Science has a lot of explaining to do

First up, let's be clear. This is not an anti-science rant. I'm an avid science-follower and I wish scientists were held in more esteem in the world of sound bites, spin, and outright fabrication of "facts" that passes for decision-making in this world.

This is a lament at the hubris that surrounds much of science, particularly its claims of explaining the physical world.

Physicists are searching for "theory of everything" and hunting for super-symmetry and the Higgs boson to bolster or disprove various theories. This is all very exciting stuff. At least, I think so. But while we may one day have a "theory of everything", I suspect an "explanation of everything" will prove rather more elusive.

My contention is that, while scientific theories are good at describing things in a way that allows us to calculate and predict the behaviour of the physical world with exquisite accuracy, these theories don't go very far in terms of true explanation.

In other words, theories tend to be very good at answering questions of "what", "where", "when", but fall far short of "how" and "why".

Let's have a look at gravity, for example.

Newton's law of gravity provided a remarkable mathematical description for the motions of the planets, that accurately modeled what 17th century astronomers observed. Moreover, it made testable predictions, leading two centuries later to the discovery of Neptune, and then Pluto. These planets were not discovered, like the others, by spotting a point of light moving across the night sky, but by observing the motions of the known planets and deducing the existence of another, as yet to be seen, body. Newton's laws enabled astronomers to work out where to look, and - lo! - there it was.

As far as explanation goes, Newton's law tells us that there is a force of attraction between any two bodies. That works as an explanation on one level. But if you keep poking at it, you soon realise that no-one can really explain what the force is, or why two masses should attract each other in the first place.

Einstein's theory of general relativity goes further, and describes gravity in terms of the curvature of space. Again, the theory has remarkable descriptive and predictive powers, showing how light gets bent as it passes close by a massive body like the sun.

Yet again, this seems to take the explanation, the insight, to another level. It provides a means by which gravitational attraction takes place. But it still leaves open the questions of how a mass bends space. In other words, when you look closer, it doesn't really explain anything much.

Where I get hot under the collar, though, is when we enter the world of particle physics and quantum mechanics.

Yet again, the standard model of particle physics, and the weird world of quantum theory, provide huge descriptive and predictive power. They give us ways of viewing the subatomic world that provides insight undreamt of to scientists prior to the 20th century.

But when it comes down to understanding at a deeper level what's going on, scientists tend to wave their hands in the air and say things like, "The particles exchange force-carrying particles. That explains it."

No, it freakin' well doesn't!

It explains nothing. It just pushes the explanation a bit further away.

Nothing in any of the theories really tells us how an electron knows a photon when it meets one, or how a quark gets handcuffed to other quarks by a string of gluons. Those are the kinds of questions that I really want to answer.

All the theories do is provide a conceptual analogy that we can manipulate to get results that match observations.

I'm not knocking these achievements, don't get me wrong. Quantum theory in particular has been described as the most successful scientific theory ever. It makes some utterly bizarre predictions that have been proved right time and again by experiment, and you can thank these predictions for the existence of computers, GPS, cell phones, and many more modern conveniences.

It's just that, for all these successes, we are really no nearer to understanding - on a satisfying level - why the universe is the way it is.

Yes. Science still has a lot of explaining to do.

Global meltdown

The financial meltdown three years ago showed the world just how fragile the global financial machine has become. We are still feeling the aftershocks, with America's recovery hanging in the balance, and the drawn-out protests against austerity measures in Europe proving hard to contain. Either of these limping giants could fall and plunge the world into chaos again.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street protesters, and others joining them in their outrage, have a point. Where is the ordinary citizen in this equation?

They are directing their anger at the people at the top of the monetary food chain: senior executives and the super-rich.

That is a worthy ideal. Individual greed certainly doesn't help matters, and when the majority of people are struggling, it's galling to see others sitting pretty and visibly not caring.

The way I see it, though, these efforts are unlikely to achieve anything lasting unless they understand and act on one significant fact:

These people are no longer in control.

In fact, they probably never were.

What? These are the decision-makers aren't they? Surely all they have to do is choose to act differently and all will be well?

Firstly: fat chance of them acting differently. Human nature is deeply ingrained. And even if you get rid of them, every revolution in history has simply swapped one corrupt and self-serving oligarchy for another. To put it simply: shit floats.

Secondly: I don't believe these people are truly in charge, or in a position to effect real change. As individuals, they are as powerless as the rest of us.

Human society has grown into a complex ecosystem of super organisms - governments, corporations, NGOs, religions, protest groups. I use the word "organism" deliberately, because I think this is the most useful way of looking at modern institutions - as a new form of life.

I think the analogy is apt. Living cells metabolise. They take in a food sources and nutrients, and process them chemically to release electrons in a way in which they can be put to work. Along the way, they produce waste which has to be disposed of.

I don't think modern organisations are any different. Their "metabolisms" are mainly directed at producing money which can be put to work to ensure the organisation survives. They take in raw materials, knowledge, labour, and free up cash by processing these into goods and services.

The latter are, in effect, nothing more than waste products of this metabolism. The fact that these products are mostly useful, even essential, to our well-being has become only a secondary concern.

This used to be the main purpose of agriculture and industry - produce things that people need in order to survive and live well. But I think the whole setup has been flipped on its head. The wheels of commerce have taken on a life of their own, and our role as consumers has become little more than waste removal.

Does that paint a pretty picture?

Now, here's the rub. The fate and wellbeing of individuals is not the primary concern of any of these institutions. No more than your body cares about the survival of any one cell.

In other words...

People are no longer the beneficiaries of society.

Let's be clear now. I'm not saying that many individuals within these organisations don't care for the welfare of others. I'm saying that the collective, the organisation as a whole, has taken on a life of its own that does not have our interests at heart. This is an example of an emergent phenomenon, where seemingly simple rules acting en-masse can have surprising and unpredictable outcomes at larger scales.

I believe that the only way to achieve real change is to focus efforts not at the obvious individual targets, but on understanding this new ecosystem.

I think the efforts to change the behaviour of individuals is misguided. We need to change the behaviour of these new animals that we have built around us, that we are part of.

We need to understand how big institutions behave. What motivates them to behave the way they do? And, ultimately, how can we alter this intangible ecosystem to bring about behaviours that benefit ordinary individuals once more?

We need to find ways to reward organisations and governments not by how much revenue they can create for themselves or shareholders, but by how much they enhance the wellbeing of ordinary people.

In short, we need to give our global institutions a new diet, a new metabolism.

Save the whales

I was both intrigued and delighted to read an article recently (New Scientist, July 9) that gave new and compelling reasons for protecting whales and other large marine predators.

Now, I'll come clean and admit that my stance has always been that these animals are worth saving in their own right.

(Picture credit: Green Living Earth)

There's no good reason to hunt these creatures, and I won't even get into the specious arguments some nations use about "scientific" whaling, which is a thin disguise for commercial hunting. More than enough good science can be done with live animals in their natural environment than has ever been achieved by killing them.

But I acknowledge that such thinking cuts little ice with the decision-makers in this world.

What most delighted me about this article was that this research should appeal to some influential folks. Big business cares nothing of the lives and well-being of ordinary citizens, but it does care about the bottom line. And that's where it gets interesting...

The established view in the fishing industry goes as follows: There is a food chain. Those at the bottom get eaten by those at the top. Therefore, fewer predators at the top means more survive lower down.

So, creatures like whales and squid are seen as a bad thing, because they (literally) eat into the profits of fishermen.

But this is only part of the picture.

The marine ecosystem is not a one-way street; it is a cycle.

The top predators don't just take from the system. They are, in fact crucial to the health of the whole ecosystem.

The middle links in the food chain depend on the microscopic organisms at the bottom, particularly photosynthetic plankton. The entire system is limited by the productivity of these foundational species. And they, in turn, are limited by the nutrients available in the sunlit layers of the ocean.

Here's the catch. Nutrients tend to sink rapidly into the depths, where they cannot be used for photosynthesis.

It turns out that large animals are vital in re-circulating "lost" nutrients back into the upper layers.

Before efficient whaling removed the majority of the population of whales, the world's oceans were teeming with life. Today's oceans are barren wastelands compared to what they were only a few hundred years ago.

If the "top predators" dogma were true, fish should be even more abundant now, but they aren't. By removing large animals, we have made the oceans a much poorer place.

These predators give way more back than they take out.

If the fishing industry, the same industry that has so successfully resisted any attempts to limit catches to sustainable levels, realizes that more whales = more fish, then that gives me hope.

Sadly, the world is ruled by self-interest.

For once, self-interest may be a good thing.