Passions: Scientific method is humanity's greatest achievement – Ian Johnston

Science is by far the best way to understand the real world

Charles Darwin is depicted as an ape in this satirical image from the London Sketch Book of 1860 (Picture: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Firstly, it’s important to admit I’m not a scientist. While I have worked as a science correspondent and, long ago, studied philosophy of science, I’m still an outsider, but also an admirer. If asked to name humanity’s greatest innovation, it wouldn’t be fire, the wheel or vaccines, it would be the scientific method.

Without it, humanity would be lost, stumbling along with age-old superstitions, magical thinking and other ‘cognitive illusions’ to which we seem particularly susceptible. As with optical illusions, sometimes our minds can be fooled into constructing false realities. This is partly because, as marvellous as human brains are, they have a tendency to take shortcuts, to make messy real life simpler to understand and process.

The scientific method helps cut through such perception biases, to avoid the mental traps we lay for ourselves, and discover the actual truth. However, it’s important not to get too carried away. Politicians tried to reassure us by saying they were following “the science” during the Covid pandemic, and there are those who will loudly proclaim that something is a “scientific fact”. In reality, science is a constant process of discovery and the idea of cast-iron facts is philosophically problematic.

Communist ideology

On the other hand, there are also people who will say about the theory of evolution, for example, “well, that’s only a theory”, as if other theories are equally valid. When Charles Darwin proposed his ideas, it was an invitation to other scientists to test them against the available evidence. Since then, evolution has withstood many attacks, while a vast amount of supporting evidence, in the form of fossils showing gradual changes in lifeforms, has been uncovered. So, in a failing of our use of language, a scientific theory is much more than “just a theory”.

Science thrives in the freedom afforded by democracy and withers without it. In the former Soviet Union, research that conflicted with Communist ideology was suppressed. At the 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Boston, one of the big concerns was that the newly elected US President, Donald Trump, would similarly suppress climate science, which dates back to the 19th century, when the first predictions of human-caused global warming were made.

The scientific method is the best way we have to truly understand the real world, its wonders and its perils, while avoiding the temptations of a land of make-believe – and those who would lead us there.

Ian Johnston is Comment Editor of The Scotsman​