• Science
  • 29 de January de 2025
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  • 10 minutes read

How States Murder Science

How States Murder Science

How States Murder Science

Newton’s own copy of Principia with Newton’s hand-written corrections for the second edition, now housed in the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge. / Wikimedia

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David Rabadà

 

Weapons, power, and religion have been integral to hierarchical societies for millennia. The notion of “God save the homeland” may date back over 4,000 years. For instance, the dolmens and burial mounds of the Bronze Age had a clear funerary purpose linked to social hierarchies. In contrast, menhirs remain a subject of debate, with no widely accepted interpretation. During a 2003 visit to the Toraja settlements in Sulawesi, Indonesia, I developed a hypothesis inspired by their funerary practices, which share similarities with those of the late Neolithic and early Bronze Ages. Among the Toraja, local leaders host elaborate funeral banquets to display their prestige. These events involve cave burials and the erection of menhirs in honour of the deceased leaders, with the monolith representing the spirit of the departed—perhaps similar to prehistoric European cultures. Interestingly, the tradition of menhirs also spread to South Asia. Even the spiral, a prominent symbol in prehistoric megalithic cultures, appears among the Toraja as a representation of reciprocity within the clan. It is worth noting that the steppe populations that migrated to Western Europe also extended their influence as far as India. The development of military empires and religious biases disrupted the reciprocity characteristic of Palaeolithic societies, effectively reversing human evolutionary progress.

From the prehistoric conflicts of 4,500 years ago to today’s large-scale wars, the history of humanity has been marked by hierarchical power struggles. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century further intensified this dynamic. On one hand, technological advancements during this period boosted global food production and improved hygiene, healthcare, and overall living standards. On the other hand, these innovations led to reduced mortality, increased birth rates, and longer lifespans. Remarkably, for the first time in history, humanity transitioned from 300,000 years of steady demographic growth in Homo sapiens to exponential population expansion in less than three centuries. While global populations remained in the tens of millions throughout those millennia, today they have surged into the billions. This explosive growth, this plague upon the planet, has intensified competition for resources, borders, and state dominance. In many ways, humanity’s current state continues the military aggression initiated by our ancestors over 4,500 years ago. Alarmist propaganda promoting national security perpetuates conflicts, driven by a hierarchical predisposition that leads people to follow their leaders into acts of aggression. The only solution lies in recognising and overcoming our biases, grounding ourselves in a science that serves no ideological interests. Without this, humanity will continue its path of regression.

When examining six million years of human evolution, it becomes clear that prejudices and ideological agendas have often outweighed science, which should rely on data and logic. Some influential palaeontologists preach that everything is open to interpretation and opinion, aiming to secure funding from politicians. If society at large were like this, even more nonsense would be proclaimed, new Hitlers would be elected, and works of art supposedly contrary to one’s beliefs would be burned. Or is that already happening? The truth is that it would be far better to express opinions objectively, based on real data, rather than on prejudices, beliefs, or vested interests. When opinions are grounded in reality, it becomes possible to reach objective agreements with others. However, when opinions are shaped by beliefs, agreement is only possible with those who share your religion or ideology.

Science, through facts, seeks to approximate the truth, whereas ideologies, through faith, claim to possess it. Paradoxically, both science and ideologies profess to pursue the same goal: knowledge. How, then, can they be at odds? The answer lies in their fundamentally different methods.

Science contrasts facts, whereas prejudices and ideological interests impose faith. It is in the latter case, under the influence of ideologies, that many leaders, often lacking scientific knowledge, make decisions based on the advice of pompous charlatans. This fosters the belief that anyone can have an opinion without expertise, thereby devaluing or manipulating science. Perhaps Les Luthiers were right when they said, “Absolute truth does not exist, although this is absolutely true”.

Albert Einstein once wrote that “science is an attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sensory experiences correspond to a logically uniform system of thought”. However, he never claimed that science possessed the truth, only that it sought to approximate it. In human evolution, the goal is much the same: to construct a logical model as close as possible to the reality of past events. Yet, interests and prejudices often obscure this attempt. As a result, science frequently chases phantoms to satisfy ideological biases and vested interests. Dubious examples of palaeontological species illustrate this tendency.

However, the scientific method should not be guided by religious dogma, ideologies, interests, or the majority’s voice, but rather by experts whose training, experience, and knowledge enable them to determine the best and humblest choice among the myriad possibilities. As Galileo aptly stated, “In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual”. For instance, a cancer diagnosis is not determined by a vote among all the town’s inhabitants but by the attentive expertise of a medical specialist. If we were to democratise science, we would never have developed touchscreen phones using quantum physics, GPS technology based on relativity, or volcanic eruption predictions informed by plate tectonics.

Scientific theories enhance our universe by providing comfort, security, and human progress—something ideological manipulations do not achieve. On the contrary, they divide us, fuelled by mythical imaginings, religious fictions, or political interests. The conflicts in Palestine, Ukraine, and Yemen serve as stark examples. Science is not built on empty opinions but on substantive reasoning. As psychiatrist Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran remarked, “Almost all scientists are bricklayers who place bricks, not architects; they are content to add another stone to the cathedral”. The problem arises when someone places a false brick, be it an ideology or an ambiguous palaeontological species, which distorts reality and renders it incomprehensible rather than clear. It is then that pseudo-science constructs castles in the air, shaped by prejudices’ self-serving use. This lack of control is disastrous for human progress, as it hinders research and propels us backwards. Science should act as a sieve to distinguish truth from falsehood, much as ethics seeks to separate good from evil. Unfortunately, when an ideology commandeers science and bends it to its will, science devolves into madness.

We have experienced such intellectual deceptions with evolutionary trees, scientific egotism, social Darwinism, Soviet Lysenkoism, the esoteric teachings of anthroposophy, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology, intelligent design creationists, and, finally, certain Islamic websites denying evolution. These groups all share a common refrain: “Believe in me; everyone else is a siren trying to mislead you”. Moreover, these ideological prejudices and interests often exploit the unknown gaps in science, pointing to its voids as evidence. Newton, whether or not he plagiarised, stated, “What we know is like a drop of water; what we do not know is like an ocean”. Yet he did not cease to investigate and fill those gaps. It is for this reason that, in the late 19th century, Huxley declared before the Church: “I trust that, at the end of times, true science will relieve humanity of the burden of false science imposed by religion”.

All of this demonstrates that ideological prejudices and interests are ultimately not very intelligent, as they base their assumptions on what could be called the “Swiss cheese of science”—its holes. It is essential that we not allow ourselves to be fooled. Science should objectively approach reality, whereas ideological prejudices subjectively impose how they believe reality ought to be. Galileo observed that “The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not how the heavens go”. Much earlier, the Greeks had already challenged dogma in their debates with the druids. This is why Odysseus sought the truth, not the fatal songs of mythical beings. He was a product of the shift that occurred in the 7th century BC when the Greeks qualitatively transformed the human reasoning model, abandoning beliefs and myths to observe reality through logic—a transition known as the shift from mythos to logos. This step towards knowledge and science sought to prevent interpretations imposed by dogma. Thus, Odysseus tied himself to the mast of his ship to avoid being seduced by the songs of belief.

As we can see, Greek mythology conceals far more metaphors than one might initially suspect. The Greek thinkers recognised that ideological prejudices and interests were an authoritarian obstacle to the genuine development of knowledge. In a way, Socrates died for this belief, just as Bruno was condemned by the Inquisition in 1600. As he faced the flames, Bruno said, “You may be more afraid to deliver this sentence than I am to accept it”. By the early 17th century, the Scientific Revolution had already begun using logic and mathematics to describe reality objectively. The 18th century brought the Enlightenment, during which all prior knowledge was to be shared with the majority of humanity.

By the 20th century, Gould remarked, “Conflicts arise not because science and religion are intrinsically at odds, but because one domain seeks to usurp the space of the other”. Gould, who passed away in May 2002, left behind many maxims to help us avoid succumbing to our ideological prejudices and interests.


Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons

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