Scientia Potentia Est

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 17 March, 2016.


Knowledge is power. The earliest use of this phrase is from Imam Ali, the first imam of Shia Islam, who said (translated from Arabic), “Knowledge is power and it can command obedience. A man of knowledge during his lifetime can make people obey and follow him and he is praised and venerated after his death. Remember that knowledge is a ruler and wealth is its subject.”

Here in the 21st century we can’t deny its truth. Our industrialized society has been shaped by our knowledge of the natural world, or, as we call it now, science. Scientific discoveries have propelled us forward at breakneck pace, but with it as well, brought undesirable side effects of said discoveries. And too often, these side effects are blamed on ‘science’ and ‘scientists’ by people who don’t understand that while science can create problems, ignorance will not solve them. 

Science, as it were, came about from human curiosity. Pre-civilized man was more likely to survive if he kept a sharp eye on his surroundings, for food, and threats, and thus the curious survived. A desire to know was cultivated in early humans, and what was not known, was constructed as myths that could explain the unknown. 

It was the Greeks who first conceived of a universe as a machine, with limitations and rules. They assumed nature was fair, and that, if studied, would keep following the same rules they have discovered. This bore fruit, as Thales of Melitus was able to successfully predict an eclipse in 585 BCE. And so the Greeks developed rigorous methods of reasoning to discover truths about nature. 

Aristotle of Stagira first summarized these rules. Firstly, collect observations about an aspect of nature. Secondly, organize these observations in a fashion to see if you can find a pattern. Thirdly, derive from these observations a principle that would explain the observations. The Greeks called this method of studying nature ‘philosophia’ (philosophy), which means ‘love of knowledge.’

The Greeks mastered geometry by developing two techniques derived from this method: abstraction and generalization. It was known, for example, that you could get a right angle if you divided a rope into twelve equal pieces, and made a triangle in which the three sides were three parts, four parts and five parts long respectively. The right angle would form on the corner of the three and four part sides. By abstraction, they removed all parts of the problem not necessary to describe the problem, and visualized it as pure lines. Then they applied themselves to the problem in general – what property could be found that would be the same for all right-angled triangles? 

They discovered that the square of the two sides equals the square of the hypotenuse, and in 525 BCE Pythagoras of Samos proved this is true for all right-angled triangles. By 300 BCE, Euclid had compiled all of their known theorems and proofs and arranged them in order, so each could be proved with ones worked out previously. Eventually they all worked back to statements so simple is was accepted as obvious and true – these were called axioms. From these axioms, all others followed, and Euclidean geometry is still used today.

Working out knowledge as a consequence of these axioms (called deduction) became all the rage due to success of geometry, but it introduced two critical errors in scientific reasoning. Firstly, deduction became the only respectable way of attaining knowledge – they were loath to look at nature instead of abstract principles. Secondly, knowledge involved with everyday life was looked down upon. As a result, they developed theorems about movement and space that were never tested, based on ‘self-evident’ axioms that turned out to be not true.

For nearly 2000 years afterwards, whenever a question about nature arose, Aristotle or Euclid was quoted, and accepted as fact, until a man named Galileo proved them wrong. Testing Aristotle’s theory that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, he supposedly climbed to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped a heavy and light sphere simultaneously. The sound of them hitting the ground at the same time shattered Aristotelian physics. While this tale is a fabrication, it was typical of his experimental methods – he was the first to conduct experiments and measure the results systemically. 


Galileo’s revolution elevated induction above deduction as the proven scientific method. Instead of building on axioms to determine generalizations, induction starts with observations, and builds generalizations from them. In addition, no generalization can stand unless repeatedly tested by newer experiments – a test of further induction. 

Isaac Newton further cemented induction as the basis of science, when he, based on the observations of Galileo, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, figured out not only the elliptical orbits of planets, but also through induction arrived not only at his three simple laws of motion but also his law of universal gravitation. 

This then is the cornerstone of modern science. No generalization or theorem can be considered completely and absolutely valid – even if a billion experiments confirm it, a single test that is inconsistent forces it to be modified to match the observations recorded. There is no certainty that the next test or observation will conform to the theorem or generalization – science makes no claim to ultimate truths not backed by observation. Even Newton’s law of universal gravitation had to make way for Einstein’s general theory of relativity, when his law did not match the observation of the perihelion precession of Mercury, but general relativity did. Modern science, therefore, is based around what can be observed, and what can be tested. If it cannot be observed, science cannot test it, and if a generalization cannot be tested, it is not a scientific theorem. 

During the time of Newton, though, it was still possible for an educated man to have knowledge of all scientific endeavours. But during the past two centuries, scientific knowledge has exploded, and become so specialized that only those in their respective fields can understand each other. These days, scientists have almost come to be regarded as wizards, and are feared instead of admired. 

But this need not be the case. Modern science has many science communicators that explain the work done in a field as simply as possible – if only people would take the time to listen. After all, to understand and appreciate the work done in science does not require you to have a complete understanding of it – no one feels that you must be a novelist to read a book, or a composer to appreciate music. It is thus possible to appreciate the work done in science without being a scientist!

After all, how can you feel at home in the modern world, with its problems and the possible solutions to those problems, without having a basic understanding of where science is taking us? Understanding science gives a great satisfaction in knowing how the natural world works – it fulfils that basic curiosity that drives the human mind. There is no better way to appreciate the achievements and future potential of the human race than to see what has been achieved already.

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