SAB NewsSAB Members Respond: "What do you believe but cannot prove?"Posted 5/4/2006 Proof is an elastic concept beset with weakness as well as ingenuity. Great minds can sometimes guess the truth before they have either the evidence or arguments for it. (Diderot called it having the “esprit de divination.”) The Science Advisory Board’s Question of the Month, inspired by this notion, originated from the recently published book, What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today’s Leading Thinkers in the Age of Certainty. Answers from our members ranged from the plain to the profound. Here are a few of the responses. They have been edited for grammatical clarity, where possible. Otherwise they are here in their candid entirety as submitted by the respondents. Please note that the responses are not necessarily the views of the staff of The Science Advisory Board. If you'd like to join a discussion on this topic in our Forum, please click here and log in to respond! "Miracle" medical cures unexplainable by current medical knowledge. I know of a few isolated cases. Common link: positive thinking, imagery, "mantras", nutrition, alternative medicine, etc. I hope we can figure out some kind of comparative ("double blind?") study and get to know more about these therapies, which are presently an anathema to mainstream medicine. That stupidity is by far the strongest power in the universe (as e.g., you can fight gravity for some time, but you can't evade stupidity even for a moment). All bodily functions are related...what we eat, think, metabolize, watch, do...all effect out health, physiology, output, Reponses in a very direct fashion. Being is becoming. Complex system theory will revolutionize psychiatric diagnosis. Even in "science," it's not what you know but whom you know. God. God. God exists. God and Intuition. Great minds can think something, which is true. To prove it is very hard. That God exists, that's what I believe; I can't prove it, since God isn't a commodity or a thing to be proved. I am sorry to be romantic, but the one thing we all believe, and cannot prove, is pure and simple LOVE. Cannot touch it, cannot measure, do not know what it is made of... very unscientific, but it is there, we all want it, and it makes us happy. I am the best! I believe I can fly. I believe in an afterlife and spirit world parallel to our consensual reality. Firsthand experience has led me to this belief. Although I have evidence that I am not hallucinating spirits, I cannot prove that they exist. I believe in God. I also think that quarks are made of pure energy. I believe that it may become possible for people to live healthy and productive lives to an average of 100 yrs. by the use of "novel proteomics/genomics/metabolics personal and public health monitoring" devices to track human health day to day. I believe that some scientists are honest in 100% in their publications. I believe that the assumption that 1 plus 1 is 2 is true. But no matter how much I try, I cannot prove it. I believe that the Universe is created and is controlled by a Supreme Intelligence and Power - the God who revealed Himself through Jesus Christ and through the pages of the Bible. I believe that zero and infinite are the same. But how to prove this? But you can prove to some extent. Everything except zero has either positive sign or a negative sign. So also for infinity. But there is no positive zero and negative zero. When you add positive infinity and negative infinity, it is zero. What you observe is not the truth. The truth is beyond the conception of human mind. The whole visible universe is actually an illusion of our mind. The universe has projected out of a primordial basic entity, which may be nothingness or equivalent to zero. Just like zero contains infinite numbers, both positive and negative. I believe the plasticity of neurons and its immaculate integrated network forming the consciousness beyond the proof is right now not provable but certainly I believe its simple neurons that make the world that we are seeing (conundrum) that is believed by late Dr. Francis Crick. I believe when the people receive 50-100 or more times of natural background radiation in a year which is about 2.4 mSv at the uniform dose rate from some manmade radiation sources, the cancer mortality of the people would be sharply reduced, as though by a vaccine. The people live in some higher natural background areas in the world, have lower cancer mortality seem could prove it, and an incident of Co-60 contaminated apartments lasted for more than 20 years in Taiwan revealed the cancer mortality of the residents could reduce to only 5% of the general public seem produce better evidence. The Veteran Hospital that discovered the shipyard workers had higher cancer deaths, if like to engage thousands volunteers in age higher the 65 and give chronic uniform doses of 50-100 mSv in one year, it might prove chronic radiation could greatly prevent cancers. I think that reality is objective not subjective. This is the basis of the scientific method; therefore what I believe is not relevant if it cannot be proved. Intuition is necessary to formulate hypothesis; what is not acceptable is to bend the results to prove you had the right intuition. LIFE - simply put, I cannot find this sparkle that initially makes DNA and proteomes to work on themselves; I can make them function, yes, but only on an existing living basis; so, where is the original "start”? Lots of our political leaders are not honest. Marijuana can actually activate the reward system. Mercury, in the form of merthiolate, as a preservative in vaccines is responsible for the increased incidence of autism in children. If not the cause, it is the trigger. The Mind. RNAi should at least in part, repress mobile genetic elements. I think it would be answered in the near future. But now it's still open. I do not want to prove anything I believe in. As far as my science is concerned, my theories shall be supported with factual evidence. Beyond the realm of Science, I do not subject my belief to contest or following. One Minute… One should distinguish between the appropriate logic for the interpretation of scientific result and the natural form of scientific ambition. Thus, not only our reason fails us in the discovery of the ultimate connection of causes and effects but also even after our experience has informed us of their constant conjunction, it is impossible for us to satisfy ourselves by our reason, why we should extend that experience beyond those particular instances which have fallen under our observation. " As animals and human do seek to explain events in their Worlds in terms of presumed causality, and they develop skill in interpret ting and are content to accept, the man who can explain a phenomena understands it, in the sense that he can predict it and utilize it more than other man." That getting a chill in winter makes us more susceptible to colds and flu. That the peer-review process for publications and particularly for funding is polluted with the "friendship" and "part-of-the-clan" unfairness. That there is a divine force that guides science. That there is a heaven. That there is a real world outside us. That there is God the Almighty. That there is intelligent life on the planet Earth! The existence of extraterrestrial life, due to the fact that our knowledge of the universe is so limited. In a future not so far, we will be able to prove this, but that has been impossible, so far. The following belief is related not so much to science (as in the book you've mentioned) but rather to the underlying assumptions in the current system of scientific research. The belief: my associates and I strongly believe that "the grant-funding system steadily erodes the minds of the scientists, making a circus out of serious scientific research". Accordingly, any belief related to science and scientific research can be biased by the grant funding (or lack thereof). I am not sure that this belief 'cannot be proved' since it greatly depends on what is meant by a 'proof'. The following were proofs good enough for me: 1. My participation in writing, performing and making report of not less than 10 grants does suggest that most of the really significant discoveries are often 'unfundable'. 1.1 Most of the significant discoveries are even unpublishable and this is, often, is in a strong correlation with the funding issue. This is, also, my experience after publishing a few dozen of papers with various academic publishers. 2. What IS funded and gets published, is rarely has a practical application, not even mentioning any implications for fundamental science. It might be the case of at least 80% of the successful grant applications that get actually funded. 2.1 As the result, unscientific practices are flourishing (including data falsification, low professional levels etc)--- this issue is, from time to time, discussed even in 'prestigious' academic journals. 3. Unofficial polls among biologists, physicists and chemists, conducted by us do suggest that the above contentions can be more than a whim of mind. 4. Most significant recent achievements in science and, in particular, in biology (including sequencing of the human genome) were done in the industrial/private sector, which, to some extent, is free from the inherent drawbacks of the granting system. This sentiment is, of course, only my personal opinion. What is important, that companies often can make significant research much faster and with less funding (just compare the price tags on the two human genome projects). There are numerous examples of this efficiency are also available outside the field of biology. 5. The grant system is so strongly reminiscent of the Pavlovian conditioning (the carrot-and-stick type) that it cannot but erode the minds through self-conditioning and self-brainwashing (though I forbore from going into details of this statement here). 6. None of the major discoveries in the last centuries of European science were ever done with any sort of 'grant funding'. We all know about Kopernik, Galileo and Newton and how they made their discoveries. Prof. Einstein 'raised funding' for his principal discoveries while working in the Bern patent office. Mendel made his fundamental discoveries while crossing peas and mice of different varieties "for the fun of the thing". Fleming. Virchow. Mechnikov. Pavlov. And these are names that just first that spontaneously come to mind. That human civilization via the young generation will reach every thing in the future by the science and the technology but except the spirit, death and the time of the world ending. THE POWER OF THE QUESTION! There are many things I believe to be true, in most of the cases scientific reports standing against them, though I cannot prove them. Lack of access to sophisticated labs, influence of not necessarily true findings in the logics thereafter, and the fear of being labeled as conservatism or antiscientist not to accept the new, hitherto unimagined findings are main contributing factors leading to the temporary dominance of certain school of thoughts. Partial truth of assumptions often leads to such conclusions. Take for example the beliefs that guided the thought process once in history, only Man has soul, the Nature with its resources and living beings are for the service of Man, Woman is inferior being, Abortion is not a slaughter, the Earth is or is not the center of the universe, Time did not exist before the big bang, Light has the fastest speed. I cannot prove or disprove, but I doubt the truthfulness of each of this. I feel, this feeling is not limited to me, and there should be other like-minded people. Time spent climbing mountains is not counted against the rest of your life. |
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