SCIENCE & REASON - & THEIR LIMITS

Warning: This is not a typical post for this site.----Hugh Murray

PRAISE FOR SCIENCE AND REASON, BUT

AWARE OF THEIR LIMITATIONS

Hugh Murray

            In my previous posting about “Cosmos,” the new series’ first program, I expressed my disappointment in the TV presentation.  I found it unconvincing.  Though written to demonstrate the bigotry of various Christian leaders in condemning a scientist to loss of employment and finally death by burning at the stake, in the end the program merely sought to replace the authority of holy books and the priests with the new authority, the narrator- scientist.  But why should one switch from traditional authority and the words of holy scriptures to the words of the television scientist, Neil de Grasse Tyson?  He assures us that the universe is old and began with a Big Bang and the universe continues to expand.  How does the scientist really know this?  He tells us it is so.  Yet, a century ago other leading scientists might have given a very different age to the cosmos, and they may have known nothing of any Big Bang.  I suspect a century hence, future scientists may posit yet another date with a different version for the inception of the universe.  Indeed, just last week (that of 15 July 2014) a science report declared that the general scientific estimated age of the earth was off by 60 million years!  That is way off!  And what will be their calculations next year?  Scientific “truths” change.

            I complained that absent from the program was experiment and suggested discussion of experiment in the ancient world that might have provided examples of the scientific approach, rather than merely urging viewers to believe the scientists instead of the priests.  Tyson seems to think that scientists are the new priests.

            Here I want to elaborate on the difficulty.  Why do people often reject science and prefer instead religious holy books?  First, and this is far more evident today than several thousand years ago – the holy books generally do not change.  But the answers of science often do over time.  When I was young and had a small globe-bank, it appeared to me that South America and Africa fit together like parts of a jig-saw puzzle.  However, prevalent science of the time denied this.  It was all a coincidence that they were such a snug fit.  True, a German several decades prior had proposed the theory of tectonic plates, but most scientists still rejected that theory when I was young.  Today, most now accept the tectonic plate theory.

            When I was young, we were encouraged to eat eggs, milk, butter, salt, and smoke tobacco cigarettes – it was all good for us, but lifting weights would make a guy clumsy.  Then in mid-life, eggs, milk, butter, salt and cigs were all considered unhealthy while Billy Cannon from LSU and later Arnold Schwarzenegger were proving the advantages of weight-lifting.   Today, eggs, milk, and butter are judged healthy, but avoid salt - and cigarettes are viewed as deadly (unless you smoke marijuana).  Today, I eat what tastes good, and usually ignore the so-called health scientists.

            In the early 1970s there was fear of the oncoming Ice Age.  By the 1980s, the alarm was  “global warming.”  And after several decades, when the earth did not warm measurable, and did not even achieve the high temperatures of the era a thousand years ago when cold Canada was Vinland (grape land?) and Greenland was green, so politicized scientists offered a new pet phrase to frighten the populace and keep the grants coming in to their laboratories – “climate change.”  Climate change is the new danger, we are warned.  This may have been a public relations ploy to steal the thunder from the skeptics who denied global warming by maintaining that there has always been climate change.  Were there no climate change, the planet would be dead.  What we know is that in historic times, the earth has been both considerably warmer and colder than it is now.

            Scientific truths change, sometimes because the methods of collecting data improve, measurements improve, and so there is a good reason to revise the scientific conclusions.   Sometimes, science changes for reasons that have nothing to do with science.  My main point, however, science changes.  By contrast, holy books do not.  They can be reinterpreted, but their words can be restated as true over decades, centuries, millennia.

            Scientific experiments are often of a limited nature.  Use of a geometry experiment in the ancient world to determine the size of the earth by measuring shadows at different places in Egypt provided results that would take centuries to confirm and modify.  Determining whether a substance is acidic or alkaline is not usually the highest priority.  Holy books that speak of the earth as round had no problem; references to the 4 corners of the earth were eventually interpreted as literary rather than literal truth.

            Often ignored is the overlap of science and religion (ideology).  Science is not as self evident as it first appears.  What is science?  What is not science?  I read somewhere that in a part of China one might order in a restaurant cooked aborted fetuses.  Should science and chefs experiment to determine the best cooking temperature?  Boiled or fried or baked?  And what about eating people?  Surely, cannibalism is not limited to plane-crashed soccer players in the Andes, or 19^th century Americans crossing the Rockies in winter.  Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee apparently acquired the taste.  One of the Rockefellers in New Guinea on a scientific mission was the special guest at dinner for the natives.  And there are reports of African dictators placing parts of their political enemies in their refrigerators.  Should scientists test to determine the best temperature for storing such meats?  Should colleges add courses on how to preserve and cook humans in the nutrition departments?  Why not?  The Nazis performed some gruesome experiments on Jews in concentration camps during WWII.  How much sea (salt) water could one consume before dying?  How long can one endure icy cold before dying?  I think, some of the results of these experiments were published in Western scientific journals.  And the Japanese in WWII performed similar, horrible experiments on Chinese and even American POWs.  There results were used after the war by American scientists.  And one can assume kindly Stalin has his scientists using the results also.  The experiments were scientific and they brought results.  The victims either died, or suffered horribly (or both).  Yet, their deaths provided enlightenment.  Today, we generally reject these methods of scientific advance.

            Science and reason can ask the question, what is the best way to kill my father?  And some mentally disturbed teens ask that question about their friends, teachers, relatives.  These are reasonable questions with scientific answers.  Or, why are they not?

            Recall the stories of Robert Louis Stevenson about grave robbers stealing bodies to be taken to the medical school at the University of Edinburgh, so doctors might experiment on them.  This was a crime.  In the ancient world, doctors could use the dead humans to learn about the living.  But with the growth of Christianity, doctors took a back seat, and such experiments were often forbidden.  Now, the attitudes have changed, and slicing up a corpse for an autopsy to discover scientifically the cause of death is considered quite normal and not a sacrilege.  And in the West in the last century there have been experiments on the living, and not just those in concentration or POW camps.  In the 1930s in Alabama there began experiments on Blacks with syphilis, and no anti-biotics were given the patients even after the discovery of cures of the disease.  In the 1950s the CIA sponsored LSD experiments in the subways of New York to unknowing human guinea pigs.  One might contend that requiring army enlistees to attend A-bomb explosions a given distance from Ground 0 was another devious experiment using humans.  Drug companies may ask patients to partake in controlled experiments.  And there may be ads to pay those willing to volunteer for such activities.  In prisons, inmates may also volunteer, and receive some kind of compensation. While some will point the finger at cruel science and reason for these experiments, many will justify them on the possible positive results for humanity.  Furthermore, what about some of the religious practices?  Some religions promote genital mutilation in girls (many Muslims), or genital mutilation in boys (Jews and Muslims with circumcision), or cruelty to animals by slaughtering them without knocking them out first so that they are aware as the blood flows from their slit throats to make meat kosher or hallal.  Should the animals first be made unconscious?  Yet, others would maintain it is always cruel and wrong to kill animals for human food.

            And this raises the questions not of human guinea pigs, but guinea pigs.  Should humans infect monkeys, dogs, guinea pigs, with viruses to seek a cure for humans?  Science can try to answer the question of which animals might best provide results for humans with a given disease, but science cannot answer the question of if there should be such experiments on animals.  Debate continues on these issues with some determined to ban such experiments on animals.  The appeal is not to science, or to reason, but to emotion and various interpretations of ethics.

            My general point here is that “science” is not “pure” – it is a part of the social whole, a part of society, influenced by and restricted by the religious and ideological views dominant in society.  Society, through laws or social pressures, will determine what is allowed in science and what is tabu.  As in the old movies, “Dr. Frankenstein, you are not going to resume your experiments on that monster, are you?”

            Stalin’s support of Lysenko and his theory that characteristics adapted can be passed on to the next generation led a uniformity of science in the old Soviet Union.  Those who opposed Lysenko were purged from their profession, and some were purged from the earth.  Science would investigate what the leaders of the Soviet Union determined science to be.  Around the same time, there was the attempt to stimulate science for the nation in Germany.  German scientists should develop German scientific approaches to benefit the German people.  Jews, who had been so prominent in German science prior to Hitler, were suddenly condemned as parasites who used and misused science for their own crass advancement.  So under the Nazis, not only were Jews banned from teaching at universities, but the theories of Einstein and Freud and others were dismissed as Jewish science, un-German science, and thus no science at all.

            It is not only totalitarian states that restrict scientific enquiry.  Because of a whistle-blower’s release of documents, we know that a group of scientists sought to blacklist other scientists who were skeptical of the global warming thesis.  The in-group sought to prevent skeptics from being hired, prevent publication of their scientific papers, and smear them so that the public would only hear of the theory that human caused global warming is a great danger to the planet.  But that is not the only field with a tabu.  Try to get a grant in the US to study racial differences in intelligence.  Even to apply for such a grant might make the applicant suspect, and open to boycott.  The Left wing, which dominates universities, not only demands conformity to the global warming thesis, it is even more adamant that all large groups (races, whether they use the term or not) are equally intelligent and equally talented in all fields.  It is upon this unproven hypothesis that the entire structure of affirmative action and proportional representation in the workforce is built.  It is not proof; it is faith.  But it is the faith of the Left, so it goes unchallenged.  Those who challenge it have received physical pies in the face, protests on campus, threats, firings, etc.  Similar queries into race and crime will be suspect unless one posits the Left faith and its corollaries; all races are equal in all fields; if they appear unequal it is due to environmental distortions like poverty, racism, poor schools; and then offer the Left solution – more tax money for schools, to end poverty, and to counter racism.  Even to mention the statistics on how interracial crime is overwhelmingly Black perpetrators against white victims, even to state that can bring down accusations of “white racism.”  And in America today, on the Left, and in the academedia complex, Black racism simply does not exist, and if Blacks physically attack whites, the fault lies with the whites and “good” (Left-wing) scientific researchers will ultimately prove that point.  These attempts to prove what is politically correct by distorting statistics and never asking obvious questions do prove what is commanded.  But this is not science; it is faith – Left wing faith.

            Scientists in the USSR who stuck to their research findings and disputed Lysenko, were clearly undermining the authority of the Communist Party, and thus borderline traitors.  Scientists in the Third Reich who sought to promote Einstein’s relativity theory were undermining the efforts to develop German science, cleansed of the rubbish of the parasites.  And in America, those who challenge global warming, or the  notion that all races are intellectually equal, are clearly red necks who should be barred from universities, and in time from all life in the New America.

            The definition of science; the promotion of some scientific branches and the criminalization of others is all a reflection of the general ideology/religion of the culture.  (For more on this, available on the net, see my “Nazi Science: Review Article.”)

            Another important point concerning science, experimentation, and holy books: we can take a simple experiment from a high-school chemistry class to discover if a liquid is acidic or alkaline.  But for most people, the results of that experiment seem far removed from their everyday life.  Far more important, for most people, are the experiments of a personal nature.  For example, we now know that prayer can make the individual calmer, reducing tension, which may have general health benefits.  The benefits probably rise no matter which god one prays to.

Moreover, if one prays, asking god for this or that, sometimes the wish is fulfilled, and the experiment proves the holy book to be correct.  If the wish is not granted, sometimes a similar, or even better alternative occurs.  Again, a personal experiment proved the holy book correct.  And if the request is denied, then there are myriad “explanations” for the failure.  One did not pray hard enough; one had “sinned” in some manner so that the god rightly ignored the request; others had sinned in the family, the city, the nation, so until those groups are cleansed and purified, the god will turn a deaf ear.  If one believes in a polytheistic system, the problem is different.  If the request is denied, the problem may be that the individual prayed to the wrong god, or a weaker god, or angered a stronger god.  So then, the problem is how to determine which of the many should receive the individual’s beseeching?  Some will reply, that this is not a scientific experiment because it cannot be proven to be false.  These are not experiments in the lab that can be readily replicated, true.  But if the wish is granted, it seems to prove to the individual, that the prayer was worth it.  The fulfillment may have had no measurable connection to the prayer.  But each person makes these experiments, personal, even to the Humeian faith that the sun will rise tomorrow.  Humans gamble on all kinds of things, and prayer is one of the beliefs, and the outcome often reinforces the beliefs of the individual.  These are NOT laboratory experiments.  But they may affect the individual far more.

            For most people, the personal experiments of prayer, (or horoscopes, or fortune telling) all tend to reinforce various holy books of one kind or another.  The contrast of the more objective, distant, and seemingly inconsequential school experiments pale before the real emotional impact of the prayer – horoscope – fortunetelling episodes.

            Finally, there is the question of justice and revenge.  Voodoo was also meant to punish those who had offended the individual.  Sometimes, it was merely an expression of jealousy.  Make that beauty pay for rejecting ME!  But sometimes the desire for revenge is really the demand for justice.  They did this terrible thing; should they not pay for it?  This is not simply limited to voodoo, for even a national slogan during the Great War was “Gott streife
“England,” (God punish England).  In wars, most nations indulge in this revenge/justice emotionalism.  As revenge is often a form of justice, it is not surprising that the two requests are often combined in prayer.

            And another problem, more for reason this time than for the holy books or science, - if there is no hell of some kind, if there is no punishment for those who have clearly committed evil, then why do good?  Most humans desire that evil be punished (unless they themselves were the perpetrators, and even then, they may prefer punishment as in a Dostoievsky novel), if not in this life, then at least in another later on.

            Think of all the suffering inflicted by the Hitlers, the Stalins, Maos, Pol Pots, surely they ought to be punished for their cruelty, even if one can maintain that, each of them when in power, each of these dictators also accomplished enormous change and some good, and each was worshipped by millions of his contemporaries and compatriots.

            However, if the dictators are to be punished in a just universe because of the suffering they inflicted on millions, then another problem rises.  According to many holy books, there is only one god, who is all powerful.  If he (or she, or whatever) is omnipotent, why did this god not prevent the suffering imposed by Hitler, Stalin, et al?  If the god stood idly by while there was such cruelty imposed by the dictators, then is not the god as guilty, nay more guilty, than the dictators?  The god was more powerful, but allowed the evil to occur.  And then, it is not only dictators.  What about the omnipotent god that permits storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts to kill so many of the innocent?  Is the omnipotent god not more destructive and more evil than the dictators?  Is the cosmos just?  Should one seek justice in the world?  What is the relationship of the universe to justice?  Can science answer this important question?  Can it even attempt to do so?

            In the end, the defense of science and reason must rest upon its success in providing a richer, materialistic existence.  The material experiments provided the basis for electricity, drilling for oil, refrigerators, using gas to light buildings and later electricity to waken the night, providing power for elevators so sky scrapers might reach the clouds, planes fly through them, and internet calls link to satellites above them.  These miracles provided by science saved lives and lengthened the years of living and provided comforts to the general public beyond the reach of former kings and emperors (like TV, running water, automobiles, etc.).  Science has granted us these luxuries.  It cannot give us happiness.  For that we must look elsewhere.  Nor can it grant us justice.  But it can make us comfortable in heated homes in winter and airconed ones in summer; it can feed us and reduce once widespread bouts of starvation; it can cure us from once deadly diseases, and it can give us pleasures on the internet, in the Multiplex theaters, on the river cruise, and in the pub for karaoke.

For people to appreciate science fully, show them some of its experiments and how they changed our material lives for the better.  Admittedly, some scientific discoveries may have made life worse – thus, one can kill more, faster, and with certain bombs, kill massively.  Yet, overall, science has made life longer and easier for the vast majority of earth’s humans.  Are there limitations to science?  Yes.  What are they?  Some questions seem to be simply beyond the realm of science, and concern ethics.  Other questions are merely politically incorrect in any given society, and these may have ethical overtones, and conflicting views of morality.   Science might provide the “wrong” answer to those in power.  So about such questions, should science make the elite uncomfortable, should we use reason and science to research those “sensitive” topics?  That is for us to determine and possibly pay the heavy price by threatening the powerful and their ideology.

(Will the evil be punished for their cruel deeds?  Does justice reside in the cosmos?  Is there a reason not to perform evil?  I seem to be repeating some of the questions asked by Plato at the beginnings of Western civilization.  I am sorry not to have an answer to those big questions.  This is not one of my typical posts.  It is a rambling attempt to confront some major questions.  I retain faith in science and reason, but I am aware of the limits of both.---HM)