other garments. Socks adhering to the outside of a shirt or pant leg are soon dislodged, but ones that find themselves within a sleeve, leg, or fold may simply stay there, not "lost” so much as misplaced. However, after a diligent search, I did not run across any previously lost socks hiding in the sleeves of my winter garments or other seldom-worn items, so I reject this hypothesis.
Hypothesis 4: I lose my socks going to or from the laundry. Perhaps in handling the socks from laundry basket to the washer/dryer and back to my sock drawer, a sock is occasionally lost. To test this hypothesis, I have pawed through the laundry coming into the washer. No single socks. Perhaps the socks are lost after doing the laundry, during folding or transport from laundry to sock drawer. If so, there should be no single socks coming out of the dryer. But there are! The singletons are first detected among the dry laundry, before folding. Thus I eliminate the hypothesis that the problem arises from mishandling the laundry. It seems the problem is in the laundry room.
Hypothesis 5: I lose them during washing. Perhaps the washing machine is somehow "eating” my socks. I looked in the washing machine to see if a sock could get trapped inside, or chewed up by the machine, but I can see no possibility. The clothes slosh around in a closed metal container with water passing in and out through little holes no wider than a pencil. No sock could slip through such a hole. There is a thin gap between the rotating cylinder and the top of the washer through which an errant sock might escape, but my socks are too bulky for this route. So I eliminate the hypothesis that the washing machine is the culprit.
Hypothesis 6: I lose them during drying. Perhaps somewhere in the drying process socks are being lost. I stuck my head in our clothes dryer to see if I could see any socks, and I couldn't. However, as I look, I can see a place a sock could go—behind the drying wheel! A clothes dryer is basically a great big turning cylinder with dry air blowing through the middle. The edges of the turning cylinder don't push hard against the side of the machine. Just maybe, every once in a while, a sock might get pulled through, sucked into the back of the machine.
To test this hypothesis, I should take the back of the dryer off and look inside to see if it is stuffed with my missing socks. My wife, knowing my mechanical abilities, is not in favor of this test. Thus, until our dryer dies and I can take it apart, I shall not be able to reject hypothesis 6. Lacking any other likely hypothesis, I take Sherlock Holmes' advice and tentatively conclude that the dryer is the culprit.
