Science's models are not true, and that's exactly what makes them useful. They tell simple stories that our minds can grasp. They are lies-to-children, simplified teaching stories, and none the worse for that. The progress of science consists of telling ever more convincing lies to ever more sophisticated children.
Whether our worldview is magical, religious, philosophical or scientific, we try to alter the universe so that we can convince ourselves that we're in charge of it. If our worldview is magical, we believe that the universe responds to what we want it to do. So control is just a matter of finding the right way to instruct the universe about what our wishes are: the right spell.
If our worldview is religious, we know that the gods are really in charge, but we hold out the hope that we can influence their decisions and still get what we want (or influence ourselves to accept whatever happens ...). If our worldview is philosophical, we seldom tinker with the universe ourselves, but we hope to influence how others tinker. And if our worldview is scientific, we start with the idea that controlling the universe is not the main objective. The main objective is to understand the universe.
The search for understanding leads us to construct stories that map out limited parts of the future.
It turns out that this approach works best if the map does not foretell the future like a clairvoyant, predicting that certain things will happen on certain days or in certain years. Instead, it should predict that if we do certain things, and set up a particular experiment in particular circumstances, then certain things should happen. Then we can do an experiment, and check the reasoning. Paradoxically, we learn most when the experiment fails.
This process of questioning the conventional wisdom, and modifying it whenever it seems not to work, can't go on indefinitely. Or can it? And if it stops, when does it stop?
Scientists are used to constant change, but most changes are smalclass="underline" they refine our understanding without really challenging anything. We take a brick out of the wall of the scientific edifice, polish it a bit, and put it back. But every so often, it looks as if the edifice is actually finished.
Worthwhile new questions don't seem to exist, and all attempts to shoot down the accepted theory have failed. Then that area of science becomes established (though still not 'true'), and nobody wastes their time trying to change it any more. There are always other sexier and more exciting areas to work on.
Which is much like putting a big plug in a volcano. Eventually, as the pressure builds up, it will give way. And when it does, there will be a very big explosion. Ash rains down a hundred miles away, half the mountain slides into the sea, everything is altered ...
But this happens only after a long period of apparent stability, and only after a huge fight to preserve the conventional ways of thinking. What we then see is a paradigm shift, a huge change in thought patterns; examples include Darwin's theory of evolution and Einstein's theory of relativity.
Changes in scientific understanding force changes in our culture. Science affects how we think about the world, and it leads to new technologies that change how we live (and, when misunderstood, deliberately or otherwise, some nasty social theories, too).
Today we expect big changes during our lifetimes. If children are asked to forecast the future, they'll probably come up with science-fictional scenarios of some kind -flying cars, holidays on Mars, better and smaller technology. They are probably wrong, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that today's children do not say: 'Change? Oh, everything will probably be pretty much the same. I’ll be doing just the same things that my Mum and Dad do now, and their Mum and Dad did before them.' Whereas even fifty years ago, one grandfather, that was generally the prevailing attitude. Ten or eleven grandfathers ago, a big change for most people meant using a different sort of plough.
And yet ... Underneath these changes, people are still people. The basic human wants and needs are much as they were a hundred grandfathers ago, even if we ever do take holidays on Mars (all that beach ... ). The realisation of those needs may be different -a hamburger instead of a rabbit brought down with an arrow you made yourself - but we still want food. And companionship and sex and love and security and lots of other familiar things.
The biggest significant change, one that really does alter what it is like to be human, may well be modern communication and transportation.
The old geographical barriers that kept separate cultures separate have become almost irrelevant.
Cultures are merging and reforming into a global multiculture. It's hard to predict what it will look like, because this is an emergent process and it hasn't finished emerging yet. It may be something quite different from the giant US shopping mall that is generally envisaged. That's what makes today's world so fascinating - and so dangerous.
Ultimately, the idea that we are controlling our universe is an illusion. All we know is a relatively small number of tricks, plus one great generic trick for generating more small tricks.
That generic trick is the scientific method. It pays off.
We have also the trick of telling stories that work. By this stage in our evolution, we are spending most of our lives in them. 'Real life' -that is, the real life for most of us, with its MOT
tests and paper wealth and social systems -is a fantasy that we all buy into, and it works precisely because we all buy into it.
Poor old Phocian tried hard, but found that the old stories weren't true when he hadn't quite got as far as constructing a new one. He performed a reality check, and found that there wasn't one at least, not one he'd like to believe was real. He suddenly saw a universe with no map. We've got quite good at mapping, since then.
PARAGON OF ANIMALS
The wizards went back to Dee's House in sombre mood, and spent the rest of the week sitting around and getting on one another's nerves. In ways they couldn't quite articulate, they'd been upset by the story.
'Science is dangerous,' said Ridcully at last. 'We'll leave it alone.'
'I think it's like with wizards,' said the Dean, relieved to be having a conversation again. 'You need to have more than one of them, otherwise they get funny ideas.'
'True, old friend,' said Ridcully, probably for the first time in his life. 'So ... science is not for us.
We'll rely on common sense to see us through.'
'That's right,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Who cares about trotting horses anyway? If they fall over they've only got themselves to blame.'
'As a basis for our discussion,' said Ridcully, 'let us agree on what we have discovered so far, shall we?'
'Yes. It's that whatever we do, the elves always win,' said the Dean. 'Er ... I know this may sound stupid ...' Rincewind began. 'Yes. It probably will,' said the Dean. You haven't been doing very much since we got back, have you?'
'Well, not really,' said Rincewind. 'Just walking around, you know. Looking at things.'
'Exactly! You haven't read a single book, am I correct? What good is walking around?'
'Well, you get exercise,' said Rincewind. 'And you notice things. Yesterday the Librarian and I went to the theatre.
They'd got the cheapest ticket, but the Librarian paid for two bags of nuts.
They'd found, once they had settled into this period, that there was no point in trying to disguise the Librarian too heavily. With a jerkin, a big floppy hood and a false beard he looked, on the whole, an improvement on most of the people in the cheap seats, the cheap seats in this case being so cheap they consisted, in fact, of standing up. The cheap feets, in fact.