[Paleopsych] Eco: Testing, testing...

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Testing, testing...
http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5007175-110738,00.html
4.9.4

    Umberto Eco finds scientific method a suitable counterbalance to
    fundamentalism

    Many readers probably don't know exactly what black holes are and,
    frankly, the best I can do is to imagine them like the pike in Yellow
    Submarine that devours everything around it until it finally swallows
    itself. But in order to understand the news item from which I am
    taking my cue, all you need to know about black holes is that they are
    one of the most controversial and absorbing problems in contemporary
    astrophysics.

    Recently I read in the papers that the celebrated scientist Stephen
    Hawking has made a statement that is sensational, to say the least. He
    maintains that he made an error in his theory of black holes
    (published back in the 70s) and proposed the necessary corrections
    before an audience of fellow scientists.

    For those involved in the sciences there is nothing exceptional about
    this, apart from Hawking's exceptional standing, but I feel that the
    episode should be brought to the attention of young people in every
    nonfundamentalist or nonconfessional school so that they may reflect
    upon the principles of modern science.

    Science is frequently criticised by the mass media, which hold it
    responsible for the devilish pride that is leading humanity towards
    possible destruction. But in doing so they are evidently confusing
    science with technology.

    It is not science that is responsible for atomic weapons, the hole in
    the ozone layer, global warming and so on: if anything, science is
    that branch of knowledge that is still capable of warning us of the
    risks we run when, even in applying its principles, we put our trust
    in irresponsible technologies.

    The problem is that in many critiques of the ideology of progress (or
    the so-called spirit of the Enlightenment) the spirit of science is
    often identified with that of certain idealistic philosophies of the
    19th century, according to which history is always moving on towards
    better things, or toward the triumphant realisation of itself, of the
    spirit or of some other driving force that is forever marching on
    towards optimal ends.

    At bottom, however, many people (of my generation at least) were
    always left in doubt on reading idealist philosophy, from which it
    emerges that every thinker who came after had understood better (or
    "verified") what little had been discovered by those who came before
    (which is a bit like saying that Aristotle was more intelligent than
    Plato). And it is this concept of history that the Italian poet
    Leopardi challenged when he waxed ironic about "magnificent and
    progressive destinies".

    But these days, in order to substitute a whole series of ideologies in
    crisis, some people are flirting more and more with a school of
    thought according to which the course of history is not leading us
    closer and closer to the truth.

    According to these people, all that there is to understand has already
    been understood by long-vanished ancient civilisations and it is only
    by humbly returning to that traditional and immutable treasure that we
    may reconcile ourselves with ourselves and with our destiny.

    In the most overtly occultist versions of this school of thought, the
    truth was cultivated by civilisations we have lost touch with:
    Atlantis engulfed by the ocean, the Hyperboreans, 100% pure Aryans who
    lived on an eternally temperate polar icecap, the sages of ancient
    India and other amusing yarns that, being indemonstrable, allow
    third-rate philosophers and writers of potboilers to keep on churning
    out warmed-over versions of the same old hermetic hogwash for the
    amusement of summer vacationers.

    Modern science does not hold that what is new is always right. On the
    contrary, it is based on the principle of "fallibilism" (enunciated by
    the American philosopher Charles Peirce, elaborated upon by Popper and
    many other theorists, and put into practice by scientists themselves)
    according to which science progresses by continually correcting
    itself, falsifying its hypotheses by trial and error, admitting its
    own mistakes - and by considering that an experiment that doesn't work
    out is not a failure but is worth as much as a successful one because
    it proves that a certain line of research was mistaken and it is
    necessary either to change direction or even to start over from
    scratch.

    And this is what was proposed centuries ago in Italy by an institute
    of learning known as the Accademia del Cimento, whose motto was "
    provando e riprovando ". This would normally translate into English as
    "to try and try again", but here there is a subtle distinction.
    Whereas in Italian " riprovare " normally means to try again, here it
    means to "reprove" or "reject" that which cannot be maintained in the
    light of reason and experience.

    This way of thinking is opposed, as I said before, to all forms of
    fundamentalism, to all literal interpretations of holy writ - which
    are also open to continuous reinterpretation - and to all dogmatic
    certainty in one's own ideas. This is that good "philosophy," in the
    everyday and Socratic sense of the term, which ought to be taught in
    schools.