Albert Michelson (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

                                                              

                                                          Edward Morley (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

Clearly, Science is still open to making mistakes. For scientists themselves, a shocking example of such a mistake was the mistake in Physics. Newton’s models of how gravity and acceleration work were excellent, but they weren’t telling the full story of what goes on in the universe. 

After two centuries of taking Newton’s models and equations as gospel, physicists were stunned by the experiment done by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley in 1887. In essence, it showed that Newton’s laws were not adequate to explain all of what was really going on. Einstein’s thinking on these new data led him to the Theory of Relativity. But first came Michelson and Morley’s experiment, which showed that the scientific method, and Newton, were not infallible.

Newton was not proved totally wrong, of course, but his laws were shown to be mere approximations, accurate only for smaller masses and at slower speeds. As the masses and speeds tested become larger, Newton’s laws become less useful for predicting what is going to happen next.

Nevertheless, it was a scientist, Einstein, doing science, who found the limitations of the laws and models specified by an earlier scientist. Newton was not amended by a reading from an ancient text or by a clergyman's pronouncements. Thus, from the personal standpoint, I have always believed, I still believe, and I’m confident I always will believe that the universe is consistent, that it runs by laws that will be the same in 2525 as they are now, even though we don’t understand all of them very well yet. Relativity theory describes how the stars moved in the year 1,000,000 BC exactly as accurately as it describes the stars’ movements now. In that era, living things reproduced and changed by the process that we call evolution just as reliably as living things do now. I believe that, for living things, genetic variation and natural selection are constants.

But I can’t prove beyond any doubt that the universe runs by one consistent set of laws; I can only choose to take a Bayesian kind of gamble on the foundational belief that this is so. I prefer this belief as a starting point over any alternative beliefs that portray the universe as being run under laws that are capricious and unpredictable. Science has had so many successes that, even if I can’t be certain that its findings and theories are infallible, I choose to heed what scientists have to say. That choice, for me, is just a smart Bayesian gamble, preferable to any of the superstitious alternatives. Or as Robert Frost said: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I …I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

   

                       I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

There is even evidence that tribes of the past knew of the inductive method and gained knowledge by it.^2,3,4 More and more as millennia passed, they turned to their gods only when they couldn’t figure out on their own how some natural process worked. One of the big effects of Science has been to steadily dispel superstitions as better insights into the workings of physical reality are acquired. In fact, most people today, at least in the West, concede almost automatically that superstitions need to be dispelled. Plagues aren’t caused by evil spirits or God’s punishment, and they don’t go away if we burn incense or chant for days at a time. But if we control rats, we can control bubonic plague. If we selectively breed our livestock, then our chickens, cows, sheep, and pigs keep giving more eggs, milk, wool, and pork. In short, all humans and all human societies keep gradually becoming more rational because survival demands it.

My model of cultural evolution also showed me why some superstitious beliefs hang on for generations before they are dispelled. But in the end, as old thinkers are replaced by more enlightened ones, the method of human learning, whether it is individual or tribal, is an inductive one. We get ideas about the material world and we test them. We sometimes test world views or moral systems over generations, and what we learn is absorbed by the tribe over generations rather than cognized by any one individual. But our knowledge keeps growing, as it must if we are to survive. We are the only concept-driven species that we have encountered so far. The knowledge-accumulating, social way of surviving is the human way. Our genetically-acquired assets (speed, strength, etc.) are trivial by comparison. We live by learning or we die.