Is Science "Getting Better"?

The title of this post is intended to carry a double meaning. The first meaning is the one which is immediately evident from a simple reading of the title: is science better today than it was at some point in the past, and will it be better in the future than it is right now. The second meaning I have could be better read as "Is Science All About 'The Process of Getting Better'?" I would like to begin with the second interpretation I provided, since an analysis of that question will provide a better foundation for answering the question posed by the first interpretation.

This blog has spent a lot of time up to this point talking about origins, which at some point will bring up the theory of evolution. Science as a whole may not be centered around the concept of things getting better--in fact, to my understanding, studies of thermodynamics and entropy state quite the opposite--however evolution is grounded in what I will summarize as "progress." Speaking in terms of evolution, progress requires that over large enough spans of time, later generations of species will be better than previous generations. A human is better than a monkey is better than a bird is better than a lizard is better than a fish is better than a protozoa. The justification given for how this happens is that there is a lot of little variations in all directions over generations, good and bad, but only the better ones survive and persist.

Regardless of what you think about macro-evolution, progress as a philosophy is not confined to the academics of biology. People say that civilization is progressing, which by that they mean a whole host of things. Our laws are more enlightened, more informed, and more just than they were before. Our social institutions and cultures are more reasonable and practical than they were before. Our technology is better and people have better standards of living than before. Even our academics, and especially our science, is better and more comprehensive than it was before.

Much of this is true, and I don't intend to dispute that progress can and does happen. My point is that progress is taken for granted. In fact, I have heard some suggest and I am inclined to believe (although I won't go into why) that this faith in progress inspired the theory of evolution, rather than the other way around. I am open to hearing otherwise, but as far as I know there is not much justification for why there should be progress in any human institution other than on the basis that we do see it. This is one illustration for when I say that everyone carries assumptions into everything. I imagine "unbiased" scientists still believe in progress.

Furthermore, I see that too much attention focused on progress has started to confuse its definition. Progress holds that, in the long term, things will be better in the future than they are at present, and they are better at present than they were in the past. It does not, however, mean that progress is monotonic--that is, that each day or each year or even each decade will be better than the one before it. People still make mistakes, and mistakes can be perpetuated, too. In fact, they can be perpetuated because of a blind adherence to progress. Once made and if not quickly caught, a mistake may be labelled as "progress," which means it is assumed to be better than anything that came before. Not only will it go unquestioned, but more things will be built off of this foundational mistake in order to continue with progress.

I concede that probabilistically, such a perpetuation becomes less likely the longer it is perpetuated. After all, if it really is a mistake at its foundation, then at some point something built off of that mistake simply won't add up. Here is a paradox: the more strongly you believe in progress, the better chance there is that this perpetuation will happen. You see, the longer a mistake lasts, the less likely it is to last; but a strict adherent to progress, knowing this, will say that since a mistake is not likely to last that long, will be more likely to claim that there was no mistake at all. By denying the mistake to be such, it is allowed to continue.

So, now, when you laugh at my suggestion that anything about the Middle Ages could be better than anything we have now, understand that you are assuming this philosophy of progress. On that note, though, I may revise my previous comment because I may have wrongly associated two eras of history. I had every intention of going into more detail about that claim, but my introduction to it has already become long enough.