Not Accepting Science

I've seen this comment come up a couple of times in different blogs. Pharyngula associates religious thought with child abuse. Why? Because a survey shows that those with religious belief are far more likely to not accept the theories of origin currently in general acceptance by the scientific community. And teaching children that current theory is wrong is child abuse. Now, I'm not defending the idea of creationism as science or anything like that. But I am disturbed by the apparent notion that believing in science means accepting whatever the current theory is, and anyone who questions those theories (a) reject science, (b) are morons, and (c) are ultimately human beings to be viewed as badly as child abusers.

I think of Albert Einstein. Surely no one will question that the man knew a thing or two about science. He's one of the greatest physicists of all time. But for most of his career he would be in the Pharyngula's category of child abuser, a rejector of science, and a moron. Pretty ballsy.

The early part of the 20th century saw the rise of quantum physics, which turned hundreds of years of physics theory on his head, as well as thousands of years of thought about the fundamental nature of the universe. Ironically, quantum's rise was due in part to Einstein's work on the photoelectric effect, which made scientists take Planck's mathematical notion of the quantum more seriously. But, despite the accumulation of evidence that made quantum theory generally accepted throughout the physics community, Einstein rejected it to his dying day.

Einstein was unable to accept the probabilism inherent to quantum theory. Hence his famous quote: God does not play dice. Rather than accept quantum theory based on rising tide of experimental evidence, he continued to push for a geometric theory built upon general relativity that preserved classical determinism. He had zero success, but continued to believe in the idea.

Einstein spent a big chunk of his life rejecting theory generally accepted by physicists and supported by experiment in favor of a theory tailored to his own preferences for how nature worked and what must be true, in his opinion, and for which there was no evidence. Quantum did not match his preconceptions of what must be true so the evidence in favor of the theory did not convince him. In these, he was not all that dissimilar to those in this survey who reject evolution and its evidence, people for whom Pharyngula and other alleged science lovers have so much contempt.

Science is not about subservient acceptance of whatever theory is current today. Every theory that has ever been generally accepted has eventually been rejected or modified so extensively that it no longer resembles what it started as. Science is built on constant questioning. There is never enough evidence. There's always another experiment to run. Plenty of very good scientists will be found who reject many commonly accepted theories.

This is something I find so amusing in the intelligent design debate. The so-called science supporters are so enamored of their theories that they refuse to call them theories and instead insist they are facts. But if they are facts, why are the scientists still experimenting to test those same theories, and why are those theories themselves evolving?

When I was an undergraduate, I took part in a research program at the College of William and Mary. Quantum electro-dynamics (QED) is one of the best tested theories in the history of physics. Physicists have measured some parameters of that theory to ridiculous precision. Despite all its success, the theory was unable at the time (this was 1989, but apparently this is still true today) to come up with the mean life of ortho-positronium (a positron-electron pair with the spin vectors of the two aligned). So you have the best tested theory in physics still facing issues and requiring additional testing to address discrepancies between theory and experiment.

Again, I'm not defending creationism or anything of the sort. I am questioning the idea that those who reject the prevailing theories of the day, including those who reject a theory supported by much evidence because it doesn't say what they want it to say, are somehow to be viewed as child abusers. Sometimes those people are called geniuses, and those slavishly devoted to current theory are left in the ash heap of history.