Two
articles I have recently read seem to demonstrate that the scientific method is
not always as reliable as we might have hoped.
Evan Horowitz discusses in his essay “Studies show many studies are
false” for the Boston Globe (7/1/14) how there have been studies of scientific
studies that show that most of the scientific studies under consideration can’t
be replicated. When a German
pharmaceutical company tried to replicate the results of 67 published studies
from academia, they were only able to do so in one quarter of the cases. The American company Amgen tried to recreate 53
cancer studies and only got results that matched those of the original studies
in 6 cases. The results of these studies
of studies are significant, because if a scientific study cannot be replicated
by different investigators, then it cannot be considered to have generated
conclusions that are true and accurate.
Ian Sample, the Science editor for the Guardian, wrote in his article
“Study delivers bleak verdict on validity of psychology experiment results”
(8/29/15) that a recent investigator has demonstrated that an attempt to
replicate the results of 100 experiments written up in major psychological
journals has resulted in success only 36% of the time. More precisely, only 50% of the studies in
cognitive psychology could be replicated and only a mere 25% of the studies in
social psychology could be replicated.
In addition, with respect to these psychology articles, when there was
success in replicating results, the average effects of the replicated results
were only half as large as the first time the experiments were performed.
None
of this is very encouraging for those of us who have looked at the scientific
method as the foundation for much of modern knowledge. All kinds of explanations are given for these
discrepancies. Evan Horowitz quotes a
research professor named John Ioannidis, who had himself written an article
“Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” (8/29/05) in which he
enumerates academic pressure, the fact that the samples in studies can be too
small, and a preference for surprising experiment results as reasons for the
publication of non-replicable studies.
Horowitz himself adds an unconscious selection of certain kinds of
subjects for the sample and the problematic nature of early studies on a
particular experimental issue. Ian
Sample points out that scientists can change the methodology in a subtle way
when they repeat an experiment. Or some
of the conditions in which the experiment is carried out could be distinct from
the first performance of the experiment.
Or some chance element could affect the attempt to repeat the original
result. Finally, the original experiment
could have been in some way defective leading to a false positive.
Some
of these reasons hint at a line of thought I have been developing throughout my
articles with regard to the way humans grasp truth and grasp reality. Reality includes a human’s entire field of
experience and includes the whole configuration of stimuli that he receives
from that field of experience. There are
three kinds of stimuli in a field of experience. There are the focused measurable defined
discrete stimuli that define the boundaries of things and ideas. There are the blurry unmeasurable flowing
blendable continual stimuli that have no defined beginning and no defined
end. Like the tide of a lake or an ocean
or the shifting shapes in a lava lamp.
Finally there are the endless infinity stimuli found in total darkness
and total silence. The black in total
darkness and the slight hum in total silence.
Scientific truth deals
only with the first of these three categories.
Science looks to discover in order to control, to manipulate and to
predict within the human field of experience and thus to improve the human living
condition and protect people from harm.
To do this, it needs to be able to work with controllable, manipulable
and predictable phenomena. Phenomena
that it can focus on and measure and dominate.
In other words, science needs to be able to work with phenomena that, at
least to a great extent, are defined discrete figures that emit defined
discrete stimuli. These are the
phenomena that allow scientists to set up experiments where they can trigger
certain processes with the hope of arriving at certain results. If the scientists succeed, they can then try
to apply what they learn to the physical environment, the chemical environment,
the biological environment, the psychological environment or the social
environment and thus generate certain improvements in the human living
condition or certain protections against harm.
But the fact is that the results of a scientific
experiment represent the excision of certain elements of the total reality
surrounding the experiment. Those
elements that lead to the hoped-for pliable maneuvering of at least part of the
environment. But reality is constantly
shifting, even the reality of an environment that is supposed to be as
sensorily controlled as a laboratory. As
much as scientists try to make laboratories as sensorily neutral as possible,
each laboratory is going to have some elements that make it different from the
previous lab where an experiment was performed.
The layout, the lab furniture, the lighting, the air flow, the odors –
all can have an influence on the performance of the experiment. The time of day the experiment was performed,
the time of year. And, of course,
different scientists and technicians can unconsciously have their own unique
influence on the result of the experiment.
No two people are alike. The only
way to get rid of the human element’s influence when performing an experiment
is to somehow find a way to get rid of the human element. Perhaps one could perform identical
experiments using identical robots and that would minimize the effect of
different personalities on all the different aspects of the experiment. But the intromission of a robot, in order to
create as sterile and neutral an aspect in the behavior of the conductor of the
experiment as possible, could itself have an unforeseen effect on an experiment
and create its own distortion in the results.
This would be particularly true in psychological experiments where the
experiment relates to the impact of a total experimental presentation on human
subjects.
There
are just too many elements that can’t be controlled that can impact the results
of even the best constructed experiment.
These elements relate to how the people and things in the experiment are
grounded in their setting and to the unmeasurable flowing blendable continual
stimuli that are constantly appearing in the most isolating laboratory
environments.
So
what are we to make of scientific studies given this experiential wrench that
is constantly being thrown into the experimental situation. Perhaps, first and foremost, we should
understand that as seemingly neutral as science is in building a body of
knowledge, it does have an ulterior motive: to help humans gain some kind of
control over their living environment.
This has to be done by gaining control over those aspects of their
living environment that are most amenable to control. And this means shutting out those aspects of
the living environment that are not so amenable to control. But by definition, those aspects that are not
so amenable to control are not going to be so easily subject to the control of
humans trying to shut them out. And this
means that as hard as humans may try, their experiments, as, one may say, their
lives in general, are always going to be impinged upon by unforeseen
influences.
In
particular, experiments and lives are always going to be impinged upon by
flowing blendable continual stimuli.
Modern technological humans are always going to focus in both their
experiments and their lives on the defined discrete stimuli that give humans the
illusion that they will someday be able to effectively control the totality of
their living environment. Scientific
experiments, even with their distortions, can contribute to results that
sometimes lead to a partial control over a particular aspect of the
environment. We humans should be grateful
for this, even as we acknowledge that our scientific truths will never allow us
to gain domination over the totality of human reality.
The topic for this article was suggested by Dr. Jorge
Cappon.
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