Science vs. Creed

Thomas Henry Huxley* (1825-1895) maintained that “Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed**.” 

This is not exactly so.   In the definition cited below, a creed is "A system of belief, principles, or opinions."   Sounds like science to me, though we might better say science is "A system of belief, principles, or opinions supported by evidence."  

To do science and mathematics well does in fact require the scientist to believe in the strongest possible way the present tenets of his/her science.  The science is the creed.  The creed provides the guidance and rails upon which the research proceeds.   Without the firm beliefs in place, the research will flip and flop between competing firmaments.  Nothing happens then.  Seldom does any research project begin with the goal, “I want to prove this or that is wrong.”  That comes much later in the venture – long after the scientist has tried everything to support it and cannot find clear evidence to do so.  Then, the “creed” is lost. 

The progress of physics, chemistry, medicine, biology, and every other science has advanced in precisely this way.  Nonetheless, the vast majority of scientists and more so for mathematicians live within the scientific creed (i.e. education) they first learned.  So very, very few are ever at the forefront of a scientific paradigm shift.

So science is one of those rare subjects with “flex-creeds.”  The scientist must be strong in the faith of the theory’s correctness, but willing and able to abandon it when unsupportable. This elevates science above dogma*** but below continual skepticism, both from which nothing positive emerges.

As to dogma, it may be fair to say that “Science is murdered when it is controlled by a dogma.” 

* See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Henry_Huxley.  Huxley was regarded as “Darwin’s Bulldog,” for is strong advocacy of the theory of evolution.

**Creed:

1. A formal statement of religious belief; a confession of faith.
2. A system of belief, principles, or opinions.

***Dogma:  a belief or set of beliefs that people are expected to accept without asking questions about them