I
n the early 17th century, the English phi-
losopher and statesman Francis Bacon
envisioned a bold, multiphase program
to accumulate knowledge of the natural
world. A critical part of this plan was
Novum Organum, which celebrates its
400th anniversary this year. In this work,
Bacon attempted to undo the centuries-old
dominance of Aristotelian forms of inquiry,
encouraging readers to instead apply induc-
tive reasoning to carefully curated observa-
tions of the natural world.
“Book One” of Novum Organum ad-
dressed why so little progress had thus far
been made in understanding nature. Here,
Bacon cautioned against “idols and false
notions” that can interfere with the quest
for scientific knowledge, providing the
first and possibly the most comprehensive
catalog of human foibles that can threaten
the integrity of science.
Bacon referred to these shortcomings as
“Idols” of “the Tribe,” “the Cave,” “the Mar-
ketplace,” and “the Theater.” The “Idols of
the Tribe” are the tendencies of the mind to
leap to incorrect conclusions, for example,
our inclination “to suppose the existence
of more order and regularity in the world”than is actually there. To combat a promi-
nent Idol of the Tribe—the tendency to seek
and be moved by confirmatory evidence
more so than by disconfirmatory evidence
(what we now call confirmation bias)—
Bacon directed the scientist to construct a
“Table of Deviations, or of Absence in Prox-
imity” that documents observations that
are similar to an affirmative but for which
an association does not hold (e.g., although
heat accompanies the Sun’s rays, heat does
not accompany the rays of the Moon).
“Idols of the Cave” refers to how people
occupying different “caves,” or groups, dif-
fer in their scientific beliefs and practices.
Here, Bacon described how scientists can
become attached to ideas or practices “ei-
ther because they fancy themselves the
authors and inventors thereof, or because
they have bestowed the greatest pains
upon them and become most habituated
to them.”
“Idols of the Marketplace” refers to
the intellectual risks entailed in the use
of language to conduct science. Bacon re-
garded this category of idol as the “most
troublesome of all,” perhaps because one
cannot escape using language and because
the negative effects of this necessary prac-
tice can be so insidious. Included in this
category is the tendency to assign names
to things that do not exist, which encour-
ages one to believe that they do exist.
This happens whenever researchers usea single label (e.g., “breast cancer”) to re-
fer to a collection of phenomena (“breast
cancer” actually refers to many different
pathophysiologic conditions). “Idols of the
Theater,” or “Idols of the System,” refers
to people’s tendency to cling to dogmatic
systems of belief that portray a tidy and/or
entertaining but ultimately inaccurate pic-
ture of nature.
Bacon, a contemporary of Galileo and
Shakespeare, wrote Novum Organum at a
time when many still believed that truths
about the world were handed down by
monarchs and ministers. He spoke for the
burgeoning empirical sciences, encourag-
ing readers to use the inductive method to
throw off the shackles of authority. But if
we are to realize his vision for a practice of
science that frees people from the shackles
of both authority and their own minds, it
might be a good idea to update the idols to
reflect the modern challenges threatening
the scientific enterprise today.
The Idols of the Tribe, for example, need
to expand to include the social psychologi-
cal tendencies of group dynamics. The Idols
of the Cave, which originally alluded to the
conflicting interests of the scientist, must
now emphasize the ubiquity and variety
of financial and nonfinancial conflicts of
interest attendant to the massive institu-
tional and bureaucratic systems that have
risen up around scientific activities. To the
Idols of the Marketplace, meanwhile, we
might add that the pressures within aca-
demic science to publish and win grants
have exacerbated the use of trendy yet ill-
defined terms. And finally, the Idols of the
Theater might be updated to include the
uncritical adherence to systems of ritual-
ized rules intended to automate the induc-
tive activities of scientists.
One year after the publication of No-
vum Organum, Bacon, who was seriously
in debt, was accused of corruption, briefly
jailed in the Tower of London, and barred
from Parliament for life. It took several
decades before his work began to receive
wide praise, and in 1660 it inspired the cre-
ation of the Royal Society. A modern reader
might be similarly inspired by Novum Or-
ganum’s subtlety of thought, commitment
to understanding nature as it is, and ex-
citement about the potential for science to
be a liberating force for humankind. j
10.1126/science.aba5802CLASSICS REVISITEDBy Kevin P. WeinfurtVanquishing false idols, then and now
Francis Bacon’s 400-year-old list of scientific foibles holds lessons for modern scientists
A 17th-century lecturer provides an empirical demonstration of an optical principle.The reviewer is at the Department of Population Health
Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC,
USA. Email: [email protected]INSIGHTS | BOOKS1312 20 MARCH 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6484 SCIENCEIMAGE: WELLCOME COLLECTION/CC BY