Dark matter or a new theory

Urbain Le Verrier

Science studies facts and tries to explain why they occur. Scientific theories are the more credible, the more facts they explain or predict. A single fact in opposition to a theory, or a single unconfirmed prediction, is enough to make us consider revising the theory. With the scientific method, theories are never final and facts must always take precedence.

We have a classic historical example in the theory of universal gravitation, which allowed Newton to explain events like the fall of bodies and the movement of planets and satellites. Its first achievement, by Newton himself, was the mathematical deduction of Kepler’s three experimental laws, obtained empirically from the observation of the orbits of the planets. But the greatest success of the theory was a correct prediction when discrepancies were detected between the orbit of Uranus deduced from the theory and the observed orbit. When something like this happens, the problem can be solved in two ways:

The myth of the Enlightenment

As I mentioned in the previous article, in my unpublished work Quantification of history and the future of the West I applied an objective quantitative method (not dependent on my preferences) to give points to the main creators in various fields of human activity in the Greco-Roman and Western civilizations: science, philosophy, literature, plastic arts and music. The next figure represents the global cultural evolution of our civilization over the centuries. It can be seen that:

Global cultural evolution of Western civilization

The myth of the Dark Ages

Bertrand Russell

Echoing the myth of the Dark Ages, a name for the European Middle Ages invented by the writers of the Enlightenment, Bertrand Russell wrote these words in his book Wisdom of the West (1959):

As the central authority of Rome decayed, the lands of the Western Empire began to sink into an era of barbarism during which Europe suffered a general cultural decline. The Dark Ages… It is not inappropriate to call these centuries dark, especially if they are set against what came before and what came after.

What came before was the Roman Empire; what came after the Renaissance.

The myth of the Dark Ages was invented by the writers of the first half of the eighteenth century to enforce another myth they had created, according to which at that time we were entering a new era of reason and knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, which they called by the name of the Enlightenment.

In the Espasa Dictionary, 1000 great scientists (1996) I proposed an objective procedure to quantify the relative importance of the various practitioners of science, using measurements such as the number of lines assigned to each scientist in encyclopedias of different countries (to avoid the bias in favor of countrymen). Later, in an as yet unpublished work (The quantification of history and the future of the West), I applied the same procedure to several branches of human creativity: science, philosophy, literature, the plastic arts and music. The next figure represents the resulting evolution of the Greco-Roman and Western science until the end of the Middle Ages. It can be seen that:

Ideology and contempt for science

The sentence against Socrates

In several previous articles I have warned about some of the dangers that are just now threatening the advancement of science, which has proceeded for over two centuries and a half. One of the most important is the dominance reached by certain ideologies with great political influence, that when their ideas are attacked on scientific grounds are oblivious to what science says, or just call it pseudoscience.

• It is a scientifically undisputed fact that the life of a human being begins at the fertilization of an egg by a spermatozoon. Despite what certain politicians and journalists say, there are no discussions on this issue in the scientific world. In a previous article I have summarized the scientific consensus, which has been unanimous for over a century and a half. Nevertheless, the proponents of a certain radical feminist ideology proclaim a right to abortion which in fact is the right to kill their children. If these abhorrent laws hold, it is due to the cowardice of the rulers, who do not dare to repeal it. The result is a step back in the defense of human rights. We are going back to the Middle Ages, when parents had the right of life and death over their children (this right is now granted to mothers). We are going back to slavery, when some human beings (the masters) had the right of life and death over others (the slaves). We are going back to the Roman Empire, when abortion and infanticide were legal until 24 hours after birth. Is this what they call progress? I would rather call it going backwards.

The fallacy of life on Mars

Mars image mosaic from the Viking 1 orbiter

In a previous post I discussed the fallacy of the invisible cat, where the cause was the confusion between a sufficient and a necessary condition, as indicated by the following table:

Correct deduction: Necessary condition	Fallacious deduction: Sufficient condition
B is true only if A is true. B is true. Therefore A is true.	B is true if A is true. B is true. Therefore A is true.

There is another very similar fallacy, which also consists of confusing necessary and sufficient conditions, but in reverse. In this case, the right and wrong syllogisms are indicated by the following table:

Correct deduction: Sufficient condition	Fallacious deduction: Necessary condition
B is true if A is true. A is true. Therefore B is true.	B is true only if A is true. A is true. Therefore B is true.

Let us look at one example of this fallacy, applicable to the existence of life in Mars:

Water is necessary for the existence of life.

There is water on Mars.

Therefore there is life on Mars.