Scientists v. Psychics - The Fight of the Century

So, is science progressive? That's a big one, especially because there are so many definitions in there that any answer would hinge upon. First of all, science. Science is, according to the dictionary, the systematic study of the physical world through experimentation and observation. At the same time, when we refer to "science", we are referring to the currently accepted paradigm that has arisen from these observations and experiments. So what does a claim have to be, in order to be considered a part of science? According to Popper, it needs to be falsifiable. So, any scientific claim can be disproved, but is accepted into the paradigm because it hasn't been disproved yet. Take gravity, for example. We're pretty sure that only gravity can only cause two objects to experience a force towards each other, and never away. However, were we to directly observe such a force, such an antigravity, we would (in theory) quickly change our beliefs, because gravity is clearly no longer what we think it is.

Next, we must of course discuss the meaning of the word "progressive". Dictionary? Happening or developing gradually or in stages, proceeding step by step. Now, to make the question a little more interesting, I'm going to assume the connotation of positive progress. So, to rephrase it now with defined terms: does the body of knowledge amassed by mankind about the physical world through experimentation and observation proceed positively in stages? Wordy, I know, but now we really know what's going on.

How many scientific revolutions have we, as a species, had? (These are the "steps" that I'm talking about when I define progressive.) I'm not sure, but depending on what you're willing to consider a revolution, the numbers can get quite high. As soon as something challenges the paradigm and cannot be disproved, we know that the paradigm itself is wrong. Take the observer effect. The idea that observation might change the way in which something in the physical world behaves seems impossible according to our paradigm, and we are now struggling to account for it. This is a scientific revolution in progress. For science to be progressive, all of the revolutions like this one would have to progress towards a single point, the goal of science. However, what that point is remains unclear, and largely in the realm of personal knowledge. Science is so large that it is difficult to explain what it stands for; we have seen science used to create weapons to slaughter innocents, cures for horrible diseases, springier tennis racket strings, or simply scientific knowledge for the sake of understanding the world. What's interesting about all these things is that they have something in common: the ends might be vastly different, but to reach any such goal, the finer the degree of scientific truth that the scientist is able to attain, the better the result. So in a way, we could see the overarching goal of science as truth; truth about the physical universe, no matter what it may be used for.

I have to admit a small bias, here. I've spent my entire life loving science, my schema is that there is nothing that cannot be explained away by physical laws, equations, and calculations. What's particularly interesting about this belief of mine is that, despite the fact that it concerns science, it is not in itself scientific. Why is this? Mostly because of a phrase that scientists love: "oh, that? It's just beyond the reach of modern science". With such a statement, the scientific view of the world becomes unscientific, because it is made unfalsifiable. Specific claims can be disproved:

A: "The earth is flat." 

B: "Just you watch, I'll keep going in one direction and end up back here. That'll show you."

A: "Atoms cannot be divided." 

B: "Just you watch, I'm gonna split one and create a massive explosion. That'll show you, Democritus."

(Fine, this is more of a semantic problem, but I had to get Democritus in here.)

But the idealism of science, and of the world obeying specific physical laws, is not falsifiable, if we admit that certain phenomena might be beyond the realm of our understanding. All we have to say is that something is beyond current science.

Back to my original argument, though, that science attempts to attain truth. Science on the most fundamental, physical level, is all about observations, and descriptions of what we've seen. We know about the strong force holding together the nucleus of an atom, because we've (here I'm talking about mankind) experienced it. But we can't explain it. As you get closer and closer to truth in science, you eventually reach a point at which no new information can be gleaned. Essentially, you run up against a scientific wall. I wish this wasn't so much of a problem, but it is. A psychic usually can't explain why they can talk to the deceased. People like me, with our schema and bias, are all too happy to say "that's not scientific, of course it can't be true." But even Steven Hawking can't explain the strong force. It's one of the four fundamental forces of physics, alongside the weak force, gravitation, and electromagnetism. But we don't know why. Why, then, do I accept this claim made by scientists and not the claim made by the psychic? I myself haven't observed the strong force, I can't mathematically prove (yet) why it is necessary for the structure of our universe. How do I know that the scientists aren't the ones tricking me? The unfortunate answer is that I don't; I take it on faith. That, for someone as dedicated to science as I am, is distressing in itself.

So what is this wall, and how do we deal with it? I suppose what separates the scientific wall from the "psychic" wall is the point at which it is found, and yes, I know that this is a flimsy argument. With the idea of the psychic, no portion of that knowledge is explicable to someone without those capabilities. It is simply inaccessible, and can never enter the realm of shared knowledge. However, it certainly can occupy the realm of personal knowledge, and remains there forever. The wall is between shared and personal knowledge in this case. On the other hand, let's look at physics. How many physical principles can be explained without running up against this wall? A great deal of the shared knowledge on physics can be understood even by a layperson before we reach the inexplicable. And when we do, the wall isn't between public and private knowledge; rather, it is between public knowledge and knowledge that cannot be accessed, which presumably represents truth itself.

Let's think about science as a graph. Truth is an asymptote on this graph; as y approaches infinity, x approaches truth. Neither of these ideas will ever be fully reached, either infinite scientific advancement (because there will always be more to test) or perfect, scientific truth (because some things cannot be tested). Ironically, I find myself here again in a very unscientific position. The claim I have made is simply a belief, based on my limited understanding of science so far. However, it is falsifiable, to whatever extent we can conceive of a day when we will no longer be able to say "why". When we arrive at some sort of fundamental truth (which I suppose some would already argue to be the fundamental physical forces) my claim will have been disproven, falsified, and understanding will have progressed.

So, in a nutshell: yes. Science is progressive. Science is like focusing a picture, that picture being our perception of the universe. In the beginning everything was blurry, and we couldn't be blamed for calling the vague shapes we could make out "truth". But as we refine the focus, our concepts of truth become more and more detailed, regularly disproving previous constructs. We find ourselves in an age where almost anything relevant in the day to day has a scientific explanation which we are certain are. The new discoveries are happening in the theoretical world, far from what we are capable of perceiving. Still, they are scientific, and they strive towards a finer degree of truth.