In the Beginning was Information

2.2 The Limits of Science and the Persistence of ParadigmsWe have discussed different categories of laws of nature and cannow realise that many statements are often formulated with far toomuch confidence and in terms which are far too absolute. MaxBorn (1882 – 1970), a Nobel laureate, clearly pointed this out withrespect to the natural sciences [B4]:“Ideas like absolute correctness, absolute accuracy, final truth,etc. are illusions which have no place in any science. With one’srestricted knowledge of the present situation, one may expressconjectures and expectations about the future in terms of probabilities.In terms of the underlying theory any probabilisticstatement is neither true nor false. This liberation of thoughtseems to me to be the greatest blessing accorded us by presentdayscience.”Another Nobel laureate, Max Planck (1858 – 1947), deplored thefact that theories which have long ago become unacceptable, aredoggedly adhered to in the sciences [P3, p 13]:“A new scientific truth is usually not propagated in such a waythat opponents become convinced and discard their previousviews. No, the adversaries eventually die off, and the upcominggeneration is familiarised anew with the truth.”This unjustified adherence to discarded ideas was pointed out byProf. Wolfgang Wieland (a theoretical scientist, University ofFreiburg, Germany) in regard to the large number of shakyhypotheses floating around [W4, p 631]:“Ideas originally formulated as working hypotheses for furtherinvestigation, possess an inherent persistence. The stabilityaccorded established theories (in line with Kuhn’s conception),is of a similar nature. It only appears that such theories are testedempirically, but in actual fact observations are alwaysexplained in such a way that they are consistent with the preestablishedtheories. It may even happen that observations aretwisted for this purpose.”25