[IMC-Editorial] Op-Ed: Where Have You Gone, Isaac Newton?

[The Ayn Rand Institute]

Dear Editor, 

Please consider this Op-Ed submission from the Ayn Rand Institute.

Where Have You Gone, Isaac Newton?

By David Harriman

More and more today, we are inundated with foolishness masquerading as
science. Psychic hotlines proliferate, politicians consult
astrologers, and people reject their doctor's advice in favor of
"alternative healing" dispensed by quacks. In the past, defenders of
real science could be relied upon to expose and debunk such nonsense.
So where are these defenders today? 

Unfortunately, they are too busy dreaming up foolishness of their own.

This is not, of course, the first time in history that people have
believed their fates could be read in the stars and their diseases
could be cured by prayers. Before the scientific revolution in the
17th century, such ideas were the popular rage. Women were convicted
of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Pigs with unpleasant
dispositions and hens with unusual appearances were put on trial,
convicted of demonic possession and executed. 

Then came the Age of Reason, when Isaac Newton called for an end to
such lunacy. He famously declared that he "framed no
hypotheses"--meaning that he dismissed any idea that was unsupported
by observational evidence. After Newton, peddlers of nonsense were
banished to the disreputable realm of pseudo-science.

Until recently. 

Today, physicists suppose that a particle can travel many different
paths simultaneously, or travel backwards in time, or randomly pop
into and out of existence from nothingness. They enjoy treating the
entire universe as a "fluctuation of the vacuum," or as an
insignificant member of an infinite ensemble of universes, or even as
a hologram. The fabric of this strange universe is a non-entity called
"spacetime," which expands, curves, attends yoga classes, and may have
twenty-six dimensions. 

In short, the recent literature on physics makes one nostalgic for
anything as reasonable as a witch trial.

For the past decade many physicists have been wandering the streets
with signs that read: "The End of Physics Is Near." They claim to be
developing a final "theory of everything," which will leave future
physicists with nothing to do but play computer games. We can dismiss
their megalomania, yet still be tempted to agree with their message.
The end that seems near, however, is not a climactic rise to
omniscience but an embarrassing descent into pseudo-science. 

The blushing has already begun. Last year, there was a widely
publicized controversy over the research of two physicists in France
(the brothers Igor and Grichka Bogdanov). At issue was whether the
published work of the Bogdanovs, which consisted of speculations about
the universe before the Big Bang, was intended seriously or as a
parody of contemporary cosmology. The truth turned out to be more
damning than any parody: the Bogdanovs were serious but nobody could
tell--so their colleagues were forced to admit that much research
today is indistinguishable from a joke.     

Physicists didn't reach this state of intellectual bankruptcy
overnight. Early in the 20th century, Einstein explicitly rejected
Newton's scientific method. "We now realize," Einstein wrote, "how
much in error are those theorists who believe that theory comes
inductively from experience." Instead, he insisted that theories are
"free creations of the human mind." The inevitable result of such
freedom is the currently fashionable "fantasy physics."

Of course, physicists don't admit that they are engaged in fantasy.
They say they are following the "hypothetico-deductive method," which
sounds much more scientific. This method, however, allows them to
dream up any "theory" that tickles their fancy, provided they can
deduce at least one consequence that might be observable sometime,
somewhere, by somebody.

Real knowledge is the hard-won reward of a step-by-step process that
takes us from observations to abstractions, generalizations and
theories. In contrast, daydreaming requires little effort. That
explains why theorists have been able to reach the "end of physics" so
quickly and easily. Unfortunately, their stories about make-believe
worlds are of no value to people living in the actual world.

History teaches us the crucial role of physics in human life.
Throughout the Western world, knowledge of physics has raised man from
a superstitious savage who cringes before nature to an efficacious
thinker who conquers nature. The practical benefits of this
transformation are too numerous and too obvious to list. 

But there is even more at stake than future technology. As the legacy
of Isaac Newton fades and physics continues its neurotic withdrawal
from reality, our culture begins to lose sight of the glory of human
nature: the faculty of reason. That is a frightening thought--because
if man is not "the rational animal," then he is just an animal. 
_______________________________________________________________________

David Harriman, M.S. in physics, is the editor of Journals of Ayn Rand
and a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute (www.aynrand.org) in Irvine, California. 
The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged 
and The Fountainhead.

Copyright © 2003 Ayn Rand® Institute

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