The way some scientists think

 Let’s reconsider Isaac Asimov’s suggestion that the level of radiation of a particular isotope of potassium determines the window of opportunity for the development of intelligent life.

The background appeared here on Nov. 6, 2022. In a nutshell: A radioactive form of potassium is common in foods that are healthy for humans. Asimov suggested this isotope opened a window of opportunity for the development of intelligent life. Too much of that radioactive potassium, and the long genomes that are characteristic of intelligent creatures would have broken apart. Too little, and the rate of mutation would have been too slow for intelligent creatures to evolve.

In the 1930s, perhaps the leading school of philosophy in the West was Logical Positivism. Most of its famous proponents were members of the Vienna Circle, although an Englishman, A.J. Ayer, wrote the book that became the manifesto for that school of thought. Language, Truth and Logic is arguably the clearest book on philosophy ever written.

The thesis of the Logical Positivists was that only statements that can be verified have sense. That is, scientific hypotheses have sense because you can, by testing, show them to be true or false. Religious texts, poetic declarations of love and other such things can’t be submitted to tests of verification and thus have no sense. They are nonsense.

The problem with the Logical Positivists’ viewpoint is that their central tenet — that only statements that can be verified or falsified have sense — can’t be verified or falsified. Strictly speaking, at least as Logical Positivists speak, it’s nonsense.

But most of the philosophers who made up this school were scientists, and verifiability is essential in constructing a scientific framework for understanding the world. Whether that’s the only meaningful framework for looking at the cosmos is another question.

I’m reciting this bit of intellectual history to get to this point: When I was a student of the sciences many years ago, the most penetrating minds I came across were like Asimov’s: they were creative. They spun off suggestions, some of which were verifiable and some of which were not, constantly. These scientists didn’t know or understand some aspect of the cosmos. And so they used their imaginations to try to come up with an explanation.

In my view, Asimov’s suggestion is not a hypothesis. I can’t imagine how it could be tested. But I think it’s penetrating suggestion, conjecture ... or something. It suggests a meaningful possibility, a way in which the cosmos might work.

I think science is full of that sort of thing. I also suspect that if more young people knew it was full of that sort of thing, they’d be far more interested in science.