Neil Degrasse Tyson Doesn’t Know What Science Is

"Do the one about black holes!"

I don’t mean, of course, that he doesn’t really know what science is. If someone were to prod him to unpack what he thinks I’m sure he could make a coherent case, but the quote is nonsensical.

Science is a method and a process that’s neither true nor false. There’s nothing about it to “believe” in, unless maybe you’re talking about what a subset of a subset of Christianity thinks of the scientific conclusions concerning evolution, or what an academic with a chip on his shoulder thinks of a colleague’s methodology.

Science isn’t, by itself, a proposition that can be labelled true or false, but it does yield propositions which have been determined to be true, i.e., the freezing point of water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Substitute the word “fact” in this quote and now we’re cooking with gasoline.

Epistemically, science is not a category of basic knowledge by itself (I don’t think, at least), but a combination of inductive logic and sense perception, two basic building blocks of knowledge-gathering. There’s no way one could not believe in science because by doing so one will end up using induction and sense perception to get there. We all do “science” in little spats every day in this sense, but most of what we call “scientific knowledge” cannot be taken as such by 99% of us. It’s taken on reliable authority since we do not conduct the experiments ourselves. And, unless you have a scientist you can talk to directly, you’re getting this knowledge 3rd or 4th hand.

But arriving at true propositions—”facts”—are not the sole domain of science, or this one-two punch of induction and the senses. We know things legitimately through memory, deduction, reliable authority, sympathy (pdf link). These things aren’t scientific ways of knowing things but they are very rational. The fact that I ate bacon this morning is true whether you accept it or not (for me it’s memory, for my wife it’s sense perception, for everyone else it’s reliable authority), but we would hardly call it “scientific”.

Tyson, for all his good qualities, fast approaches the Saganite trap of making statements outside of his expertise (Sagan’s grasp of religious history wasn’t strong). In Tyson’s case it’s epistemology, but most anything a pop scientist will say outside of their profession will get a free pass by uncritical “freethinkers”.

Some homework: an interesting thing about modern science. We use instruments created by others who have used the scientific method to create them, who used other instruments used by others to create them. Modern science utilizes a many-generational result of the scientific process, and if this isn’t circular reasoning it comes very close to it. How can something like this reconciled, epistemically?

Edit for crowdsourcing: was trying find the origin of this quote. Was it from one of Tyson’s books?

Edit two: it was said on Bill Maher’s show. Can’t find another source. Eh.