Abstract
The 2011 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to two teams which, working independently, confirmed the striking fact that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. For many cosmologists, this prize marked another major point in the chain of successful results cosmology obtained in its relatively short history of being an experimental science. In fact, modern cosmology prides itself for becoming a “precision science ,” breaking sharply with its “speculative” past. I analyze this experimental turn in cosmology and examine different forms of interdisciplinary transgressions that this epistemic shift is built on. I propose that these transgressions that cosmology engenders in the process of establishing its scientific legitimacy attests to the fact that a crucial aspect of the way scientific knowledge is usually characterized is being challenged today. This characterization, which found, as I argue, one of its best conceptualizations in Weber ’s classic Wissenschaft als Beruf , is summarized in his famous “disenchantment ” thesis proposing that there exists a sharp boundary between the questions under the jurisdiction of science and the questions of “meaning” (such as theology), which science refuses to answer. I argue that, as the current practice of cosmology confronts this boundary, the assumptions pertinent to the social and epistemic contexts within which scientific knowledge comes into existence will also be put into question, which is what we witness in the case of modern cosmology.
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Notes
- 1.
There is one important question that needs to be clarified for the purposes of this paper, concerning the relationship between boundary transgressions and interdisciplinarity. For one can ask whether each interdisciplinary formation corresponds to a boundary transgression, or, how a boundary transgression is different from a cooperation between two disciplines. To answer this question, we need to clarify what we mean by a “transgression”: When does a discipline transgress its boundary? Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to provide a general treatment, I propose that in any interdisciplinary formation there is an irreducible element of transgression for the following reason: When a given discipline is employed to address questions and problems that previously were classified as belonging to another one, it will need to adjust those questions to its own language and “picture of reality”, in order to be able to deal with them (here, one good example could be the situation in molecular genetics and macroscopic biology ). I suggest that it is appropriate to understand this form of disciplinary adjustment as a transgression. To be sure, I do not claim that this is the only form of transgression possible. But to the extent that it exists in all interdisciplinary constructions, this criterion justifies my treatment of them as boundary transgressions.
- 2.
I chose Weber ’s text as the background for my discussion since I believe that it provides a very succinct statement of a view on science that still prevails to this day. Although I cannot propose an argument here, to the extent that Popper ’s views on the tentative character of scientific knowledge constitute one of the major threads within mainstream philosophy of science , I contend that Weber ’s lecture can be seen as a source text for what has since followed. Specifically, as we see in the quote below, it is in the idea that to be superseded scientifically is not simply our fate but our goal that I see the seeds of what will later become the central thesis of Popper ’s philosophy of science . For the classic statement of Popper ’s philosophy, see Popper (2002). A recent influential reappraisal of Popperian ideas can be found in Mayo (1996).
- 3.
The original phrase is: “der Sinn der Arbeit der Wissenchaft” (Weber 2011, p. 15).
- 4.
This point becomes clear when we examine how Weber contrasts art with science. He writes that when, say, a technical development occurs in art, this does not mean that the art produced as a result of this development is “superior” or “higher” to early eras, whereas in science, he thinks this is exactly the case. See Weber (2004, p. 11).
- 5.
The sentence in German reads: “Und damit kommen wir zu dem Sinnproblem der Wissenschaft“ (Weber 2011, p. 15).
- 6.
One should note that in this passage Weber ’s aim is to question the “point” of scientific activity and not to claim that it is “irrational”. The German original reads: “Denn das versteht sich ja doch nicht so von selbst, daß etwas, das einem solchen Gesetz unterstellt ist, Sinn und Verstand in sich selbst hat” (Weber 2011, p. 15).
- 7.
Compare these observations of Weber with what we find in some of the modern cosmologists’ popular books and lectures. For example, a well-known researcher and popularizer of cosmology, Paul Davies, who was a post-doctoral student of Fred Hoyle in Cambridge University, wrote: “[…] in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion” (Davies 1984, p. ix).
- 8.
- 9.
That is to say, the BBM had to assume that the universe started in a way that the temperature everywhere was exactly the same as if it was pre-arranged.
- 10.
The program of unification in fundamental physics has a long history going back at least to Maxwell ’s work on electricity and magnetism. In the context of particle physics, the most fruitful result achieved up until today is the unification of the weak and electromagnetic interactions by Abdus Salam , Sheldon Glashow , and Steven Weinberg , who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 for their work. At present, no such success seems to be on the horizon for the GUT project. I recognize that the question whether unification can be analyzed as a boundary transgression is an important one but it is beyond the limits of this paper. Still, it seems reasonable to think that it should be understood as an intra-disciplinary formation, for in unification one combines two or more subdisciplines with their own separate set of entities, questions, and methods. Even though in the context of particle physics there are considerable similarities between the subdisciplines that one aims to unify, the differences are far from trivial, which explains why, as I mentioned, a consistent and empirically adequate GUT does not yet exist.
- 11.
In other words, as inflation gives an account of how a small enough space that was causally connected in the early universe could become the entire observable universe, the homogeneity of temperature is not puzzling. There was enough time for radiation to equalize the temperature.
- 12.
- 13.
Here, Aν stands for “extinction,” which is the reduction in the intensity of light as it passes through the interstellar medium.
- 14.
I should point out that each form of transgression is equally important for the main argument of this paper. Still, it will be noticed that I allocate more space to the third form of transgression compared to the previous two. This is both because the demonstration of the final transgression requires more textual resources than the others and also it is in the third form of transgression that we fully observe the effect which constitutes the subject matter of this paper, namely, the transformation in cosmology which brought certain questions of “meaning” within the jurisdiction of this science.
- 15.
As if the value of the parameter is “tuned” by a “purposeful designer.”
- 16.
Such as the charge of the electron or the value of the cosmological constant.
- 17.
That is to say, the anthropic principle is required to explain the universe that we live in naturally, without invoking the existence of a “creator.”
- 18.
The conceptual and technical details of this argument are beyond the scope of this paper. As my aim is not to assess Krauss ’s argument but simply to document how it represents cosmology, I will be content with stating it in most general terms.
- 19.
The book by Barrow and Tipler that Ellis mentions is Barrow and Tipler (1988).
- 20.
This paper received 561 citations at the time of this writing.
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Guralp, G. (2016). Cosmology and the End of Weberian Science . In: Krings, BJ., Rodríguez, H., Schleisiek, A. (eds) Scientific Knowledge and the Transgression of Boundaries. Technikzukünfte, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft / Futures of Technology, Science and Society. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-14449-4_7
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