What is the science of natural science?
Leaving this question and answer for the time being, we would at first tell why a complete answer to this question has remained elusive so far, or, in the case a complete answer has already been found, why it is not in the cognisance of the natural scientist. Now a days, when we talk about present day natural science we see a great commotion over the crisis of science among a number of those scientists, philosophers and those Marxist who are the victims of a half-baked knowledge of science. As the steps of physics are entangled in the strings of the string theory, molecular genetics also seems to be on the verge of reaching the point of saturation. Scientists making ‘equations are everything’ there rallying cry are moving in circles in a Sisyphean labour. But do not let the feeling lurk that science is no more gaining any new ground. Science inexorably goes through quantitative progresses which could lead to qualitative leaps only when, or even if make such leaps they prove useful to the mankind only when there exists a congenial historical and socio economic context for them. Today a section of scientist even who admit that there is the state of impasse. But it is an impasse, such are repeatedly met within natural science, and every time science takes a leap and moves two steps ahead.
But the entirely new ground that have been broken in the 20th century especially in physics and in other areas of natural science have amplified the noise of a ‘crisis’. Certainly not withstanding all the adversities science has been marching ahead and has been acquiring new grounds despite the extant deadlock. However, in physics and biology no significant changes have taken place. But it is the present understanding of science that has made this impasse a crisis. This understanding is a consequence of unscientific, ahistorical and wrong philosophical understanding about science. While Einstein was the victim of determinism, Heisenberg succumbed to neo-Kantian agnosticism and scepticism, and so far the present philosophical deviations, more aptly ailments are concerned, there nomenclature has become as jumbled as their equations (are). The philosophical deliberations of philosophers of science like Popper, Kuhn and Fairband are also lying in drunken stupor of the opium of crisis. It is the state of stupor that they are describing as normal human attribute. We will submit our critique of their theories later, but just for now it is imperative to understand that flawed approach and methods are the reasons that the present state of stagnancy is being celebrated like a carnival as a crisis and as the ‘end’ of science.
The principle reason that created this fallacy is that most of the scientists and philosophers of science have been under the sway of the bourgeois ideologies of determinism, agnosticism, pragmatism, empiricism, positivism etc. and if we don’t rectify their mistake then we ourselves will be repeating the mistake only that have been committed in the 20th century albeit on a new form and a new plane. So how to point out these mistakes. This can be done by making bare the layers of equations of physics underneath with deep ideological struggles have been going on. The Bohr-Einstein debate, the Gödel-Hilbert debate, the debate between Taketani and Boris Hassen, the debate ensued on the subject of evolution (what of that if they have taken indirectly); at the root of all these is the conflict of ideological approaches and method indeed. Over these debates often one ideology offers a relatively correct point of view, while the other ideologies lead them into the abyss of either agnosticism or determinism. The ideological line of Taketani, Sakata, Vladimir Fock, Boris Hassen, Stephen J. Gould et al who have taken a dialectical materialistic approach and method and have striven to apply it in the field of natural science represent the relatively correct standpoint. This has always remained extant and in almost each and every method it gives its view maintaining a more or less balanced position. We will use the viewpoint of the scientists and philosophers as a compass and also will carry on discussions on the imprecisions of this compass.
Sakata and Taketani
First and foremost, it is essential to have a clear stand on a correct approach and matter. Our matter and approach must be dialectical materialistic. Dialectical materialism does not hold any truth the ultimate and unchangeable. It sees the world not as a set of static thing rather (it sees it) as a chain of interconnected processes in perpetual flow. Dialectical materialism considers that in nature and society old processes continually come along into being while old processes fade out. The nature itself is an endless process of coming into existence and passing out. The entire motion in reality takes place as a dialectics.
In nature at each level there is a unity of opposites. There is contradiction at each level. There cannot be motion without matter and matter without motion and motion itself is a contradiction. On the field of growth of knowledge also there always exists a contradiction between known and unknown. And this contradiction is also in a simultaneous state of motion. What is unknown today will be known tomorrow but by then a new vistas of a new unknown will already be in sight. The continuous splitting of the known into known and unknown, and at the same time the splitting of the unknown as well into known and unknown and the existence of a perpetual contradiction between them - this is the motion of knowledge, this is the motion of science. Whosoever does not imbibe a priori this approach and method will invariably fall into the pit of determinism and agnosticism in the field of science. We have already seen the tragedy of repeatedly unfolding itself in all philosophical and scientific debates of the twentieth century. Because of not having a scientific and dialectic point of view about science, greatest among the great scientists have been falling in the abyss of positivism, empiricism, determinism or otherwise in the pit of scepticism, agnosticism etc.
Every scientist has a definite approach with which he investigates the causes behind any phenomenon that unfolds before him. That whenever any phenomenon confronts him, the scientist proceeds with this approach only. According to the dialectical approach there must be some or other form of contradictory motion behind that phenomenon or its essential elements must be intertwined dialectally. As for example, there exist a contradiction between electron and proton in a molecule, and the particle wave contradiction in the motion of the electron that comes out through observation. In the field of elementary arithmetic multiplication and division and addition and subtraction are dialectic opposites of one another. When the scientist takes on a prior dialectical approach to study a phenomenon only then he can reach the correct conclusion. At the same time following materialistic approach we proceed from the assumption while delving through a phenomenon, that the phenomenon is indeed a part of such a material reality which exists independently of human consciousness, whether we stand witness to the phenomenon or not, whether our consciousness takes cognizance of it or not, it is there. The world doesn’t seem to exist if we close our eyes. Dialectical materialism should be the approach and method to be employed to investigate into any phenomenon in general. Taketani presented his three stage theory by implementing his approach in the field of natural science. We will go into this theory after a while.
We had this prior discussion on the essentiality of a correct approach and method, because in our opinion it is due to absence of correct approach and method there has been so much noise of crisis in the field of natural science, especially in modern physics. Certainly correct approach and method have not fallen from the sky, rather they have also evolved and are still in the process of evolution through human practice. We can see this question on approach and method as the question of ideology and philosophy in the field of science. Quite a few times it has happened that science has been able to confirm the facts of nature. Later when they could do so empirically and on the basis of experiments, but philosophy without the wherewithal to fall back on empirical and experimental evidence, have described those facts highly precisely. This could not be so just because of the greatness of these philosophers. The main reason is that a philosophy equipped with a correct approach and method (which itself evolved from the scientific generalisation of the knowledge accumulated out of centuries of human practice) can simulate natural and social reality without any prior empirical and experimental conformation offered by science. Question of philosophy in the field of science because of the very reason and it is conjoined through the umbilical cord with the development of science thus far.
The triangular development of science
The question of ideology or philosophy and at the same time those of the human components, both are important in the development of science. But both of them can play any active role also when they get a congenial atmosphere. The social milieus of the historical period in which genius and ideology find themselves circumscribe the progress of natural science. There are times when it is seen to go beyond these limits by a dint of epochal geniuses, but there is an underlined historicity in these transcendences also. What we mean by history generated social situations are the degrees of advancement in the social cultural and intellectual spheres of the society in other words they pertain to the aggregate of physical cultural and intellectual advancements of the society. The facilities available and the prevailing ambience within the precincts of the research institutions in the private and public domains and universities are also to be considered as components of the extant social situation. If one cannot understand the evolutionary sequence of natural science unless one understands its historical context, the role of ideology and human component and relations. It is through the dialectics of these factors that natural science evolves and is applicable in the study of development in any field of science. At any time men of genius enlightened by ideology have endeavouredto further the knowledge of the mankind in the arena of the historical situations of the time.
The dialectics of class-contradiction that weaves the class society marks its impression on the science entwined in history. The strangle hold of the production relation on the productive forces is the contradiction of our time. Capitalist production relations are the shackles on the feet of the young rising productive forces. The research institutes of the present era in which research works in science are carried out are parts of the very capitalist system itself and as such the same contradiction appears in the field of natural science also. The government and all the private companies keep in mind the needs of the capitalists while allocating funds on science and only those areas get top priority which produce the commodities which gives the maximum profit or facilitates the maximising process. Certainly, quite a few times it so happens that individual genius manage a breakthrough while remaining within the bounds of the institutional framework, but it does not have any liberating effect on the overall course and direction in which science moves. The anarchic motion of capital leaves its impression on science as well. Bereft of a guiding ideology geniuses wander rudderless in the dark in divergent directions.
A glorying example of this is that of Spain, where the ministry of science itself is shutdown due to economic recession. All most every European state has curtailed its spending on natural science to tune of sixty to eighty percent, and this is the reason why the greatest scientific experiment of the present historical era ( the large hadron collider experiment carried out by CERN) is also unable to progress at the desired pace due to inadequate finance. However, in future we will have a detailed discussion on this. Hence, no real natural scientist worth his salt can keep aloof from the socioeconomic and political questions at large. In fact in the past also those great scientists who were great in the true sense of the word has participated to their at most in the social and economic struggles of their time, and kept their concerns burning and alive. As it really happened in those societies where the impediments and blockades imposed by the forces of profit on the creativity and innovations of the people were shattered, science in those societies has made progress at a miraculous pace. As for in the USSR since 1920 and especially towards the end of the sixties, science has made unprecedented progress, both on the theoretical and experimental plane. We will talk on this later.
At the end of this article we can say that the present crisis in science is the crisis of bourgeois philosophy, which has lost its ability to deliberate on the progress of science and the force to give it any impetus for further progress. Thus crisis can be resolved only by adopting a dialectical materialist approach and method. Over the whole history of mankind the progress of natural science can be comprehended only when we understand the dialectics of historical conditions, ideology and the human component. We will investigate into the history of mankind by reinforcing this viewpoint only, would look into the development of science in this historical context and place our views on debated linked with them. We will follow the historical time-line only, but would ponder deeper on some special era and place our views comprehensively on the historical contexts of the contemporary debates and ideological struggles.
...Continued in next part
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