Last week I wrote about a scientific paper that claimed that “most published research findings are false”. I identified the three slightly different conceptions of truth that the abstract of that paper was alluding to, and suggested, as a work hypothesis, that we differentiate between “real truth” and “scientific truth”.

I ended that post rather abruptly and at a somewhat provocative point. I claimed that science does not have anything to do with reality.

I acknowledged, however, that this would need to be clarified.

This is what I shall attempt to do today: to clarify.

So science “does not have anything to do with reality”.

How did we get to this conclusion? What does it mean?

The other day I came across a very intriguing research paper, bearing a very provocative title: “Why Most Published Research Findings are False”. Published in 2005, this paper was written by John P.A. Ioannidis, a medical professor specializing in epidemiology. His claim is simple (I quote from the abstract of the paper):

The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance.

Now, as you might imagine, a scientific paper with such a subject matter would be sure to attract a lot of attention, both positive and negative, and that was indeed the case. But I do not intend to participate in the debate, and this is not the reason I am bringing up this paper here.

I am more interested in the concept of truth, especially in the way it is employed in papers such as Ioannidis’, i.e. in current scientific research.

In my previous post I commented upon two experiments that attempted to address the question of free will from the point of view of modern neuroscience. I ended my post by suggesting a thought experiment to the reader. If a scientist informed you that he or she knows with scientific certainty the numbers you are going to play in the lottery, what would you do?

My guess was that very possibly you would avoid playing those numbers, if for no other reason, just to prove this arrogant scientist wrong!

The point of this thought experiment was to show that, at the level that our actual decisions are being taken, we are the sole masters in the house, and, crucially, that discussions about our “free will” and about all what science can, or cannot, claim in regards to it are a bit confused.

In a famous experiment of the 80s, neuroscientists claimed that they managed to show that what we, humans, call “free will” simply does not exist. The setting of their experiment was rather simple. A number of volunteers were wired with electrodes and their brain activity was monitored. Then they were asked to choose whether they would flex their fingers or their wrists. They were instructed to first report when they had made their choice and then actually flex their fingers or their wrists.

The neuroscientists running the experiment identified a consistent pattern in the recorded brain activity. Signals were appearing a split second before the volunteers were able to report that they had made their choice. A split second is not much, you would think, but when a scientist is able to show that a result in an experiment cannot be attributed to chance, then this scientist might want to interpret it.

This those scientists did. They explained this pattern of brain activity, observed just before an actual choice was made, as evidence that “unconscious neural processes” determined the volunteers’ actions before they were ever aware of making a decision. They gave it the name “readiness potential”.