[…] Continuation of Part I […]
In the last blog post, we have seen that officials who failed to obtain consistent results in their attempts at “watching the ether”—the reed ashes inside twelve half-buried pitch-pipes blown forth by the qi (ether) at the corresponding major solar terms of the corresponding months—tended to seek reasons in the procedures and apparatus rather than rejecting the houqi theory altogether. This attribution of experimental failures to procedures instead of theory constitutes what Harry Collins called the “experimenters’ regress,” a circular reasoning stemming from the interdependence between proper procedures and successful results. Collins gives the example of gravitational waves: If we want to prove the existence of gravitational waves, we need to build a good gravity wave detector, but we do not know if we have built a good gravity wave detector until it detects a gravitational wave, so even if the detector cannot detect any gravitational wave, it does not necessarily mean that gravitational waves do not exist; it can be due to an insensitive detector.[1] Pierre Bourdieu succinctly summarizes Collins’s argument:
When other scientists fail to ‘replicate’ an experiment, the original researchers may object that their procedures have not been correctly observed. In fact, the acceptance or rejection of an experiment depends on the credence given to the competence of the experimenter as much as on the strength and significance of the experimental proofs.[2]
By the same token, a pitch-pipe could fail to detect the qi because it has the wrong dimensions, because it is buried in the wrong way, or because the wrong reeds are used to prepare the ashes, not because the houqi theory is wrong. And to add to the circular reasoning, one needs to predict the time of a solar term accurately to know whether the corresponding pitch-pipe has the correct dimensions, and to have a pitch-pipe of correct dimensions to detect the arrival of qi associated with the corresponding solar term.
This does not mean that theories could not be falsified with experiments, but the falsification requires faith in one’s experimental procedures. Few conducted such extensive trials as the Ming prince Zhu Zaiyu 朱載堉 (1536–1611), who attempted to watch the ether with 384 pitch-pipes of different lengths. As no ashes were blown free in any of the pitch-pipes, Zhu concluded that the houqi theory is false.[3] Perhaps one would wonder why someone such as Yang Guangxian 楊光先 (1597–1669) still upheld the houqi theory given the abundant number of his failed attempts at observing the ash-blowing qi.[4] Some might find reasons in Yang’s refusal to deny his own belief, his conservative mentality, his proclivity for book learning instead of empirical learning, or his political struggle with the Jesuits, who rejected the houqi practice.[5]
However, it is also noteworthy that sometimes only a couple of successful experiments are needed to verify a theory even when myriads have failed. Of all the experiments done by Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) to prove that micro-organisms cannot arise from non-living matter—a statement that holds true today—less than ten percent of them were successful because of the harsh requirements for successful results—for example, everything inside the flask has to be sterilized and isolated from external interference.[6] Certainly, the difference between zero and one could be substantial. But for Yang Guangxian, successful results were provided in written reports, be they fabricated or not. When Georges Pouchet (1833–1894) failed to replicate Pasteur’s experiment and suggested that Pasteur was wrong, Pasteur defended himself by pointing out that the mercury used in Pouchet was contaminated with germs.[7] The problem of houqi lies as much in the impossibility of verifying it as in the difficulty in empirically falsifying it through experiments, as failures in replicating the results of monthly qi-blown ashes could be attributed to the unfulfillment of the stringent and complicated yet obscure requirements for successfully watching the ether, but it is precisely because of a similar difficulty that Pasteur’s theory about micro-organisms could not be easily disproved by experiments conducted with improper procedures.
Since the late nineteenth century, frequent defeats in wars with foreign powers had prompted China to reject many traditional beliefs as irrational and backward and adopt Western science as a rational and progressive force to modernize and fortify the nation. This left a mark on the historiography of Chinese music theory. Many Chinese music scholars tended to only embrace music theory that can exhibit China’s “progressiveness,” such as Zhu Zaiyu’s 朱載堉 (1536–1611) theory of equal temperament, and dismiss theories such as houqi and the correlation between pitches and calendar months because of their “unscientificity.”[8] But it is noteworthy that the houqi theory was not conclusively falsified by an experiment with agreed-upon procedures and widely accepted results. Rather, it lost its validity along with the abolishment of the correlative worldview that forms its theoretical foundation.
Bibliography
Shengzu Ren huangdi shilu 聖祖仁皇帝實錄 [Veritable Records of the Kangxi Emperor]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Science of Science and Reflexivity. Translated by Richard Nice. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2004.
Collins, Harry M. Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. London: Sage Publications, 1985.
Farley, John, and Gerald L. Geison. “Science, Politics and Spontaneous Generation in Nineteenth-Century France: The Pasteur-Pouchet Debate.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 48, no. 2 (1974): 161-198.
Huang, Yi-Long, and Chih-ch’eng Chang. “The Evolution and Decline of the Ancient Chinese Practice of Watching for the Ethers.” [In English]. East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 13, no. 1 (05 Jul. 1996 1996): 82–106.
[1] Harry M. Collins, Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice (London: Sage Publications, 1985), 83–84.
[2] Pierre Bourdieu, Science of Science and Reflexivity, trans. Richard Nice (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2004), 20.
[3] Yi-Long Huang and Chih-ch’eng Chang, “The Evolution and Decline of the Ancient Chinese Practice of Watching for the Ethers,” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 13, no. 1 (1996): 89.
[4] Shengzu Ren huangdi shilu 聖祖仁皇帝實錄 [Veritable Records of the Kangxi Emperor] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), 27.11a, 27.18b.
[5] Huang and Chang, “The Evolution and Decline of the Ancient Chinese Practice of Watching for the Ethers,” 90–102.
[6] John Farley and Gerald L. Geison, “Science, Politics and Spontaneous Generation in Nineteenth-Century France: The Pasteur-Pouchet Debate,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 48, no. 2 (1974): 191.
[7] Ibid.
[8] E.g. Yang Yinliu, Zhongguo gudai yinyue shigao [A Draft of Ancient Chinese Music History] (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 1981), 1011–1012.