The Galileo Problem: Science and Statecraft

Macroeconomist Philip Pilkington examines the problem of making statecraft and legal judgements depend on a “science” which by its very nature is contingent rather than settled.

The question of science and statecraft seems, at first glance, to be a modern one. Utopian methods to apply the scientific method – or at least something resembling it – appear, like so much else, to have emerged in the wake of the Enlightenment. The example that is often given is that of August Comte, who wanted to replace the old religion with his newly invented scientistic religion. Extreme as Comte may appear in retrospect, the sentiment that drove him can be found in almost all the ‘modern’ social thinkers – from Bentham to Marx and beyond.

While it is true that the modern era opened the way for much more extensive – one might be forgiven for using the term ‘totalitarian’ – ideas about applying materialistic science to human society, it is misleading to think that these tendencies did not exist prior to the Enlightenment. This is related to our tendency to associate these ideas only with attempts to create social utopias. Both before and after materialist scientific have been applied to try to create utopias, the influence of material science and proto-science on statecraft has a long and important history.

Early Science and Statecraft

The earliest instances of this were the court astrologers. Astrology has always been based on and a supplement to materialist science. The earliest materialist science was, of course, astronomy – and astrology is its brother. Long before classical thinkers laid down impressive theories, curious men watched the flight of birds and position of stars. These were what scientists might call today collections of empirical data. This data was then used by these curious men to make predictions about the future – based on when a certain star appeared or on a specific pattern in a flock of flying birds.

When the systematic thinkers approached these topics, they did so in much the same way. Ptolemy laid out his famous geocentric model of the universe in his Almagest, a book that is in many ways the foundation for modern science itself. The companion to the Almagest was the Tetrabiblos – a four book guide to astrology – and the author viewed his astrological thesis as no less scientific than his astronomical thesis.

Ptolemy’s reasoning is solid. He tells his readers that it is obvious that the celestial bodies have an impact on earthly bodies. After all, when the sun is out, we feel its warmth; and the position of the moon predicts the tides in an almost magical way. It is therefore reasonable to infer that this holds for heavenly bodies in general. Ptolemy argues that due to the nature of the field, astrology is more open to error than his simple astronomical models – but this is only because there isso much more data, observation and interpretation is needed for astrological projections.

Astrology, Ptolemy argues, is what we might today call a highly ‘complex system’ and so any errors in forecasting the system can be explained by its complexity. Ptolemy’s arguments sound familiar to anyone au fait with contemporary scientific materialist prediction – and the excuses given when they fail.

How were the early court astrologers treated by statesmen? Many were elevated and listened to. Astrology was a central feature of Greek and Roman culture. Activities that tended to have uncertain outcomes – such as launching a new business venture – were often done in consultation with an astrologer. Statesmen were highly reliant on astrology, not just to decide when to undertake certain actions, but also to explain events to the public and thereby manipulate public opinion. An early example of this was when Octavius claimed that a comet that appeared in the sky at the time of the assassination of Julius Caesar was the dictator’s soul ascending to divine status. This proclamation helped pave the way for Octavius’ reign as first Roman Empire under the title Augustus. Again, this reminds us of the use of certain materialist scientific ideas today by leaders who want to justify their power and their decisions.

There was, however, a faction of the educated elite who scorned astrology. We should emphasise that the elite who criticised astrology were outliers and mavericks. Their attitudes were typically based on an extreme scepticism or puritanism in their philosophical ideals and were in no way representative of their class or of broader educated opinion. The Pyrrhonist Sextus Empiricus devoted one of his books to the topic, entitled Against the Astrologers (Pros Astrologous). More famously, Cicero wrote a dialogue against astrology entitled Concerning Divination (De Devinatione). Both tracts viewed the results of astrological inquiry as being essentially superstition. Cicero closes his dialogue with the following:

For superstition is ever at your heels to urge you on; it follows you at every turn. It is with you when you listen to a prophet, or an omen; when you offer sacrifices or watch the flight of birds; when you consult an astrologer or a soothsayer; when it thunders or lightens or there is a bolt from on high; or when some so‑called prodigy is born or is made. And since necessarily some of these signs are nearly always being given, no one who believes in them can ever remain in a tranquil state of mind.(Cicero, Book II, ¶149).

The Church would eventually arrive at the same conclusion. But the Church would take the nature of divination more seriously than the ever-sceptical Sextus Empircus and Cicero. The Church came to view astrological divination as a violation of the First Commandment. The Cathechism states that, while God can reveal the future to his prophets and saints, any form of divination that actively seeks power of the future is demonic.

All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone. (Catechism of the Catholic Church Second Edition, ¶2116).

The Galileo Problem

It would be neat and tidy to wrap up our discussion of astrology and divination and state that we are next going to deal with the scientific period proper. Doing so would imply that some sort of epistemic break had occurred at some point in history where we overcame the superstitions of astrology and entered the truths of science. But this would be misleading. Astrology was never magic. It was a materialistic proto-science based on the solid foundations of classical astronomy. It may have been based on false premises, but those premises were rational and certainly not obviously false. In reality, there was not and has never been some grand epistemic break.

The emergent scientific era, however, did confront the authorities with new and interesting problems. The most famous instance of this was the case of Galileo. Much mythology has sprung up around Galileo. He has been championed as a sort of secular martyr. This was a quite conscious propaganda effort by certain Enlightenment thinkers to try to undermine the authority of the Church. We will not engage with this mythology beyond noting that it exists and has exerted an enormous amount of influence.

Galileo Demonstrating the New Astronomical Theories at the University of Padua, by Félix Parra, 1873

Galileo famously picked an argument with the Church over heliocentrism. The Church at the time still adhered to a geocentric model of the universe. It is often said that this is because the model resembled the account given in the Old Testament. This argument has been overplayed. As early as Augustine, creation passages in the Bible have been viewed as largely analogical, with Augustine famously arguing that the six days of creation are a metaphor to convey a process that is beyond human comprehension. The Church defended the geocentric view of the universe mainly because it was the commonly held view at the time. The fact that it did seem to lend credence to a more literal reading of certain passages in the Old Testament is secondary, as shown by the fact that the Church had no problem digesting the heliocentric view when the evidence became overwhelming.

The issue was not so much that Galileo disagreed with the accepted model. Rather it was that he disagreed so vehemently. After all, Galileo was promoting the view of Nicolas Copernicus which had been published 50 years before. Copernicus was a Catholic canon who never ran into problems with the Church authorities. But after his death some philosophers attacked his work. Debates on the Copernican doctrine started to generate heat around the time of Galileo’s intervention. Galileo entered the fray as a pugilist – something that seemed ingrained in his personality. Since the Reformation was under way at the time, the Church authorities were especially sensitive to this type of rhetoric and watchful of those who espoused it in case it might develop into a strain of Protestantism.

Nevertheless, by the time the Inquisition were investigating Galileo, the latter had succeeded in creating a truly scientific scandal. Through his aggressive interventions, Galileo had forced the Inquisition’s hand to treat the Copernican theory – which had been ignored and tolerated for 50 years – as a potential heresy. The Inquisition was perfectly well-equipped to judge heresies. They had the theological resources to do so. But Copernicus’ theory was not a theological doctrine. Rather it was a scientific hypothesis. From the beginning, there was no reason to think that the Inquisition, set up to identify theological error and heresy, was an institution that could determine whether a scientific hypothesis was true or false. But the politics of the time, together with Galileo’s brash personality, forced them into this impossible position.

The Inquisition did the best job they could of it. They called experts who opposed Galileo and asked them why the Copernican theory was wrong. Galileo’s arguments rested on data that he had gathered through his newly built telescope. Those opposing Galileo pointed out that there was no reason to believe that his telescope was an accurate measuring device. Galileo countered that he had tested it on terrestrial objects and then compared what he saw through the telescope with what he saw when he approached the objects. His interlocutors objected to this, saying that viewing a building two miles away was a very different enterprise than turning the instrument on the distant stars.

Ultimately, Galileo’s critics won the day. But they won it on scientific grounds. Galileo’s evidence was, indeed, thin. The philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend devoted a good portion of his famous book Against Method to the Galileo case. His conclusion is damning:

The Church at the time of Galileo not only kept closer to reason as defined then and, in part, even now; it also considered the ethical and social consequences of Galileo’s views. Its indictment of Galileo was rational and only opportunism and a lack of perspective can demand a revision. (Feyerabend 1975, p125).

Galileo’s arguments seemed to be motivated more by a desire for troublemaking and a truculence of character than by any genuinely new discovery that he had made. The Inquisition recognised this by judging that, not only was Galileo wrong from a scientific point of view, but he also was engaged in ‘formal heresy’ – that is, heresy that is conscious, flamboyant, and self-aware. Considering all this, the Inquisition treated Galileo quite gently. Once again, this indicates that the Church felt that they had been forced into the inquest by circumstance.

How then would we define the Galileo Problem? We would define it as such: The Galileo Problem exists when an institution that is set up to determine theological truth, or an institution whose main prerogative is statecraft or jurisprudence, is forced to decide on the truth or falsity of a scientific question.

The Galileo Problem is a recipe for disaster. We will explore this more in what follows. Here we will merely recall what happened after the Inquisition judged against Galileo. In very short order, he became a secular martyr and was put on a pedestal by those who wanted to attack the Church. Today the cult of Galileo has reached absurd heights, with physicist Stephen Hawking declaring that this fairly mediocre thinker, who lived in the shadow of the much greater Copernicus, bears the most responsibility for the birth of modern science itself (Hawking 1988, p179). Many of these laureates are in part motivated by religious hatred – Hawking himself is famously an aggressive atheist – but Galileo has remained a thorn in the side of the Church, implicitly associating the latter with anti-scientific irrationalism and barbarism.

The Church had to retreat from its position on Galileo as the evidence for heliocentrism became overwhelming. This started in 1718 when Galileo’s other works were allowed to be published and concluded in 1741 when Galileo’s heliocentric works, lightly edited, were permitted for publication. Even from the singular case of Galileo we can see how pernicious the Galileo Problem can be for those who decide to parry with it. Even if an institution engages in good faith with a scientific idea and follows the evidence where it leads, this evidence is always subject to change. This is simply the nature of science. There is no such thing as ‘settled science’. What is settled today may be unsettled tomorrow and then unsettled again the next day. Foolish is the man who builds his house on sand; and foolish is the purveyor of timeless truths who risks their reputation on a contingent scientific question.

Complexity and the Inquisition

Let us take a step back and ask: why is scientific ‘truth’ so different from more firmly grounded Truths? Some examples are in order. Let us start with the simplest, the famous mortality syllogism:

All men are mortal;

Socrates is a man;

Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

In 70 characters we have proved that Socrates is mortal. We could be even more economical with this syllogism by writing it as follows:

Man = X, Mortal = Y, Socrates = Z;

X = Y;

Z = X;

Z = Y.

Now we have communicated the same truth in only 56 characters. What we infer from this is that simple syllogistic logic is easily arrived at, easily communicated, and therefore easily agreed upon. If an Inquisition was asked to determine whether Socrates was mortal or not, we can be sure that they could make this judgement while standing on firm ground.

Now let us consider something more complex. Is it wrong to kill in self-defence? Here we might turn to the notoriously precise and concise St Thomas Aquinas. Here is the most distilled version of the argument I can find in the Summa Theologica:

Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. Now moral acts take their species according to what is intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental as explained above.Accordingly the act of self-defense may have two effects, one is the saving of one's life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor. Therefore this act, since one's intention is to save one's own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in "being," as far as possible. (Aquinas, Secunda Scundae, Q64, Art7)

In Aquinas’ rendition, this argument requires 589 characters. I have tried rewriting it more concisely and have managed to reduce it to around 300 characters. Regardless, the argument for killing in self-defence requires a few hundred characters. It is more complex than the simple mortality syllogism but not that much more complex. Yet again, we can be sure than an Inquisition set up to determine whether killing in self-defence is licit should be able to do so – provided they are approaching the matter in good faith.

The point we can draw from all this is that, even in the case of a priori arguments that can be settled through recourse to reason alone, it can be difficult for an Inquisition to arrive at the correct conclusion. Yet difficult doesn’t mean impossible. Given the fallen nature of Man, it is not at all surprising that those entrusted with such judgements sometimes fail to live up to this ideal. But the possibility that they may live up to this ideal is still there. Is this possibility present when it comes to scientific arguments?

Galileo’s Telescope

Consider again the Galileo case. What is required to make a judgement on it? First, we must be comfortable with the Ptolemaic model of the universe. This is a highly complex model. If you have ever tried to familiarise yourself with it, you will be aware just how complex it is. Secondly, we will have to be comfortable with the Copernican model of the universe. This is less complex than the Ptolemaic model, but it still requires deep learning to grasp thoroughly. Next, we will need to have a good comparative understanding of the two models. We will need to know what the models predict; that is, what evidence we should see when we investigate the sky at given points in time.

Grasping all of this is complex, but it is possible. It is arguably more complex than the argument of Humanae Vitae, but it is still in theory understandable by a hypothetical Inquisition. But now turn to the question of the telescope. This adds a variable that is highly uncertain. Standing next to Galileo in the 17^th century, can we trust the telescope? Can we trust the observations that the telescope gives us?

The Inquisitors prudently assumed not. The question of the structure of the known universe was too important to be decided by some new and untested rickety piece of technology. But beyond this, Galileo’s telescope reminds us of the uncertainty of measuring empirical variables. It therefore reminds us of the uncertainty inherent in testing rival scientific hypotheses.

In science this uncertainty tends to be minimised by repetition. In the case of Galileo, heliocentricity was eventually proved as more and more evidence accumulated. By the time Yuri Gagarin launched into orbit heliocentricity was well-established, but any further doubts disappeared as he peered back on the earth with his own two eyes. But at the very least this repetition takes times – sometimes a very long time.

Increasingly, however, true repetition is not available to us at all. As science spreads its tentacles into more and more aspects of reality, methods of hypothesis testing become vaguer and more abstract. This is why much of science today has become dominated by statistical inference and mathematical modelling. These disciplines are so complex that practitioners can easily become lost in their own complexity. They are also open to gross error and even fraud. This is what is meant when you hear that science is experiencing a ‘replicability crisis’ (Ioannidis 2005).

This new type of science, resting on modelling and data, is at best, highly uncertain, at worst, close to the astrology we discussed earlier. When it is uncertain evidence can often be contradictory. Researchers might find one thing in one dataset and the opposite in another. Sometimes repetition can rule this out, but typically over the course of years or even decades; and sometimes the evidence remains permanently contradictory. Especially when mathematical modelling becomes excessive, what passes for science can become very similar to astrology, with bad assumptions glossed over and buried under heaps of more bad assumptions until utter nonsense is produced.

These flaws appear everywhere where statistics and modelling are applied. No science is safe. Firmer sciences like physics – where the variables are more stable and the measurement methods more precise – are more immune than imprecise social sciences, for example. But it would be wrong to think that these problems only exist in the social sciences. They also exist in medicine, in biology, in public health – everywhere that statistics and modelling are deployed.

Science Cannot Govern

This may sound like a species of Pyrrhonism or epistemic nihilism. But it would be wrong to take it that far. We must simply understand that science is an application of practical reason, to use the Kantian terms. It will never produce the firm results of pure reason – ever. Even dependable, well-established physical theories are overturned occasionally. But it is rarely physics that tries to muscle-in on the legislative process.

More typically, science that tries to sit on the legislative bench comes dressed in very ostentatious garments. Its proponents are rarely humble men, and its methods are rarely clear-cut empirical results and time-tested hypotheses. The proponents of scientific legislation usually wave around charts that they tell us are the output of models that no mere mortal could understand. Although when examined, the models often merely show it was their builder who lacked the intelligence to grasp what they did or did not say.

The scientific legislators also like the large-scale statistical study with data that has been stretched and squished in ways that are difficult, if not impossible to understand. They rarely want to share their data, so terrified are they that someone will find an error in the computer code. Often these men are funded by an interested corporate entity, especially in the lucrative medical field. But even when they are not, they know that their grants are dependent on their work garnering attention. This incentivises the production of dramatic results and disincentivises caution and prudence.

The philosopher of science Brian Martin summarises the actual practice of science well when he writes:

People tend to selectively observe and interpret information in a way that supports their preconceived ideas. Because of this, the personal commitments of individual scientists can help to explain the link between the scientists' presuppositions and their pushings of the argument.  In a scientist, this process might operate as follows. The scientist starts with an original idea or hypothesis, perhaps arrived at as a creative solution to a certain problem. In testing or validating the idea, the scientist will tend to notice and use supporting evidence and arguments. Data that seems mainly supportive will be studied, analysed, and applied so that every possible advantage can be drawn from it. Seemingly irrelevant or inconclusive items will be filtered from advantageous components or interpreted in a way which promotes the argument. Evidence that seems mainly to contradict or challenge the argument at hand may be ignored completely or explained away or reinterpreted and twisted into support for the argument (Martin 1979, Ch7).

The first thing that legislators need to understand is that scientists are first and foremost fallen human beings and only secondarily men in search of knowledge. They are subject to the same sins as the rest of us; and they seem particularly prone to sins of pride.

What does this mean for statecraft?

Statecraft’s interactions with science take place in two distinct ways, both of which have implications for the legislative process. Both are as old as time itself. The first is the use of the products of science for the ends of statecraft. From the first catapult to the first hydrogen bomb, this intersection typically takes place on the field of battle. But in modern times States have availed of technologies for other reasons. Sometimes, when this is done licitly, this can have positive outcomes. State promotion of clean drinking water using chemical treatment produces an obvious public good. Sometimes, when it is done illicitly, this can have catastrophic outcomes. State promotion of so-called ‘family-planning technologies’ have led us to a point of impending demographic catastrophe.

From a legislative perspective, choosing the good from the bad does not require knowledge of the ins and outs of the science behind the technology. This changes somewhat when funding is at issue, especially for experimental programs. The scientists behind the Manhattan Project, for example, were confident that the nuclear bomb would work. The United States government spent around one-third of what they spent on total tank production on the Manhattan Project. If the nuclear bomb had not worked, this would have been viewed retrospectively as an enormous waste of resources at a time when the country needed them most.

Budgeting then does require some evaluation of the science. But the stakes are not all that high. Money lost, is just money after all. Wise legislators can weigh up the risk-adjusted potential benefit against the cost. So, if a speculative scientific project could be of enormous benefit but the science looks murky, they could apportion less funds to the project than they would if the science was clear and obvious. These are simple prudential decisions that should be graspable by any competent legislator.

The second way that science interacts with statecraft is much more problematic. This is when science asserts itself and demands control over the levers of power. In this guise, science is not offering its products to be used by the legislator; rather it wants to climb inside the legislators’ heads and steer the show. We have seen that this too is as old as time. Astrologers have always been on hand to offer advice. But again, we must distinguish between simple advice and a desire to completely take over the legislative process.

The desire for those peddling science to take over the legislative process seems to be a recent one, although it appears to have emerged out of a very old phenomenon: the quarantine. Like war technologies and soothsayers, quarantine is as old as time. Primitive tribes reject those they believe carry illness. Leprosy features prominently in the Bible. But the rationally planned, general quarantine is a more recent phenomenon that grew up alongside the rise of town planning and modern ideas about political economy (Foucault 2007).

When the whole of the legislative process becomes subordinate to an idea that is claimed to be supported by science, enormous problems are likely to emerge. Statecraft is a tricky enterprise that involves balancing some goods at the expense of others. Certain good are prioritised as being more important than others and so on. Legislation-by-science, on the other hand, tends to devolve into a legislative monomania. The rigid imperative brought by the scientists that all other social goods should be subordinated to the idée fixe that they have highlighted is always likely to interrupt the legislative process in a highly negative way and precipitate social disharmony.

The conceptual problem is simple. At their best legislators tend to rest on timeless, natural Truths graspable by decent reason. Historical experience shows us how to balance these against one another. Ideally, reasoned debate amongst legislators should be able to determine how to better order these goods as history moves forward and societies grow and develop. Science, as we have seen, does not offer up anything even remotely resembling these timeless, natural Truths. Rather it offers up speculations about reality that are backed with arguments and evidence that are typically fluid and open to interpretation and contestation.

If the scientists were merely offering legislators novel Truths that were otherwise firm, rebalancing the legislative process to accommodate these new Truths would be difficult enough. The fact that these novel considerations are far from actual Truths and are instead closer to guesswork about the nature of reality and the future makes them completely unsuitable for the legislative process. There is simply no way to integrate them into the process, which is why, when attempts are made, they tend to become more and more demanding – eventually resulting in a hegemony that destroys the legislative process itself.

How then do we identify these ideas? They are identifiable by looking at them as species of the Galileo Problem. Any time the legislator is asked, explicitly or implicitly, to make a judgement on contingent science and use this judgement to inform their legislation we have an instance of one of these disruptive ideas. Mandated vaccinations, for example, ask legislators to trust the research on those vaccines. If the research proves to be wrong – if the vaccine does not work or turns out to be dangerous – the consequences for the legislator and for social harmony are profound. Likewise, climate change advocates ask legislators to trust their research on the impact carbon emissions have on the climate. If this research turns out to be wrong, the legislator may end up causing a lot of social harm for no benefit; they might also provoke perilous social instability.

Ultimately then, science needs to be viewed through the lens of subsidiarity. Science operates best when it is left to itself. Scientists produce the most social good when they are left to argue with other scientists. If a question is answerable in science, left to itself it should eventually be answered. If a question is unanswerable, it will eventually wither away as the evidence against it piles up and people tire of those promoting it.

The principle of subsidiarity teaches that if a higher power interferes too much with authority that should be left at a lower level, this will produce bad outcomes. So, for example, while the State should promote and encourage family life to the best of their ability, it should never try to take over the functions of the family. If it does so it will destroy the family. Since the family is the basic unit of social organisation, the destruction of the family will eventually, inevitably lead to the collapse of the State. This wisdom also applies to science. If the State inserts itself into or allows itself to become co-opted by science, it will inevitably destroy science. Worse still if the State gambles its credibility on the science that it is being co-opted by, the State could be destroyed by the inevitable collapse of this science.

Science cannot govern. In its very essence it is unsuitable for governing. It is unclear even to what extent science should be consulted when governing. At the very least, it is hard to think of circumstances when the time-tested sureties of natural reason should be subordinated to the vagaries and bickering of science.

References

Aquinas, Thomas. (1920). The Summa Theologiæ of St. Thomas Aquinas Second and Revised Edition.

Catechism of the Catholic Church. (2000). Burns and Oates.

Cicero. (1923) On Divination. Loeb Classical Library.

Feyerabend, Paul. (1975). Against Method. Verso Books.

Foucault, Michel. (2007). Security, Territory, Population: Lecture at the College de France 1977-78. Palgrave Macmillan.

Hawking, Stephen. (1988). A Brief History of Time. Bantam Books.

Humanae Vitae. (1968).

Martin, Brian. (1979). The Bias of Science. Brianmartin.cc.I’m