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Variant, v. 1, issue 3, September 1947

Page 26

However, even though one is born with this semantic instinct, it is certainly capable of being developed by education, for in my own case, I have just recently-- within the past few months--obtained a clear idea of what is meant by the statement "Science cannot explain; it can only describe."
A person who understands this is well on the way to being a scientist. It is the pseudo-scientists who fail to grasp this idea, and this is the reason that their publications are full of statements which contain little, if any, meaning.
I illustrate this by further examples from the Scientific Forum.
" In some books and articles written by scientists, atoms and molecules are spoken of as though they were largely holes due to the relative minuteness of the masses of the electrons and protons, etc., compared to the space that they occupy as atoms or molecules. The idea is very misleading since the component parts of the atoms and molecules are vibrating and spinning, and also the electrostatic lines that link them completely fill the void. These electrostatic lines are really forms of energy. They are material activities since they repel each other latterly and unlike lines link latterly." And so on in a similar vein.
It is apparant that the writer of the above paragraph has read an elementary book in electricity in which "lines of force "are treated as if they were real objects and so by long association with these lines of force the writer has come to think of them as if they are the real reality. This is not uncommon, and is one of the causes of mental anguish when the student reaches the more advanced books and finds out that these lines of force are merely convenient fictions which make it easier to visualize the phenomena that are going on. There are no lines -- they neither link nor repel-- another convenient fiction.
Well, what is really there, if not lines of force? No competent physicist will claim to know what is really there. The current opinion is, in fact, that this is an unanswerable question. We merely replace reality by words such as "lines of force", "fields of force", "electric charges" etc. which if used properly describe relationships between phenomena, but which no sane scientist claims to explain anything.
Let me give you a clearer example. We speak of "gravity" as being something which causes material bodies to attract each other. Yet, when we get right down to it, there is not the slightest clue to just what mechanisms reach across space and causes one body to affect another at a distance. This being the case, physicists have realized the futility of searching for such a mechanism. The law of gravity makes no attempt to "explain" gravity. It merely provides a description of the motions which bodies follow when under the influence of gravity.
And in this last sentence it is clearly seen how "gravity" is nothing more than a word -- a symbol -- which is inserted into a sentence to replace a physical reality the nature of which is completely unknown.
Where the semantic instinct comes into play is in this: a competent scientist realizes that these words are not the same as the realities they represent. The pseudo-scientists lack this realization, and use these words under the impression t hat they are describing and explaining reality.
We may give as another example the quotation which we have some distance back as "...the life current, the current of the universe -- the spirit indeed, of the current of the universe."
Our boy, Shakespeare, among other virtues, was a superb natural semanticist. For did he not say, "Words, words, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."?

(26)

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However, even though one is born with this semantic instinct, it is certainly capable of being developed by education, for in my own case, I have just recently-- within the past few months--obtained a clear idea of what is meant by the statement "Science cannot explain; it can only describe." A person who understands this is well on the way to being a scientist. It is the pseudo-scientists who fail to grasp this idea, and this is the reason that their publications are full of statements which contain little, if any, meaning. I illustrate this by further examples from the Scientific Forum. " In some books and articles written by scientists, atoms and molecules are spoken of as though they were largely holes due to the relative minuteness of the masses of the electrons and protons, etc., compared to the space that they occupy as atoms or molecules. The idea is very misleading since the component parts of the atoms and molecules are vibrating and spinning, and also the electrostatic lines that link them completely fill the void. These electrostatic lines are really forms of energy. They are material activities since they repel each other latterly and unlike lines link latterly." And so on in a similar vein. It is apparant that the writer of the above paragraph has read an elementary book in electricity in which "lines of force "are treated as if they were real objects and so by long association with these lines of force the writer has come to think of them as if they are the real reality. This is not uncommon, and is one of the causes of mental anguish when the student reaches the more advanced books and finds out that these lines of force are merely convenient fictions which make it easier to visualize the phenomena that are going on. There are no lines -- they neither link nor repel-- another convenient fiction. Well, what is really there, if not lines of force? No competent physicist will claim to know what is really there. The current opinion is, in fact, that this is an unanswerable question. We merely replace reality by words such as "lines of force", "fields of force", "electric charges" etc. which if used properly describe relationships between phenomena, but which no sane scientist claims to explain anything. Let me give you a clearer example. We speak of "gravity" as being something which causes material bodies to attract each other. Yet, when we get right down to it, there is not the slightest clue to just what mechanisms reach across space and causes one body to affect another at a distance. This being the case, physicists have realized the futility of searching for such a mechanism. The law of gravity makes no attempt to "explain" gravity. It merely provides a description of the motions which bodies follow when under the influence of gravity. And in this last sentence it is clearly seen how "gravity" is nothing more than a word -- a symbol -- which is inserted into a sentence to replace a physical reality the nature of which is completely unknown. Where the semantic instinct comes into play is in this: a competent scientist realizes that these words are not the same as the realities they represent. The pseudo-scientists lack this realization, and use these words under the impression t hat they are describing and explaining reality. We may give as another example the quotation which we have some distance back as "...the life current, the current of the universe -- the spirit indeed, of the current of the universe." Our boy, Shakespeare, among other virtues, was a superb natural semanticist. For did he not say, "Words, words, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."? (26)