The structure of modern science

All scientific knowledge is statements. The correctness of the statements is evaluated by reproducibility. The higher the reproducibility of a statement is, the more it is recognized as a solid truth.

This relationship is not limited to science. The correctness of knowledge and logic, both of which are components of statements, is always evaluated with their reproducibility.

Why does the reproducibility matter? Because the reproducibility allows us to predict the future. Logic is a statement of a temporal repetitiveness in a reproduced past phenomenon. Logic always originates from a reproduced past phenomenon.

Before modern science emerged, the only ways to prove the correctness of one’s statement were DEMONSTRATION and TESTIMONY. There is no concept of evidence.

Demonstrating a statement allows the audience to experience it. Testimony is a statement of one’s own experience. Experience is a sensible event; seeing, hearing, smelling and so on.

From ancient times to the Renaissance, people sought to understand the mechanisms of nature and to develop strategies to know the future. They did not like the uncertainty in the future. They wanted to make a prediction to allow preparation. Fortune telling, superstition and astrology. All have their own logic. In their context, their statement is correct. However, the reproducibility and predictability of their statement were poor. Their correctness is often biased by personal testimony.

Galileo is considered the father of modern science. He was the first person to use evidence to prove a scientific statement. The statement to be proven is a hypothesis that cannot be demonstrated. But through multiple pieces of evidence, its probabilistic correctness increases.

His early work on the Pisa tour is very famous. He DEMONSTRATED that heavy and light objects fall at the same speed. This was a disproval of the common Aristotelian belief at the time that a heavy object falls faster than a light one. This was the standard at that time.

His work on the universe is probably the first to use modern scientific procedures. He proved the correctness of a statement about something invisible and insensible, using multiple pieces of evidence derived from reproducible, visible observations using tools and equipment. 

Galileo’s advantage was his telescopes. He could see something invisible to the naked eye reproducibly using them.

He pointed his telescope at the Moon, probably with a simple curiosity. He realized the Moon does not emit its own light. Instead, he saw black and white patterns. He interpreted them as shadows of landscapes, like mountains and craters. He had never seen aerial views of Earth’s landscapes, but recognized and imagined their similarity. The Moon and Earth are similar. This challenged the traditional view of the Moon. The view established for two thousand years of astronomy is that of a crystal sphere in which all stars are supposed to be fixed and emit their own light, including the Moon. And the Earth is not a star.

Next, he pointed his telescope at Jupiter. He saw four speckles around Jupiter. These speckles changed their positions at different times. He interpreted them as Jupiter's satellites. A star with another one going round it. The moons of Jupiter. This is the realization of the universe beyond the crystal sphere and the solar system that Copernicus proposed. But simultaneously, the question of where heaven is arose because heaven is supposed to be behind it.

Then, he pointed his telescope at Venus. Again, Venus does not emit its own light. He saw a dark area, similar to the Moon's phase, which expanded and shrank. He interpreted the phases of Venus. At this point, he was confident that Copernicus’s heliocentric model must be correct. He explained Venus’s phase because Venus turns round the Sun in a simple circle.

Lastly, he pointed his telescope at the Sun. He saw dark spots on the Sun. The position of the dark spots shifted. There were two possible explanations for this. The Sun’s self-rotation or the Earth’s orbit. He believed the latter because it aligned better with other observations.

Based on the four direct reproducible observations and their interpretation, four pieces of reproducible evidence were collected. To explain these four pieces of evidence without contradiction with each other, Copernicus’s heliocentric model must be true.  This is Galileo’s conclusion.  

Galileo used multiple pieces of visible observation to prove something that was directly invisible. This is the structure of modern science. Before this, no one knew how to prove the existence of something invisible/insensible. Galileo proved the existence of something invisible by collecting evidence that is reproducibly visible. Galileo did not demonstrate the existence of the heliocentric universe. He collected multiple pieces of evidence for its possible existence, otherwise be difficult to explain without contradiction.

Each piece of evidence is a probability. Through collecting multiple pieces, the probability of the correctness of a statement about the invisible/insensible is strengthened.

The ancient Geocentric view was not incorrect if we limit our observation to the naked eye. The idea was logical, and the concept of epicycles was amazing. Their prediction ability was not different from Copernicus’s model. (This is because Copernicus used concentric circles, but not the elliptic orbits Kepler discovered later. His idea was simpler but not better.) Nothing to doubt about until Galileo noticed something with his telescope.

The heliocentric view of the universe was also challenged by Einstein after all. There is no such thing as a centre.

Importantly, despite these changes in perspective, the observations remained the same. New observations were added based on new technologies. But nothing was wrong with the old observations, only the perspectives.

The most current scientific perspectives are not directly visible. They are supported only by reproducible, visible evidence. Each piece of evidence is produced by tools and equipment that make the invisible visible. These perspectives allow us to create visual models that no one has ever seen directly. Models of the universe, molecules, atoms and so on. Nowadays, CG-based models are very helpful for visualizing them and conveying perspectives to those without specific scientific knowledge.

However, the important realization that must not be forgotten is that these perspectives are tentative; none is likely to be eternally correct. ‘Paradigm shift,’ as Thomas Kuhn depicted, could occur when one person captures the outer frame of the accepted perspective.

Modern Science is building perspectives based on reproducible, visible evidence. These perspectives are not directly visible or sensible. The existence/correctness of the invisible is proved by visible, reproducible evidence.  New tools and technologies advance scientific progress by creating visible, reproducible evidence. The new evidence often forces revisions in perspective, as Galileo’s telescope did.

On the other hand, model-driven research, often used in medical research, lacks the power to revise perspectives. Because the models are built from and within the perspective. There is no chance to challenge it.

There are rare occasions when new perspectives come first from imagination. No new evidence, but new viewpoints bring new perspectives. Copernicus. Newton. Einstein. They used mathematics for that. On the other hand, the ideas of evolution by Darwin, plate tectonics by Alfred Wegener, and symbiogenesis of mitochondria by Lynn Margolius are different. Careful observations and proposing a new alternative perspective without new observations. The solo power of human imagination.

We must remember that none of the perspectives lasts eternally.  A new one comes unexpectedly and unpredictably.

Imagine. None of the ancient people imagined Earth was moving. None of them could imagine electricity or an iPhone. Probably, they must be even beyond myth or fantasy for them.

That is the power of human imagination. Keep revising our perspectives. Therefore, stay humble because none of our perspectives is eternal. There is no eternal correctness.