Questions...and answers!

We humans are pretty egocentric animals, and we like to pat ourselves on our backs regularly for being such remarkable creatures. Some would say that we are special by virtue of our creation by an omnipotent being – but, our origins is a topic best left for another day. No matter what, we really are just animals though, a fact that I am reminded of virtually every day by observations of human attributes (behavioral posturing and tribalism, scores of physical faults and quirks, physiological shortcomings, etc.). For example, while I am keenly aware that pharmaceutical companies are motivated by profits, simply watching TV for any period of time brings an onslaught of ads promoting medicines for this ailment or that. Of course, these ads bring profits to these companies. And yes, these ailments are real, and I do not mean to make light of them. But these ads would not exist without the plethora of ailments we as humans have. We are the products of evolutionary forces that result not in perfection but merely in slightly better adaptations over time (also a topic for another day). We do, nonetheless, have a few interesting and seemingly unique attributes. One of these is our innate ability to ask questions.

Just think, for a moment, where we would be without the question!

There has even been some online conversation about this lately. Recently, claims have been made that despite our ability to communicate with other primates (such as gorillas and chimpanzees) using sign language, not once has one of our primate cousins asked a question (see, for example: https://www.snopes.com/articles/467842/apes-questions-communicate/). Of course, we would have to have a pretty solid working definition for “question” that could be universally applied to pursue this, and that would be tricky business to begin with.

Just think: where we would be without the question!

Are you ready for a bit of philosophy from Dr. Bland? “Bland philosophy dictates that the most important human invention is NOT the wheel! Instead, it is the question!” (There’s a bit of a joke built into that. Ha ha.) Of course, a qualifier here is necessary: one could easily argue that our ability to ask questions is something we are born with and is innate, as mentioned above, and therefore not something we invented. However, using such an attention-grabbing statement is useful in front of 100 or so college freshmen in a classroom. I could go on here by asking, “Just think of where we would be without the question. After all, what do we normally do when we ask a question? Yes, that’s right: we try to find its answer.”

Where we would be without the question!

Granted, there are many different kinds of questions we could ask, including those that are rhetorical in nature and for which we do not expect any real answer. To address the unacceptable behavior of leaving the door open, “Were you born in a barn?” was a commonly used one when I was younger. And, “Is the grass green?” or “Do bears s### in the woods?” are snarky ones used to point out what should be an obvious reference. Suppose, however, we change one of these from the clearly rhetorical “Is the grass green?” to “Why is the grass green?” Now we are on to something!

The question!

It is hard to say when humans mastered the art of figuring out the right questions to ask, but it was pivotal in the development of modern science. Indeed, the question, “Why is the grass green?” begs an answer for the truly curious. Even though this particular question could be worded in a much better way for scientific purposes, we actually do have a scientific answer for this question (shocking, I know!), and is can actually mess with your head a bit. More on that later.

Seriously, the question!!!!

Let’s explore this a bit more, because we can divide legitimate questions into two general groups: those useful to science, and those NOT useful to science. For example, “Was Ronald Reagan an effective president?” is a legitimate and important question when considering the history of politics in the United States. However, because my interpretation of “effective” is likely different from your interpretation, differences between our viewpoints will be based largely on opinion and not empirical data – thus rendering this meaningful question useless to science. One of the most important attributes of science is that scientific conclusions are based upon empirical evidence, not opinions, conjectures, or guesses.

(Regarding the scientific enterprise, empirical can be defined as: results, data, or findings generated from and verified by experimentation and/or observation.)

This is a seriously big deal, because generating information or data truly useful to science really does require a LOT of very fussy controls on how the data was collected. This ensures that it can be trusted as representative and useful in answering our question(s). Likewise, we really do have to work hard at asking the right question(s) in the first place.

This is really important: we do not generate scientific conclusions without properly obtained evidence. And as a corollary, the stronger the evidence, the more confident we are in our conclusions.

So, the question, “Why is the grass green?” should seem like a useful question for science, and it is a pretty good starting point. However, asking the question, “Does pigment x cause the grass to appear green?” is much better for a couple of reasons. One, it provides a “toe hold” of sorts: a scientist can then test the properties of pigment x to determine whether its presence could account for grass’s green color. This is also important because it is much easier to disprove a scientific hypothesis than it is to prove a hypothesis to be true. Once pigment x has been proven to NOT be responsible for the green color of grass, an experimenter can then move on to pigment y. This is why good science is sometimes described as “falsifiable”.

Science, therefore, is a simple proposition: we ask questions, and then work to find their answers. It is as simple as that!!! Unfortunately, simple and easy are not always one and the same. I know there are many non-scientists who view science as a difficult topic. One of the reasons it seems difficult is what I already mentioned: using scientific methodologies to answer questions does require a lot of very fussy work to ensure that the results of experiments and/or observations accurately reflect what we wish it to reflect, so that we will high levels of confidence in our conclusions. And, there’s the problem of massive data sets – it is impossible to look at thousands or tens of thousands of data points and draw conclusions – which is why we use statistics (or sadistics, if you prefer!)  

As an additional note, you may have noticed my use of the plural form: methodologies. Contrary to what you may have learned in middle school, there is no single way of doing “science” like the so-called scientific method suggests. I’ll save that for another time, too.

So, on to the big question: why IS the grass green, doggone it??

Fun fact: not all plants are green! You can read more about some that are not green here: https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/beauty/mycotrophic/whatarethey.shtml).

Plants are green because some of their cells contain a pigment called chlorophyll, which you probably have heard of. Chlorophyll is necessary for a process called photosynthesis (which you also have probably have heard of). Photosynthesis provides plants with the ability to “harvest” radiant energy and use it to produce their own carbohydrates, thus enabling them in essence to feed themselves (we use the term “autotroph” for this, which literally means “self-feeder”).

Okay, some background: Radiant energy consists of a range of wavelengths ranging from very short – such as gamma and x-rays, to very long, such as radio waves. Most of these we cannot see, but sandwiched in the middle of this electromagnetic spectrum is a batch of wavelengths that we can perceive, which we call as the visible spectrum. Individually, the wavelengths of the visible spectrum make up the colors of the rainbow, and in fact the rainbows we see in the sky are produced by the action of water droplets in the air, which split these wavelengths into individual waves which our brains perceive as different colors.

So! chlorophyll absorbs most, but not all, of these wavelengths. Those wavelengths that chlorophyll does not absorb and use for photosynthesis bounce off instead, and as they pass into our eyes, nerves pick up and transmit this information to our brains and we “see” green. Here’s the weird part: we spend our lives in an environment in which we see colors everywhere – grass is green, roses are red, and the sky is blue. But in a physical sense, the colors we see are not real. These colors only exist in our brains as the interpretation of different wavelengths! Roses are red, and violets are blue?? Nope. The only place that these colors really exist is in your head.

So, here’s a question you might find interesting:

Presumably, having a pigment that absorbed all of the wavelengths of the visible spectrum rather than just some of it would make photosynthesis more efficient. Right? So, if plants absorbed all of the wavelengths of the visible spectrum – and none were reflected, what color would they be?

I hope it is clear that not all questions we can ask are useful to science. In other words, there are limitations on what science can answer: questions are only useful to science if they can be addressed using scientific methodologies. This does not mean that questions we pose, but that science cannot answer, are automatically unimportant. It simply means that we cannot depend on science to answer all of them.

Perhaps the ultimate question for this conversation is this one: Is there a creator?

Recall that scientific conclusions are based upon a particular kind of evidence – empirical evidence, and to be legitimate and valid, this evidence must be collected by following the rules of science. It may surprise you to know that we have no way to test the supernatural using science. Because of this, we have no data on the existence of a creator, one way or the other. No data means no conclusions are possible, which renders this question useless to science. In short, because of its inherent limitations, science is neutral regarding the existence of a creator.