What is Science?

A fundamental question that many curious people have who casually venture into the discipline of Physics is: What is science?

We answer:

Science: rational explanations

It is important to emphasize that this definition makes no provision for traditional activities that most people associate with science such as observing, measuring, collecting data, running experiments, measuring, calculating, predicting, inventing or developing technology, etc. These are investigative tasks that a researcher performs prior to a conference.

Similarly, presenting evidence, proving, persuading, convincing, converting, recruiting, establishing contacts, forming clubs, and rewarding individuals for their discoveries are activities of an extra-scientific, missionary nature. These proselytizing processes are typically set in motion after a conference.

The definition of Science prescribed here is circumscribed to what happens at the conference proper: explaining mechanisms objectively for the sole purpose of understanding.

Science is restricted to what happens at the conference. A physicist is required to explain a mechanism objectively. The ideal way to do this is for the theorist to make a movie of the mechanism so that the audience can understand it by merely watching the film. All other activities, including presenting evidence, proving, and running experiments, have the sole purpose of influencing the jurors and are treated as extra-scientific

An explanation is an objective interpretation of an event that occurred. However, before we can understand this state, we need to define objective and identify the differences between a description and an explanation.

What constitutes an OBJECTIVE statement?

A statement is objective if it refers to what actually happened during an event or what emanates from the screen in an auditorium where a film is being shown or a theorist is illustrating a mechanism in a dissertation.

Regarding what actually happened, only Mother Nature can tell. The file containing the actual occurrence is now in her Filing Cabinet of Consummated Events. Humans have no access to Mother Nature’s secret Filing Cabinet. We can only make assumptions and provide explanations to the best of our knowledge. We avail ourselves of speculation, intuition, and lucky or intelligent guesses.

Description vs. Explanation

The difference between description and explanation boils down to the difference between how and why.

How addresses in what way or manner an event happened and/or by what means. In fact, many times the word ‘what’ is used in its place, for instance, “What about tonite?” instead of “How about tonight?”

Why, on the other hand, introduces an interpretation that provides meaning and understanding to the consummated action: cause (Physics) or reason/purpose (Philosophy).

In Physics, one can illustrate a mechanism through a video. Each of the images of an actual event or of one that emanates from a screen is a description. Thus, one is tempted to conclude that an explanation is but a series of descriptions.

This is not so!

Let’s look at an example to understand why this is an erroneous notion of what an explanation is. We see a farmer pulling on a rope that is tied at the other end to the neck of a donkey. The images coming out of the event show that the donkey is approaching the farmer. The donkey has moved from A to B. The logical conclusion is that the farmer pulled on the donkey. It’s an open and shut case.

However, this practically correct deduction is not necessarily true.

[True = what Mother Nature has in her Filing Cabinet of Consummated Events… i.e., what actually happened and why: cause, mechanism].

One theorist may propose a different interpretation. The individual suggests that it was the wind that pushed the donkey in the farmer’s direction and that the rope was actually a stretched elastic band. Another theorist may propose that the donkey didn’t really struggle against the pull of the farmer, but rather approached him submissively and voluntarily.

We realized that an explanation is totally different from a series of descriptions when the mediators are invisible and intangible.

We have a new scenario. The screen transmits to the eyes that an astronaut is falling towards the Earth. Unlike with the farmer and the donkey, this time around we don’t see the mediator (i.e., the rope). The description is clear: every frame in the film we inspect shows the astronaut closer to the Earth. But we don’t have a cause! Is the astronaut being pushed by particles? Is he sliding down a depression in the canvas of spacetime? Is he being pulled by invisible ropes from the Earth?

That in a nutshell is the Wonderland rabbit hole Mathematical Physics finds itself in today. The mathematicians have equations that DESCRIBE gravity in different scenarios. They confess that they have no EXPLANATION for WHY: what causes gravitational acceleration… what the physical mechanism is. The mathematicians have no physical interpretations: i.e., EXPLANATIONS.

In order to understand what Science is about, all we have to do now is define the word rational.

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