Soon after I launched The
Sporadic Gadfly at Northland College in February, 1996, a colleague (who will
remain nameless) submitted an article in which he argued quite
eloquently that science "has a lot to answer for," both for the
environmental and lethal destruction that it has wrought, and for
its hubris -- failing to appreciate, with Hamlet, that
"there are more things... under heaven and earth than are dreamt
of in your philosophy."
My response follows:
Like [my colleague], I also turn to the Bard for my text,
and propose that "the fault ... lies not with our Science, but with
ourselves."
To put the matter bluntly, science has
nothing
whatever to "answer for." Moreover, science does not "duck" or
even "define itself" [as charged]. Scientists do all
these things, along with technologists, generals, admirals, and most
significantly, their corporate and political sponsors. And they have
much to "answer for." (Yeah, I know: this sounds like "guns
don't kill people -- people kill people. In point of fact,
people with guns kill people who otherwise might have survived. So
guns should be regulated, respected, restricted, and used only by
those who understand them. The same applies to science).
Science, as a methodology and a fund of organized
knowledge, is not a moral agent, and thus can not "answer for"
anything. But science is also an institution, and thus subject to the
nonscientific yet value-laden influences of other institutions such
as commerce and politics. But these are external forces acting
upon science, and the evil uses to which science is put are
the responsibilities of these extra-scientific institutions. I
addition, scientists and technologists have the moral responsibility
to withhold their services to these institutions, when they perceive
that their talents are being put to evil ends. However, that moral
perception can not totally originate in, much less be validated by,
the body of their science. Those scientists who believe otherwise, do
not understand the workings of science. If the structure and
methodology of science necessarily lead to this misconception, then
one is right to condemn science. However, I am not convinced.
When B. F. Skinner investigated operant conditioning in rats and
pigeons, he gathered important data about animal behavior. But when
he claimed that human beings differ only degree and not in kind from
his laboratory animals, he was expressing an ideology that extended
far beyond the reach of empirical verification. Those who attempt to
install a "value-neutral policy science" on the measurement of
"preferences" as expressed in the market place, fail to appreciate
that they are offering, not a "science," but rather an ideology,
resting upon a scaffold of unacknowledged and thus unexamined ethical
presuppositions. (See our "20th
Century Alchemy.") As for the materialism and mechanism that reappeared
in the 17th century, in Descartes, and Hobbes and others (but which
long precedes modern science, notably in Democritus and Epicurus) -- that
philosophy (not science) has been effectively undone by the field
theories and quantum mechanics of modern physics.
No doubt, scientists all too often rush in where scientific
inference fears to tread. But the appropriate response to inadequate
science is better science; the treatment for arrogant science, is
humble science -- and in a sense, humility is a "virtue"
written into the very structure of science. (Cf. Karl Popper, who
teaches us that scientific proof is "the failure to disconfirm," and
David Hume who insists upon "falsifiability in principle" as a
condition of empirical meaning). The best of scientific investigators
side with Hamlet, not Horatio: their conviction that there is "more
in heaven and earth than is dreamt of" in their science, drives them
on to find just a little bit of that "more." If you wish to talk to
someone who knows all the answers, don't ask a scientist -- ask Rush
Limbaugh.
And for a proper appreciation of the limitations of science, and
the autonomy of moral judgment from scientific fact, this
(non-medical) doctor prescribes a good dose of the Philosophy of
Science. From that discipline, one is likely to learn that, by the
rules of the scientific enterprise, science will not, because it can
not, suffice to give us moral direction. Even so, scientific
information can be an invaluable ingredient of moral
intelligence.
And so, I quite agree with our eloquent colleague: those who
misperceive and abuse science, need a dose of strong medicine. But in
the heat of our indignation, let's take care not to toss out the
medicine.
Of Science, Policy, and
Environmental Responsibility
Several years ago, at a conference at
the University of California, Santa Barbara, I heard a professor of
engineering proclaim, "if you can't measure it, then it isn't
knowledge."
I replied, "you poor soul. If you
believe this, it means that you have never known love."
It is just the sort of thoughtless
dogmatism that I heard that day has given science a bad name, and
which turns sensitive young minds away from science. And that's a
pity.
The fact is, of course, that there is
much to know outside of science. Indeed the word "know" is itself
inadequate: better to say that there is much to experience,
to feel, to wonder at, to aspire to, to
imagine, and to value, as well as "know," both
outside of and within science.
There is, perhaps, a significant
temperamental division among two groups of scientists: in the first
group are those scientists (and uninformed admirers of science
including many economists and engineers) who look at the "near side"
of science and are enthralled by what we know. In the second are
those that look to the far side of the frontiers of science and are
humbled by what they do not know. And it is the second group that is
most likely to extend that frontier.
To think of science as a structure
assembled out of quantified, brick-like facts, is to be blind to the
soul and wonder of science -- the adventure of ideas, the joy of
discovery, the creative vision of theoretical insight. This is the
"science" that the late Carl Sagan wrote about with such
exuberance.
A knowledge of science enriches the
lives, even of nonscientists. But few will suggest that science
should be, or even can be, all of a life. To be fully human, we must
know and understand, and scientific method is our best guide in this
dimension of life. But to be fully human, we must also feel, and
judge, and then we must act.
Deliberative collective action, which
we call "policy," is informed by facts and guided by
values. And the kind of environmental policies that will
best secure our tenure on the earth must run on two legs:
values and facts. It makes no more sense to ask
which is more important in policy deliberations, than it is to ask a
runner which of his legs is more important, his right or his left.
And the best source of facts yet devised is science -- a
claim that is demonstrably true.
Yet many of the students that I encountered at Northland
College (and far less at the University of California) are captivated by a naive romanticism
(unrivaled in my previous professional experience) that is touching
and in some senses even admirable. Colleagues from around the country
confirm this observation. These students love nature, they
trust their feelings and impulses, they identify with the animals,
and they distrust artifice. So far, so good. But among a few
students, that distrust extends to artistic creation and to
intellect. And these students, though sweet and gentle, are
nonetheless quite disconcerting. For their romanticism also has a
less admirable quality: dogmatism. Thus they react
vehemently, if inarticulately, to my critical analyses of astrology
and psychic phenomena. Asserting that all beliefs are "equally true,"
they shrink from the critical examination of ideas which is the very
"point" of a philosophy class. "Who's to say?," they shrug, or they
angrily retort "what right do you have to question my ideas?" -- as
they proceed to shut down their minds. (See
"Yes,
Virginia, There is a Real World,"
elsewhere in this website).
Such attitudes, I fear, threaten to
"deconstruct" the spine of intellectual rigor and curiosity that is
the soul of higher education, and arguably our best guide out of the
historical trap into which our unwise technical cleverness has led
us.
To those students who would save the
earth on the strength of their enthusiasm and without the aid of
science, I pose this question: Who brought the environmental crisis
to national attention at the first Earth Day -- and who continues to
do so today? It was and is the scientists such as Aldo Leopold, Paul
Ehrlich, Garrett Hardin, Rachel Carson, Norman Myers and E. O.
Wilson. Moreover, environmental poets and essayists such as Gary
Snyder, Edward Abbey and Robinson Jeffers were all scientifically
informed.
The opposition -- the despoilers of
the Earth -- have money, influence and valedictorian public relations
skills. In fact, they have every advantage save one: demonstrable
truth. That is all that the defenders of the earth have -- and yet it
may be enough. And science is the one institution best designed to
yield the truth, when that truth compels with evidence and cogent
argument. Thus it would be the utmost folly for the defenders of the
earth to abandon their best weapon in a rush of thoughtless
romanticism. mixed with a misbegotten indignation over the abuses of
technology.
Copyright, 1996 and 2001, by Ernest Partridge
A Postscript by Carl Sagan
From The Demon-Haunted World, (Random House,
1995):
In American polls in the
early 1990s, two-thirds of all adults had no idea what the
"information superhighway" was; 42 percent didn't know where Japan
is; and 38 percent were ignorant of the term "holocaust." But the
proportion was in the high 90s who had heard of the Menendes,
Bobbitt, and O. J. Simpson criminal cases; 99 percent had heard
that the singer Michael Jackson had allegedly sexually molested a
boy. The US may be the best-entertained nation on Earth, but a
steep price is being paid. (376)
... Astrology, which has been with
us for four thousand years or more, today seems more popular than
ever. At least a quarter of all Americans, according to opinion
polls, "believe" in astrology. A third think Sun-sign astrology is
"scientific." The fractions of schoolchildren believing in
astrology rose from 40 percent to 59 percent between 1978 and
1984. There are perhaps ten times more astrologers than
astronomers in the United States... (303-4).
Does it all matter?
I have a foreboding of an
America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the
United States is a service and information economy; when nearly
all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other
countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a
very few, and no one representing the public interest can even
grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set
their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority;
when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our
horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to
distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide,
almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of American is
most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the
enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down
to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming,
credulous presentations on pseudo-science and superstition, but
especially a kind of celebration of ignorance... The plain lesson
is that study and learning -- not just of science, but of anything
-- are avoidable, even undesirable.
We've arranged a global
civilization in which most crucial elements -- transportation,
communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine,
education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the
key democratic institution of voting -- profoundly depend on
science and technology. We have also arranged things so that no
one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for
disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or
later this combustible mixture if ignorance and power is going to
blow up in our faces. (25-6).
