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One of the services
we're trying to provide through SII is an atmosphere of support
and community for serious discussion of the issues surrounding science
integration. We'd like to help set up a professional community for
the exploration and clarification of what kinds of work are needed
in this area.
This page is
intended to work with the email
discussion list to get things started. Articles will be posted
here to stir up discussion on our email
list.
Send us your
ideas for topics, or send us an article you'd like to suggest as
a discussion starter.
Understanding
Anti-Science Sentiments
by Todd Duncan
(Part 1 of a series)
"Science!...Why
preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart? Vulture, whose wings
are dull realities!...Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
the Elfin from the green grass, and from me the summer dream beneath
the tamarind tree?"
--Edgar Allen
Poe
The subject we
call "science" serves many purposes and means different things to
different people. The part of science that you are probably most
aware of is its application to technology. Through science we learn
the rules that describe how the natural world operates. This knowledge
gives us the power to control parts of nature, to arrange things
so that actual events match more closely to our wishes. In today's
world, of course, this ability to make reality conform to our wishes
has expanded rapidly to influence more and more areas of our lives.
The desire to feel cool on a hot summer day can be fulfilled by
turning on an air-conditioner. The wish to exchange ideas with nearly
anyone at almost any time can be carried out by telephone or the
internet. The wish to be physically present at nearly any location
on Earth can be made possible by some combination of airplane, train,
helicopter, boat, and car.
These and many
other technological marvels that pervade our lives seem to be the
most obvious and significant impact that science has had on our
society. But surely it is not just this power to control nature
which gives rise to the sentiments about science expressed in the
quotation from Poe. If science were only about making the world
conform more closely to our wishes, to cure diseases and free us
of material needs, then we would have no reason to complain that
it had taken away the "magic" in the world. It would simply have
made us healthier and freer to experience the wonders we do find
around us.
I think the common
feeling that science is dry and somehow "dehumanizing" arises from
the view of the world that science seems to require, in order
to have such great success in controlling that world. Science is
not just a neutral listing of recipes for getting nature to do our
bidding. It carries along with it a view of how nature is arranged
and how it "works," a view that necessarily impacts our sense of
how we fit into the world around us.
To clarify what
I mean by this, I need to back up a bit. Consider how you think
about the world, whether or not you know anything about science.
We all carry around some vague conception of what our lives mean,
of how we fit into the scheme of things. These ideas are based on
a wide variety of influences, from religious beliefs to social customs
to individual experiences we've had. It's hard to say just where
these conceptions (which I'll refer to as "worldviews") come from,
but at least two things are clear about them: First, anyone's worldview
will give significance to human life (and that person's own life
in particular) in some way. Second, this worldview will be at least
partially influenced by a person's experiences about how the world
works.
The difficulty
with science arises in connection with this second point. Science
has achieved its great success by describing a universe which operates
essentially independently of our concerns. The laws describing how
a particular medication will heal an infection are specified at
a level of description that knows nothing of our wishes or thoughts
or anything we care about. The success of the medication depends
on objective things like its chemical composition, the type of organism
responsible for the infection, or the temperature at which the medication
was stored. Success does not depend directly on whether the person
receiving the medication is kind or cruel, what religion they believe
in, or, in fact, anything about the person's moral character or
thoughts. Yet this description of nature, which assumes that nature
operates independently of such personal, "human" concerns, works
so well! There must be a great deal of truth to it. It must describe
the basis on which the universe really operates. This is where the
real problem sets in. The great success of this view of nature seems
to compel us to accept it as the truth, but we're not so sure we
want nature to be that way. We don't want to leave the concerns
that form all that makes our lives meaningful totally out of the
picture! Those who share Poe's sentiment do not complain because
science tells them they need not die of polio. They complain because
it tells them that earth is but a small, "accidental" speck in a
universe incomprehensibly vast. They complain because it tells them
(apparently) that all of their hopes and dreams and feelings are
somehow illusions, entirely controlled by impersonal laws of physics
describing the motions of the particles of which we are comprised.
They complain because it tells them, in the words of Bertrand Russel:
"That Man is
the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were
achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his
loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations
of atoms; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion,
all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius,
are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system...--all
these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain,
that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand."
This point of
view is in harsh contrast to the internal feelings most of us respond
to, feelings which seem much more real and familiar than the strange
world of science with which you may have little direct experience.
These feelings give us a different message about the character
of the world we live in, a message that is expressed by William
James:
"If this life
be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for
the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private
theatricals...But it feels like a real fight, -- as if there were
something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities
and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem..."
There is a serious
danger produced by the view of science expressed by Russel. We have
close contact with the reality of the view expressed by James. Yet
we are relatively unfamiliar with the science upon which the view
expressed by Russel is based. People may quite rightly, based on
strong personal experience, be unwilling to give up the belief that
their lives are meaningful and significant, that they as individuals
really matter in some fundamental way. But they're quite willing
to give up the worldview of science, with which they have very little
direct, personal experience. So, they see the best alternative is
to give up, to a greater or lesser extent, the view of the world
provided by science. The danger is that people may become convinced
that if they accept science, they cannot accept the meaning they
know is real. Perhaps this is what makes us want to believe in "miracles"
or "supernatural" events; we are desperately seeking holes in the
worldview we associate with science, gaps that would allow us to
verify that there is still some wonder and magic in the world, not
just "dull science."
In this series
of essays, I will try to convince you that the feeling expressed
in the quotations from Poe and from Russel is unnecessary, even
if you accept what is now known about the universe through science
(which of course is much more than was known by either of these
two thinkers), and the value of the process called science in helping
you to better understand the world around you. I'll argue that the
"facts" about the universe obtained by modern science do not force
us to accept a "meaningless," cold, or sterile universe.
In fact, I hope
to convince you of just the opposite, that the facts and insights
of science form a crucial guide to finding out what kind of meaning
there can actually be in the universe. I'll argue that the reason
science is so important, the reason that no one can afford to ignore
it, is that there is a meaningful role for us in the universe to
be uncovered. This makes it important to get it right. We know,
as the multitude of contradictory beliefs in the world clearly demonstrates,
that at least some of our ideas can also be wrong. Science can be
helpful both as a guide in the process of understanding our role
in things, and as protection against latching permanently onto a
belief that is wrong.
The benefits
of technology are most commonly pointed to as the main value of
science to society. But it is this second role of science, the way
in which it provides information that influences our individual
worldviews, that is fundamentally the most significant impact of
science. After all, it is what people believe they should do, their
dreams and goals, that ultimately have the greatest influence in
shaping a society. It is this important, but often ignored, aspect
of science which I'll focus on in this series of essays.
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