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Preface
What is the
Antiscience? The Antiscience is an aversion to the abstraction of
science. Science is expressed
mostly through mathematics among scientists. When a theory is presented to a nontechnical or semi-technical audience,
people who do not have the mathematic background needed to actually understand the
work being presented, simplifications are made to convey the general concepts
involved.
In the past this worked
because the public had an intrinsic trust in the scientific method and did not
presume to question the integrity of the work.
Increasingly, however, an aversion for abstractions has developed into a
disdain of abstraction among the general public. Applied to science, distrust has arisen regarding
concepts that cannot be proven concretely in the sense of either by a
manifestation of a new technology based on the theory, or by some demonstration
of the principle.
The absurdity of
discussing and debating science without understanding the math involved is
analogous to debating the grammar of Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace without being
able to speak, read or write Russian.
Yet this is one of the most apparent features of the Antiscience.
We must tread
carefully and not let our personal prejudices fill in the blanks here. The Antiscience is much more than creationism
or believing the world began a few thousand years ago. Those are fringe beliefs that are easily
written off as the eccentricities of a particular group. The Antiscience is much more pervasive and
insidious than that.
The Antiscience
permeates our cultures of the West, manifesting itself in subtle vanities and
superstitions, often seemingly allied with science itself, but just as
unfounded and ridiculous as those more obvious examples listed above. This version of the Antiscience resides in all
of us to differing degrees, since we are all children of the age and culture. It is easy to point the finger at the fringe
and deride the obvious illogic of their beliefs. It is much harder to dispassionately examine
our own beliefs for similar frivolities.
The Antiscience is a manifestation of the anti-abstraction
sentiment characteristic of the philosophical age in which we reside, the age
of existentialism. It is completely logical that our
philosophical age, which began at the end of World War II, should reject the
abstract, given the atrocities abstractions abetted in the World Wars and the
emergence of ideological totalitarian regimes afterwards identified as enemies
of "the west". However, as with all ages,
what began as repudiation and rejection of the excesses of abstraction of the
previous age has now itself wandered into its own excess.
A brief note on the title "The Antiscience"
The title
"Anti(Subject)" usually signifies a polemical essay or treatise. If this was a two-part series against
science, I would have named it "Antiscience".
But that is not the intent of these blog entries. Rather, I named this two-part series "The
Antiscience" because I'm trying to explain the origin and nature of an already
existing anti-science sentiment held by society and manifested in a multitude
of ways.
For those who
are familiar with classical literature, this analogous to the difference
between the titles "Anticato" and "The Anticato". The first, "Anticato", was a
set of arguments against Cato the Younger written by Julius Caesar around 45
BC. The latter, "The Anticato" (a book that was never actually written) would
be an evaluation of those arguments.
A brief note on the topic of religion appearing in this
work
Yes, these
posts contain references to religion. Anyone who has actually read Hegel or
Nietzsche or Sartre will understand why.
Let me be clear - I am not promoting any doctrine or set of beliefs. Religion is a pervasive aspect of the human experience
and it would be impossible to discuss the philosophy of any age without
including it. I do ask the reader to try
and remember as you read this that the source of the Antiscience is not
religion. I feel I have to say this
explicitly here in the beginning because it is a preconception many readers
incorrectly hold.
I hope the
clarifications above relieve my critics of at least some of their
misconceptions regarding my motives and conclusions. Thank you all for taking the time to read
this essay and your subsequent comments.
The Antiscience, Part II
"All movements go too far". -Bertrand Russell
Perhaps the most obvious vanity of humanity is the
perpetual belief that somehow we are not repeating some pattern of the past in a
new and interesting way. In The Antiscience Part I,
I described a pattern in philosophy since the Renaissance where new, contrary
ideas are born in opposition to the overzealousness of a previous philosophical
age. Those ideas mature and become the philosophy of a new age. Finally, those ideas are taken far beyond
their original intent and are usurped by a new set of contrasting ideas - and
the age ends.
In Part II, I hope to demonstrate that this pattern
continues today and that The Antiscience is nothing more than the overzealous
last act of our current age of philosophy.
Two World Wars and the Death of Realism
World
War II ended with the surrender of Japan, the last of the Axis powers, to the
Allies on August 14, 1945. In total, World War II (1939-1945) had resulted in over 60 million
deaths. Two-thirds of those deaths were civilians.
Not since the Black
Death had so high a percentage of the population died so quickly. The
bloody French Revolution (1789-1799) and subsequent Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815)
had caused only 5 million deaths, more than ten times less than the slaughter
of World War II.
From 1800 to 1939, the
world's population had little more than doubled, yet there had been 10 times
more death in a quarter of the time. Before World War II, of course, came
World War I, a conflict previously known as the Great War, a title that could
be held for only 21 years. World War I had resulted in roughly 16 million
deaths. This was a horror at the time, but quaint by World War II's new
standard.
"Evil is the product of
the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete."- Jean Paul
Sartre
At
the end of the first half of the 20th century, two World Wars had lead to
somewhere between 50 to 100 million deaths. That number alone, although
horrific, wasn't the worst of it. Rather, it was in the manner of death where
the real horror lay. Men had been doing terrible things to men for as long as
man could act, but the detached way in which people were now killed could not
help but stir revulsion in those who were involved.
Whether
it was from poison gas, machine gun, artillery or bomb, the method seemed to
have efficiency. Efficient killing: was there anything that more
symbolized the Realist philosophy?
The
concentration camps of Europe weren't just notably terrible for the Nazi
slaughter of millions of Gypsies, Poles and Jews. These "camps", as they were
euphemistically called, were models of efficiency that employed techniques
developed during the Industrial Revolution to mass produce death.
The
efficiency was – and is - disturbing. These deaths weren't murders of
passion, but of the detached brutality of an amoral society. It was as if the society itself had become
sociopathic. This was deplorable
behavior justified by the "truths" of realism, or at least what passed for
truth. Fascism, Communism, and Social
Darwinism were all constructs of the Age of Realism, and were responsible for
over 100 million deaths (counting Stalin's purges).
Finally,
all of this death and destruction and dehumanization reached a crescendo with
the Atom Bomb. In a few days, two cities
in Japan were destroyed and hundreds of thousands were killed. Suddenly, man had the ability to cause death
like never before. The World Wars ended,
but the sense of relief was short-lived. When the U.S.S.R., America's ally
turned adversary, developed its own atom bomb by 1949, a nuclear conflict
resulting in deaths far beyond anything seen before was suddenly possible.
People felt like leaves caught up in a hurricane, swept around by
the gusts of human endeavor without the slightest ability to resist. They
were bit players in a vast tragedy and they knew it. All these philosophers and their complicated
theories hadn't changed anything. Men lived, married, fought, died, just
as they always had, except now man had the ability to devastate man beyond
imagining.
So what do you do
when, at any moment, you could be playing your death scene with a mushroom
cloud backdrop? How does one liberate
oneself from a constant fear of extermination?
The answer was
to reject the abstract and to embrace the moment. Out of the carnage of the Second World War
emerged a school of thought manifestly appropriate for living under the shadow
of nuclear annihilation. The movement
was called Existentialism.
Existentialism
"Every
existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and
dies by chance." - Jean-Paul Sartre
A common mistake
that is often made when evaluating our current age of philosophy, the age of
Existentialism, is to confuse it with Realism.
Although Existentialism and Realism are very different ways of looking
at the world, these two schools of philosophy coexisted for a brief time, as is
always the case when this sort of change occurs.
The confusion
between Existentialism and Realism manifests itself most obviously with the
inclusion of Friedrich Nietzsche as a Existentialist, or as a father of
Existentialism. This is absurd. An
existentialist doesn't say "God is dead"; an existentialist doesn't care.
The true father
of Existentialism was Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, who stirred the movement
with his essays, "The Transcendence of the Ego", written in 1937, and with
"Being and Nothingness" in 1943. At
their core, both essays are assaults on abstract thought. As a movement, Existentialism was born in
1945 with a lecture by Satre to the Club Maintenant in Paris. Later, this talk
was published as "Existentialism is Humanism," a short book that can be summarized into a few
important tenets.
Man defines
himself and is not subject to predestination
Man is thus
responsible for his actions
Man is
ultimately alone
Man is thus
free, being subject to no higher authority
There is no
ideal morality
Man is thus free
to form his own morals
Basically, the
book is saying that there is no perfect, idealized reality or morality with
which man must conform. The abstract
ideals that were ought in previous philosophical ages were mirages. At first, this seems like a devastating
thought. After all, without higher ideals, what is the point of man's
existence? Sartre, however, comforts the
reader by pointing out that this in fact liberates man, since he is only
answerable to himself and thus is free.
Existentialism as Antirealism
"Evil
is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is
concrete."- Jean Paul Sartre
The Democratic
West had just endured terrible wars in which its enemies were
ideologically-driven, either by Fascism or Shintoism, and was now engaged in a
Cold War with the ideology of Communism. It isn't difficult to see why Western
thinkers would embrace a philosophy that rejected conformity to a strict
doctrine or ideology, and which instead championed personal freedom.
Certainly, the
pervasive threat of nuclear annihilation created an audience ready for a
philosophy that deemphasized the abstract and emphasized existence, or
literally living in the moment. Soon, Existentialism was adopted as the West's
de facto school of philosophy..
Philosophers turned their backs on high-minded ideals and abstractions,
and instead concentrated on tangibles. Sartre, Camus, Simone de Beauvoir,
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and other philosophers explored and defined what it
meant to be an Existentialist.
The result was
an emphasis on the concrete and a dismissal of the abstract with regard to
human existence and action. For example,
killing a person means that you are cruel.
It doesn't matter if there abstract justifications for the murder; the
action itself is what matters.
Since the
ideological-driven genocides of the early 20th century were enabled
through the philosophy of Realism, Existentialism fought back by invalidating
the Realists' argument. If you murder 6 million helpless people, you're cruel -
whatever your reasons. This example
illustrates a common theme in all new ages of philosophy. The new philosophical
schools make a lot of sense in the beginning, usually because they provide a
contrast to the excesses of the previous age.
Invariably, however, as the new philosophy evolves, grey areas emerge -
and the seeds of future excesses are sown.
Existentialism in the Late 20th Century
"I tore myself away from the safe
comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me."
- Simone de Beauvoir
There was a play
staged in 1966 called Rosencrantz &
Guildenstern Are Dead. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were the two
courtiers hired by King Claudius to spy on his usurped nephew, Hamlet, in the
Shakespearian play of that name. Rosencrantz
& Guilderstein Are Dead follows the protagonists, Guil and Rose, as
they are swept along in the events which unfold in Hamlet. The genius of the 1966 drama is that the two
protagonists, rather than being portrayed as conspirators with King Claudius,
are instead presented as bit players in a drama where they are unable to avoid
their fate and are swept along in the tide of the major characters. Guil
and Rose had a role to play, and it wasn't a happy role, but it was a role they
couldn't avoid because it was bigger than them.
Guil articulates this
existential dilemma in the following soliloquy:
Guil: "Wheels have been set in motion, and
they have their own pace, to which we are....condemned. Each move is dictated
by the previous one--that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary
(Guil means Guil and Rose by "we") it'll just be a shambles: at
least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or
even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we'd know that we
were lost"
In the 1950s,
Existential ideas began to become increasingly ingrained in the public's
psyche. Young actors such as James Dean and Marlon Brando explored existential
angst in the movies Rebel Without a Cause
(really, could there be a more existential title?) and The Wild One.
The Beat
Generation was laying the groundwork for the cultural revolution to come in the
1960s. With Allen Ginsberg's Howl, with its taboo subjects such as
drugs and homosexuality, and Ayn Rand's Atlas
Shrugged expressing the triumph of rugged individualism over social
conformity, the 1950s were alive with Existentialist thought and feeling.
The 1960s and
1970s saw the full-on adoption of Existentialist ideals by the mainstream. In
the United States, there was the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the birth of the conservative movement. This latter
phenomenon, which stood for increased personal freedom and laissez-faire economics, would rise from the
ashes of Barry Goldwater's presidential defeat in 1964 to achieve Ronald
Regan's victory in 1980.
Meanwhile, the
counterculture of the 60s and 70s ushered in the rejection of the old social
mores by standing against the restrictions of society and embracing behaviors
such as "free love" and mind-altering drug use. The 1980s welcomed the triumph
of existentialism with the ascendance of freedom as the West's defining virtue
in its struggle with the "evil empire", a phrase spoken by Ronald Reagan
himself, and the Soviet Union's ideological allies in the Eastern Block.
Finally, the
post Cold War 1990s witnessed a world where laissez-faire economics reigned
supreme. The baby-boomers, the first generation born in the Existential Age,
had matured and made the tenets of Existential philosophy the mainstream.
Existential
Angst and Freedom
Two themes that occur in Existentialism are Angst
and Freedom. Existential Angst, the
lonely side effect of the self-determined existence (i.e., there is no higher
ideal to guide you), was explored and eventually praised as the curse of the
thinking man. Angst was elevated from a
sad emotional state to a condition of the heroically aware. Freedom - ironically enough, since
Existentialism was to be a movement of no abstractions - became an ideal. Freedom was the purest characteristic of
life, and must be preserved against superstition and ideology.
At first, the veneration of freedom meant that overt
political repression (such as was seen in Fascist and Communist governments)
must be opposed; however, by the end of 20th century, this tenet had
morphed into a doctrinal view among some that any restriction of any kind upon
freedom was negative. This, of course,
was far beyond the original intent of Sartre in "Existentialism is Humanism".
But as we've seen already, all philosophies are taken too far eventually.
This overzealous interpretation was inevitable. It
should be noted, however, that before it was taken to such extremes, the
reduction of restrictions and promotion of freedom in all fields did much good
in the West. Examples include the widespread adoption of laissez-faire
economics, which removes the state from transactions between private parties;
and the civil rights movement, which essentially eradicated the justification
of segregation.
Existentialism
and Religion
Existentialism had a profound effect on religion.
Sartre was an Atheist, although he supported the idea of religion
sentimentally. Ultimately, he commented that it was hard (but not impossible)
to be an Existentialist if one wasn't an Atheist. After all, what could be more abstract then
the concept of God?
The existential rejection of the abstract and
insistence upon the self-accountability of man stood in direct opposition to
religious ideas about an omnipotent, omniscient deity who governed a deterministic
universe. Atheism today, as represented
by advocates such as Richard Dawkins, utilizes this argument, rejecting
religion as an unlikely abstraction meant to protect adherents from Existential angst.
"Faith
is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate
evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of
evidence".- Richard Dawkins
Some existentialists tried to reconcile religion by
indicating that Existential angst, a product of self-determination, could only
be soothed by a leap of faith in God.
These Christian Existentialists indicated that God could not be proven
by any intellectual means, but rather embraced from despair and loneliness by a
leap of faith.
This "Post Modern Christianity" emphasized man's
personal relationship with God while rejecting religious doctrines, ceremonies,
and traditions. Man's relationship with
God could only be understood by each individual and thus the relationship is
uniquely personal. This philosophy has
become the de facto mainstream religious view held in the West. Adherents define themselves as "spiritual"
and profess a belief in God, but do not attend weekly religious ceremonies.
They also tolerate other religions as "other paths" to God.
"I
do not deny for a moment that the truth of God has reached others through other
channels - indeed, I hope and pray that it has. So while I have a special
attachment to one mediator, I have respect for them all and have tried to give
a fair presentation of each". –John Macquarrie
Existentialism
is the Antiscience
At first blush, Existentialism would appear to be a
boon for scientific thought in that science rejects superstition and demands
empirical evidence for the verification of a hypothesis. Indeed, in the early
days, the two were in lockstep. But
Science proposes universal truths, which some existentialists object to since
Existentialism believes in the preeminence of self over outside "truths". A scientist wasn't just saying F=ma for him
or herself. Rather, a scientist was saying F=ma applies to everyone. The existentialist argument against this is
presented below by Maurice Merleau-Ponty-
"Science
manipulates things and gives up living in them. It makes its own limited
models of things; operating upon these indices or variables to effect
whatever transformations are permitted by their definition, it comes
face to face with the real world only at rare intervals. Science is and
always will be that admirably active, ingenious, and bold way of thinking whose
fundamental bias is to treat everything as though it were an
object-in-general - as though it meant nothing to us and yet was predestined
for our own use." – Maurice Merleau-Ponty (L'oeil et
l'esprit)
So here we are, and it's been a long journey, but
there is the source of the Antiscience, summarized in 1961 by Maurice
Merleau-Ponty. There above is the seed
from which all the assaults on modern science spring. Look at Maurice Merleau-Ponty's arguments
against Science:
1. Limited Models
2. "their
definition" and "fundamental bias"
3. Face
to Face with the "real world" only at rare intervals
Here's another quote that more succinctly summarizes
his philosophy:
"We
know not through our intellect but through our experience."
–Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Meleau-Ponty had presented existential
arguments that are commonly used by deniers of evolution, global warming, and
the scientific establishment itself.
These groups, however, are the fringe.
Existentialism is a mainstream philosophy. Thus, although the above is used
to discredit science directly, it also pervades society and is subtly
undermining science in the mainstream.
How many times have you heard people question the
value of fundamental research? Have you
noticed that technology must be presented at the conclusion of research to
justify it to the mainstream? What is
technology but the tangible manifestation of the abstraction of science? Science used to be about the advancement of
knowledge; however, it is now a widely held belief that advancement in knowledge
(which is abstract), without a corresponding advancement in technology (which
can be applied to the self), is a failure.
What could be a more Existentialist view of science?
How many times have you heard people take pride in
their ignorance of abstract subjects? Is
it so surprising that in an age of Existentialism when abstraction is vilified,
that knowledge or discussion of abstraction is not be considered desirable
unless it serves a concrete end (such as making money)?
These seemingly innocent sentiments illustrate the
depth to which Existentialist belief pervades our society and reveals itself as
the true manifestation of the Antiscience.
Coping
with the Antiscience
Scientists have struggled for years with how to
handle this undercurrent of Antiscience sentiment. Some scientists attribute
the deficiency to a lack of scientific and mathematical training by the general
public. Some blame religious extremists or religions in general, since these
are the most outspoken and obvious of opponents and conform with their own
Existential beliefs. Some scientists
suggest that they lack the ability to express themselves well, essentially
adopting and accepting the Existentialist argument that scientists are
"detached from the real world".
The purpose of this two-part post is to suggest the
true reason behind the Antiscience - that we
are in the beginning of the end of the Existentialist Age. In this present age,
a time when the tenets of the Existentialist Philosophy are fully adopted by
the mainstream and tending toward the extremes, the anti-scientific sentiment
will only grow. The general public's existential aversion to abstraction and
universal truths will grow, no matter what we as scientists try to do to stop
it.
Indeed, Science itself is infested with
Existential idealisms and prejudices, rotting us from within as we attempt to
come to terms without. Too many
scientists dream of being the next Einstein, a revolutionary who overturned the
scientific "establishment" rather than simply being happy doing their part to
promote discovery. Scientists often use of technological progress as scientific
justification rather than the more truthful "advancement of knowledge". Scientists accepting the blame for failing to
articulate science better to a mathematically illiterate public. The irrational overreliance of the heuristic,
Occam 's razor, and its ill advised extension to non-scientific topics. No, scientists are not immune to
Existentialism, how could we be?
Conclusion
Existentialism is a wonderful philosophy that promotes
values and lessons beneficial for those who take the time to learn it. As with all philosophies, however, it often
fails when overextended. Since at least
the time of cave wall paintings, and probably even earlier, humans have strived to
understand and explain the world around them.
A natural consequence of this ambition was the development of
abstraction. To reject this fundamental
aspect of human nature is merely to lie to ourselves. We cannot turn our back on abstraction simply
because it has caused harm in the past.
That ignores all the good that it has brought us as well. We must embrace who we are, regardless of the
perceived danger, and accept again that there is nothing shameful or naïve in
debating philosophy, or striving for knowledge without need of material
gain.
We must recognize cynicism for
what it is, the refuge of the fearful, and set aside our existential angst,
which comes not from our solitude and burden of existence, but rather from forcing
a set of beliefs upon ourselves that are contradictory to our nature. Only when we start to do these things, only
when we start to reject the tenets of existentialism in their most extreme
forms, only then can we stop the Antiscience.
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