What is Science?

What is science?

I would say statements about reproducibility.  That’s it.

The foundation of scientific research is making a statement about the reproducibility that no one has previously discovered. No more than that.

Logic is a statement of a temporal series of repetitiveness in a reproduced phenomenon. A statement of a temporal series of past events is testimony or history. Sharing one’s own experience one hour ago does not demand logic. It can be explained by stating a temporal series of events.

Logic relies on repetitiveness in a reproduced phenomenon. This needs to be a temporal series. Repetitiveness and the final consequence need to be recognized as reproduced. Logic is not the cause and consequence. Logic is a temporal link between one event and another. The higher the reproducibility of a statement, the more it suggests the correctness of the logic.  

Why does the reproducibility matter? Because it gives us predictability. The recognition of a temporal series of repetition in a reproduced phenomenon allows us to predict what will happen in the future. The higher the reproducibility, the more precise the predictivity will be.

Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, claimed that a heavy object falls faster than a light object. This statement was accepted for nearly 2000 years. It was (and is) perfectly logical because of its high reproducibility. This could be easily demonstrated in front of others, and all people at that time can make their testimony.  This was the truth at that time, and there is no reason to doubt it.  Everyone knew that. 

Galileo doubted it. He demonstrated that a heavy object and a light object can fall at the same speed. He disproved the common belief of the truth. Because this was a repeatable demonstration by everyone and everywhere, the statement was accepted. The testimony followed.

By Galileo’s time, the truth relied on demonstration and testimony. Demonstration is direct observation. Observers can make a statement based on their own experience – this constitutes testimony.  No concept of evidence.

Galileo’s contribution to understanding the universe and the Solar system is the first example of using evidence to make a statement. The concept of evidence is the standard approach in modern science. Therefore, Galileo is recognized as the father of modern science.

Making a reproducible observation – Making a statement to describe it – Interpreting the statement.   (demonstration – testimony – interpretation)

Collecting several sets of demonstration-testimony-interpretation as evidence to make a new statement. Using several independent, reproducible pieces of evidence, which are statements of direct observations, one can make a new statement that is not directly observable. This new statement presents a perspective that we cannot see directly.

Modern science is the statement of perspective based on reproducible evidence. A perspective is the context permitting the reproducibility of all evidence. This perspective statement guides the making of a new prediction.

A new layer of perspective is implemented as an upper nested layer of visible evidence – reproducible demonstrations. This expands our cognition of the truth.

Logic is a statement of a temporal series of repetitiveness of a reproduced phenomenon. Perspective is a statement about what background makes logic work. Perspective is something invisible. Through collecting reproducible visible evidence, each perspective is proven to be the truth. However, the perspective itself is impossible to observe directly and relies on multiple evidence. The correctness of the perspective may flip with new evidence. New evidence or a new insight can challenge the widely accepted perspective, creating a new one at the upper nested layer that incorporates all previous evidence supporting the old perspective without discrepancy.

Perspective can be changed, but not the reproducible visible observations.

Back to Galileo’s story.

From ancient times, people have looked up at the sky day and night, recognizing its movement. The Sun, Moon, and stars. Daily and seasonally. They change their positions in the sky with consistent moving patterns, with some exceptions, such as planets. They are relatively bright stars that occasionally move back and forth. The perspective they had was that the sky was moving. (Who can believe the Earth is moving and rotating!?).  That is very reasonable to me. All stars, the Sun, and the Moon were considered as paints on a screen rotating around the Earth. Planets were the confusing ones. However, amazingly to me, the ancient mathematicians and astrologists came up with the idea of epicycles.

Their interpretation can make reasonably precise predictions. All observations based on the naked eye were reproducible. Everything was logically correct in the context of a geocentric perspective. No discrepancy in logic. No reason to doubt it.

Copernicus was the first to notice an alternative way of interpreting the same observations. He realized that the complex epicycle system with Earth at the center is equivalent to a simpler concentric circle system with the Sun at the center. This didn't involve new observations, but his new crazy perspective could explain the same data more simply. However, because he assumed the concentric circles as perfect circles, the predictability wasn't any better than the geocentric model. With naked eye observations, there was no way to determine which perspective was correct. However, the idea that Earth was not the centre was unacceptable because Heaven was thought to be behind the sky screen. If Earth isn't the centre, then where does Heaven go? 

When Galileo made his telescope, he did not have a specific intention. He learned about it and started making his own.  Whatever the reason, he aimed it at the Moon. He saw black and bright areas on its surface. He assumed them as mountains and valleys. He realized that the Moon has a landscape similar to that of the Earth. Next, he aimed his telescope at Jupiter. He found small dots adjacent to Jupiter, which are invisible to the naked eye. He continued to observe Jupiter and noticed that the small dots shifted their positions. He realized that the small dots circle around Jupiter. He interpreted that they are the moons of Jupiter. Third, he aimed it at Venus. He observed the shadow on Venus. His continued observation showed waxing and waning on Venus. He realized that Venus has phases similar to the Moon. Lastly, he aimed it at the Sun. He observed the Sun’s sunspots. The blackspots on the Sun were moved. The Sun appeared to be rotating.  

Each observation was a demonstration. The demonstrations do not support the Ptolemaic geocentric view. Each observation was evidence for a new perspective, the heliocentric view. The heliocentric view did not disregard the previous demonstrations supporting the geocentric view; instead, it revised the perspective of their interpretation based on new, reproducible observations.

Importantly, no one ever directly observed the solar system, even now. However, we have come to believe in the solar system and heliocentrism due to the substantial evidence that has accumulated since then. Einstein revised the heliocentric theory. Einstein claimed that there is no center of the universe, but rather relativity. Nothing wrong with the reproducible observations. However, our perspective of the universe has undergone significant changes and expansion.  

Scientific truth is a statement of a temporal series of repetitiveness in a reproduced phenomenon. It consists of demonstration and evidence. Direct observations come first. The observations are assumed to link with known phenomena (words and statements), like the landscape on the Moon and the moons of Jupiter. Based on observations and assumptions, an interpretation is provided as a statement. This interpreted statement is not directly observable. This interpretation is a perspective on what makes the observed events reproducible.   

In addition to the concept of evidence, another important concept in modern science is experimentation. Logic is a statement of a temporal series of repetitiveness in a reproduced phenomenon. The cause and the consequence are unknown, but it is an event sequence – an association of two or more events. To evaluate the cause and the consequence beyond association, experimentation is necessary.

The difference between alchemy and chemistry is simply reproducibility. Both are experimenting. Mixing two or more materials (the cause) to create something new (the consequence). No reproducibility of a statement in alchemy, but a statement is reproduced in chemistry.

Experimentation allows scientists to link the cause and the consequence. Any event in our lives is connected to something else. None is fully isolated. Although we can extract the logic leading to the consequence as a statement, we cannot conclude what the cause is.

It is impossible to directly understand the cause of a real-world event because the repetitiveness in such events is often not immediately apparent. Creating a model of the event and experimenting within it is necessary to distinguish the cause from other related factors.  Modelling and experimentation allow for the identification of a reproducible correlation between the consequence and specific manipulations. After identifying the cause in models, it is assumed that the real event also occurred due to the same cause, because the models represent it.

Why do we care about the cause? Because once we know the cause, we can facilitate or intervene in the frequency of the consequential event. This knowledge enables us to predict and influence future events.

There are two types of modelling. Scaling (replacing) and representing (assumed based on a perspective). Scaling modelling is common in engineering. Representing modelling involves extracting the subject from a particular perspective. The models for the geocentric and heliocentric Solar systems are a good example. The perspective is reflected in each model.

In other words, without a perspective, it is impossible to build representing models. Importantly, within a representing model, the different perspectives remain invisible and unnoticed. This means that the correctness of a perspective cannot be assessed within the models because they are constructed from that very perspective. 

Where does a new perspective originate? It comes from someone's insight or a new observation that does not align with common sense. Copernicus had an insight and calculated it mathematically. Galileo made new observations that couldn't be explained by the perspective at that time. 

Insights don't always require new observations. An insight that leads to a new perspective might initially seem completely wrong, silly, wild, ridiculous, or illogical. Often, it can't be immediately proven with new evidence. However, a new perspective prompts the search for new evidence, or new evidence emerges unintentionally, as was the case with Galileo. 

Please consider that the concept of plate tectonics was once thought to be ridiculous, and that the idea of mitochondrial symbiogenesis was considered crazy when it was first proposed. 

I believe no one is opposed to these theories anymore.  

Logic is a statement of a temporal series of repetitiveness in a reproduced phenomenon. Reproducibility is context-dependent. Statements are perspective-dependent.

There is no eternally and universally correct logic because I believe that there is no eternal and universal context; everything is temporal and local. There is also no eternal and universal perspective. Because perspective is personal in each individual's mind, it is built from one’s own unique experiences.

Nothing is perfectly correct eternally and universally, even in Science.