The Death of Science

Big business and the billionaire oligarchs are now taking over science, after having already taken over the global economy, the financial system and money creation, almost all of the governments of the world, and all the major media, including, of course, the Big Tech “social media”. Welcome to the Brave New World. You will be told what to think, as well as what to do and how to live, and where you can and cannot go (“Papers please.”) – and don’t bother yourself with facts, evidence, logic or reason, critical thinking or open discussion, for they are all now verboten.

Having taken over the major media, and most of the “progressive” media due to their dependency on corporate billionaire-run foundations, along with controlling Hollywood and the culture industry in general, the advertising and PR industries, the governments, the major international organizations, including the WHO, and academia to a very high degree, due to their dependence on corporate funding, the billionaires and their corporate empire are now busily taking over the scientific journals. This is a slow motion stealth coup over science, and it is chillingly near to complete.

If science is to survive the dual onslaught of take-over by both the state and the corporate oligarchy, which are themselves now deeply fused into corporatism (and we should ask Mussolini what that means), and to survive the other challenges facing science, at least five things are necessary, urgently needed, and imperative.

Challenge One:

Firstly, we must distinguish science from dogma or belief. Theories, paradigms or world views are put forth by scientists, as well as philosophers, spiritual leaders and others. But they are not science. Science is not a set of beliefs. Science is a process of empirical investigation which tests hyposethes to form theories, but the theories are always transitory and in flux, always being replaced by better and more accurate theories. If you worship a theory and mistake that for science, then you have turned science into dogma, which means you have turned it into a quasi-religious, medieval, scholastic fundamentalism. That is secular fundamentalism. That is scientism. And that is pseudo-science.

That, however, is exactly what most people call science, and that is exactly what most scientists call science. They are not practicing science; they are high priests practicing medieval dogmatism. Real science is always open to new evidence and new theories, even welcomes them eagerly. Dogmatists shun evidence and theories they don’t like, and say they are following or defending science. They are not. They are practicing pseudo-science, or scientism: the worship of holy dogma. And that is a core pillar of our “new normal” today. Every scientist and every thinking person should shudder.

Part of the problem is group-think. Part of it is institutional inertia. Part of it is careerism. And part of the problem of dogma in science is the simple human fact that few people are willing to admit they were wrong. As Emerson said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” But little minds rule academia, and little minds rule “science”.

“Great spirits have always encountered violent resistance from mediocre minds.” – Einstein

Sometimes, the old guard simply has to die off. They will take their cherished dogmas to their graves. So be it. All things must pass.

Economics is a perfect example of pseudo-science. It is a body of dogma that is radically out of touch with reality, and clearly and indisputably at odds with reality, yet it calls itself a science, when in truth it is a quasi-religious orthodoxy run by severely delusional high priests. Ask Herman Daly, Yanis Varoufakis, Ellen Brown, David Suzuki, David C. Korten, Joseph Stiglitz, Max Keiser, Michel Chossudovsky, Paul Craig Roberts or Michael Hudson about economics and economic orthodoxy. They will tell you that it is a form of institutionalized insanity, or something in different words but with the same basic meaning. It is an ideology that is used to justify elite pillage and plunder of the people and the planet, posing in drag as science.

The entire mechanistic-materialist paradigm, for example, which is at the core of the issue, is a belief structure, a philosophy, a set of metaphysical assumptions, which were first accepted blindly as fact, and then quickly became dogma.

First off, dogma is not science. Curb your dogma. Better yet, kill it. Have your theories, beliefs, hypotheses, but put the dogma to rest.

Secondly, metaphysical assumptions, if they are made, need to made consciously, and be consciously recognized as assumptions, meaning, they are fallible, and must be tested and questioned, not presumed to be fact.

Thirdly, the mechanistic-materialist paradigm has been refuted and disproven, by numerous fields and lines of inquiry and empirical investigation, including ecology, systems theory, chaos theory, mind-brain research, epigenetics, and quantum physics. Yet, despite that fact, the great majority of scientists still cling to the old paradigm as if it were science itself. They cling to dogma. That makes them anti-empirical, and it makes them pseudo-scientists.

And in academia, the humanities and social sciences have been under attack for decades for doing fruitless things and wasting people’s time and money, or so the ignorant slurs have presumed; and in response, they have become hyper-defensive, and in their defensiveness, they have become even more dogmatic in their clinging to the pseudo-science of the outmoded mechanistic-materialist world view than the “scientists” themselves.

And of course, the business and political elite and the media all want to seem intelligent and sophisticated, so they too cling to the dying ideology and dogmatism of the same mechanistic-materialist world view.

The best scientists, philosophers and thinkers have all moved on from the mechanistic-materialist world view, to something more on the leading edge of science – including Einstein, Schrodinger, Wheeler and Bohm, Huxley, Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, Ken Wilber, Allan Wallace and Joanna Macy, to name a few – but the old guard still hangs on to its dying cosmology, even though the real science, the leading edge of science, the empirical evidence and the best scientists and thinkers, have all left it behind. And the more the paradigm shift continues, the more adamant, dogmatic, and rabidly priest-like they become. But history is against them, and so too is science itself.

Why should we care about whether the mechanistic-materialist paradigm, philosophy or world view, reigns or not? For several reasons. Firstly, because it is proven wrong. Second, because it degrades all life. Thirdly, because it leads to a hollow and callous, unfeeling nihilism, which allows people, living beings, ecosystems and the Earth to be treated as cogs in a machine, and mere things to be exploited or extracted for profit or pleasure or personal gain, turning us slowly into heartless sociopaths or narcissists. Fourth, because it underpins the latest empire of global corporate rule, which is both predatory and fascist. Fifth, because it blinds us and numbs us to the beauty, wonder, richness, meaning, and joy in life, leaving us in a global pandemic of mental illness, mass addiction, consumerism, escapism, voyeurism, and inner deadness, alternating with bouts of self-destructiveness and violence, great and small. Sixth, because it blinds us to who we really are, and to our truly vast potential. Seventh, because it facilitates and supports a cold and callous utilitarianism, behaviourism, bureaucracy and technocracy, or scientific fascism, as Huxley called it, that treats human beings as rodents in a cage, to be pushed and prodded and manipulated into whatever ways or behaviours or modes of being that serve the bureaucracy, the technocracy and the oligarchy. Eighth, the mechanistic-dualistic-materialist world view leads to a profound, multi-faceted alienation, which underlies and creates all of these problems that arise from that outmoded and frankly delusional world view. And ninth, because it is killing the planet.

That dying paradigm or world view is at the heart of our problems, but the deeper problem is the radically unscientific and anti-empirical dogmatism which sustains it. In short: We either kill the spirit of dogma, or the spirit of dogma will kill us.

And ironically, it is not the church which is now the most dogmatic, but the secular fundamentalists, including most scientists and academics, along with the economists, the technocrats and bureaucrats, the media talking heads, and the business and political elite. In any event, the dogma must die.

We have gained great knowledge about many of the details of life, but we are almost universally unable to see the forest for the trees. We need a much more satisfying and thoughtful response in terms of a big picture understanding, or frame of reference, in which to place our myriad details about nature and the cosmos. We have outgrown the shell of our old understanding, theories, paradigms, preconceptions and dogmas. We need a fresh perspective, and a much bigger container, or vision, to house and also to understand what we have learned.

Science, as I have said, is an extremely powerful tool, but as it has also been said, great power that is not accompanied by at least some degree of wisdom, is utterly self-destructive. And that is precisely the problem we find ourselves in now.

I would suggest, quite strongly and empatically, that our old paradigm, which is the 400 year old Newtonian-Cartesian, dualistic, mechanistic materialism, must die, if our species is to live. What will replace it is open for discussion, but that it must, and will, die and be replaced, is not in question. It will die, and is dying, thankfully.

A paradigm shift began in science with the birth of quantum physics, over a century ago. Sadly, however, only the best physicists, the greatest of scientists, and the best thinkers, were able to make the leap to a new mode of seeing. The best minds abandoned the old mechanistic paradigm almost immediately, or relatively soon after – including Einstein, Whitehead, Schrodinger, Wheeler and Bohm, Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, and later, Joanna Macy, Karl Pibram, Ken Wilber, Allan Wallace and Joseph Campbell. But the old guard seized control of the debate very early on, interpreted the findings of quantum physics in facile and illogical, irrational ways – the conservative Copenhagen Collapse theory being an act of pretending to answer the problem by sweeping it under the carpet – and the old paradigm was upheld once again as the gospel truth, and kept alive live as a stumbling walking corpse for another several decades. Until now. Now, the gross and utter inadequacy of the old mechanistic model is becoming undeniable, even to the scientific community, dogmatic high priests mired in group-think, though they tend to be. Now science is flourishing, or at least beginning to, at least in this area of metaphysics, which is fundamental, once again. This is the beginning, not only of a new scientific paradigm or world view, and a new scientific revolution, which will make all scientific revolutions of the past seem like a child’s tea party, but also, a new renaissance for humanity and the Earth.

Just a few short centuries ago, Copernicus challenged the old paradigm, or world view, which held that the Earth was the centre of the universe. Everyone was absolutely certain that this was a simple undeniable fact. Nobody questioned the fact that the Earth was the centre of the universe. Only madmen and devils would question that. And when Copernicus and others questioned and challenged that world view, they were met with violent resistance. People were actually killed for questioning the old paradigm, and the dominant narrative. Today we face a similar violent reaction to anything and anyone who questions or challenges the official narrative, in any way, including those who challenge the mechanistic model or world view. But the Copernican Revolution happened anyway. And the current paradigm shift, which is yet another revolution in consciousness and in science, will not be squashed or halted by screaming Dawkinites or other high priests of the dying religion which falsely calls itself science.

Dogma must die so that science can live. Let it go in peace, and not with the screaming heebie-jeebies, and the fratricidal culture wars of the new Inquisition.

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Two:

Secondly, science, in order to survive, must overcome its 400 year old fetish and infatuation with numbers and measurement. I say that this is necessary for science to survive, because if science does not overcome this giant blind spot, it will sooner or later be rejected by the people, who find it far too unsatisfactory, dismal and cold to tolerate forever. I realize fully, of course, that science is founded on empiricism, and we have narrowed our definition of empiricism, and very early on in terms of modern science, to a definition of empiricism being solely the realm of that which can be measured and quantified. This leaves science blind to the most important things in life, and absolutely smug in its blindness, as well.

I am not saying that science should cease to use measurement or mathematics. I am saying that science must acknowledge its limits, and acknowledge the obvious: that not everything that exists can be measured or quantified, and in fact, the most important things cannot.

How do you measure or quantify love, kindness, wisdom or compassion? These are the most important things in life, but they are impossible to measure or to quantify. We can experience whether love, kindness or compassion are present, especially when we experience them in ourselves, and we may be able to say whether it is strong or weak, deep or shallow, but we cannot put a number value on them. And how do you measure wisdom? Can you say that this person has a 97% wisdom rating, and this one has a 37% wisdom rating, or this one has zero, and this one 100%? Obviously we cannot measure or quantify any of these things, and these things matter far more than whether we can tell if there is water on Mars, or how long it will take to colonize Mars, which are absolutely trivial matters by comparison. Clearly, if we colonize space while we still live as powerful barbarians, we will only poison space with our mental poisons. What is most important is that we generate some degree of wisdom, and a greater compassion, before we go wandering off trying to colonize the planets and the stars. What is unmeasurable is therefore most important of all.

What that means, is that science must be humbled. Science is now filled with hubris. We have accomplished many things, and learned many things, but hubris always brings downfall and cataclysm, and we are clearly racing now towards that precipice.

It means also, that science must accept and publicly acknowledge that it cannot explain everything, and that science is not God, nor even the supreme human faculty. Science is but one useful tool among many tools that we humans have. We should certainly not discard it, but we do need to dethrone it. What this means, also, is that science must acknowledge, and be acknowledged by the people, as secondary and subservient to philosophy. (Or you can say spirituality if you prefer, but let us not frighten the materialists too much, and simply call it philosophy for the moment, which in essence it is.) It is philosophy, in the broad sense of human beings reflecting on what matters, which best guides our actions. Science cannot tell us that. Science can offer tools and knowledge and methodologies or technologies which can aid us in what we choose to do, but it cannot tell us what is worth doing. That is the domain of philosophy, broadly speaking. And that humbling of science must come quickly, because on the one hand, the technocratic mindset which has arisen out of a hubris of science, as well as a power-lust and egomania on the part of the elite, is leading us rapidly into what can only be accurately described as global fascism; and because science out of balance, which is technocracy and extractive utilitarianism, or simply, extractive, predatory greed, is destroying the living systems of the planet we live on. Either science’s smugness dies, or we all die.

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Three:

Thirdly, and closely related, we must cease to play masters of the universe. Science and technology are powerful tools, but if we imagine that we can dominate and attempt to control nature, nature will bite us on the ass, and gve us a ferocious lesson in hubris and humility. We need to blend and balance our great power, and a rightful confidence and dignity, with a sizeable dose of humilty. I know that for many people this will fall on deaf ears, but the signs of our failed attempts to dominate and control nature are everywhere, and are increasingly visible and undeniable – and we have only seen the beginning. Trying to dominate and control humanity through coercion and manipulation will likewise be guaranteed to fail. Watch for it. This latest empire of global corporate neo-feudalism is dying slowly. It is a wounded and dangerous predator, but it too, like all empires before, will fall. And aggressive and increasingly desperate attempts to maintain control, through increasingly authoritarian measures, will only hasten the collapse.

One of the key lessons which we in the late-industrial, techno-entranced modern world must re-learn, especially in the West, is that we are indeed mortal, and death is a reality, not a fiction or a vicious rumour, or a temporary bump in the road to be soon vanquished and overcome. Of course people will shout that they know that death is real, but everything in our culture screams a denial of death. We pretend that it won’t happen to us or our loved ones; or we imagine that we will conquer death, but when you make war on death, you make war on life, and death wins in the end in any case. We should, of course, seek to heal the sick and comfort the dying, feed the hungry and shelter the homeless; but sooner or later we need to face the facts: we are not going to escape death, and trying to do so makes us crazy, if not ghoulish and genocidal, as the ruling billionaire elite seem to have become.

We should learn ftom Mexico, and celebrate the Day of the Dead. We need to remind ourselves, at least once a year, that death is real, and inescapable. Then, we can truly live, and not before, because only then we can cease to live in fear.

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Four:

Fourth, and also related, we must distinguish science, which deals with empirically supported theories, which we loosely and often dangerously call facts, or they deal with probabilities, more often and more typically, from the formation of government policy, or public policy. Science cannot in itself make value judgements. Science can tell us how to make nuclear weapons, but not whether it is wise to use them. Science can tell us how to make glyphosate, neonicitinides or thalidomide, agent orange or DDT, but it is we who must decide whether to use them or to ban them. Epidemiologists can tell us what they believe – and believe is the key word here – what they believe the probabilities are with regards to a given virus; but they have no special knowledge of public policy, or what makes for good or bad government, and they cannot tell us what government or social policies are best. Science and scientists therefore make valuable advisors to government and human society. But if we anoint them as ruling technocrats, we are back to medieval times, and we have enthroned a high priestly class. Science, therefore, must accept a prestigious advisory role to government and human society, along side philosophy – to which it is a subservient lieutenant, not a general, a god, or a king.

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Five:

Fifth, and equally important, and possibly most essential, if science is to survive we must separate science and the state, just as we separated church and state, and we must separate science from corporate influence or control. If we fail in either, science is dead.

People might say this is impossible to ask, but we have overcome greater challenges in the past. We have split the atom and travelled to the moon – surely we can accomplish the comparatively modest task of finding ways to preserve the independence of science.

If we are serious about human well-being, then we must fully fund environmental protection and remediation, and a shift to a truly sustainable, clean and green society, along with health care, affordable housing, pensions and education, including higher education, and we must also fund public media, the arts, the humanities and the sciences. (Taxing the biggest profitable corporations and the richest 1% of individuals at 90%, would fund all these things, bear in mind, especially if we ended all corporate subsidies and bail-outs and slashed the military budget.) That would eliminate the often corrupting influence of relying on billionaires, corporations and billionaire-controlled foundations. The remaining challenge would be in separating the state, which would then again be funding science in the main, from the choices and decisions as to what studies and research are funded, how the studies are done, and which studies get published or promoted. That would require in essence a lump sum of annual funding for colleges, universities and research centres, and for individual researchers and research groups, with, most critically, a third party grassroots organization, preferably decentralized so as to avoid and prevent corruption or co-option, which would monitor the separation between state funding and actual scientific research. If we had a network of a thousand such grassroots watchdog groups globally, staffed by scientists, scholars and interested lay persons, and each one focused on a geographic area, but where each one also kept an eye on what was happening globally, the chances of a very real and effective separation of powers between science and the state could be accomplished. That, above all other actions, would give science the best chance to survive, and to flourish and thrive.

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These are great challenges, but if we are clear-minded, they will be resolved, and science will flourish. That is not our current direction, however. We are entering a dark age where the global corporate-state oligarchy decides what is fact and what is not, what is truth and what is not, and what is science and what is not.

Would scientists like the Pope to decide what counts as real science, or a college of bishops and cardinals to decide on what is science? I think not. And we should be equally adamant that neither the state, nor the billionaires and their empires, can be permitted to decide what is or is not science, or scientific fact.

Technology alone will certainly not save us, although, as with science, if we misuse either science or technology, as we are currently doing now, and as we have done for a very long time, they can and will blind us, enslave us, and ultimately destroy us.

We need the minds of people like Shakespeare, Dickens and Blake, Emerson and Thoreau, Spinoza and Hume, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Thomas Kuhn, Joanna Macy, David Suzuki, Morris Berman, Vandana Shiva, Murray Bookchin and Rianne Eisler, to remind us of deeper things and a broader vision. We cannot be so heavily one-sided and myopic in our hyper-masculinized and paradoxically emasculated left-brain analytical obsessions, or we will degrade ourselves and all life to the point of annihilation – and we are now very close to that edge.

But again, it is not just a question of left brain versus right brain modes of perception, or analysis versus synthesis, or reductionism versus systems analysis or holism: it is above all a matter of dropping our dogmatism, so that we can explore and experience and see life more fully and more clearly. And dogmatism, disociation and denial go hand in hand. Along with group-think, these are the four horsemen of the apocalypse – of our proclivity towards self-blinding, which always leads to self-destruction. And we cannot forget authority worship, which makes five.

Despite the growing chorus of gloom and doom, we still are not dealing with reality in any sensible way, but are lost in a fog of collective dissociation from reality. The denial is as thick as black oily smog, and fills the air everywhere – especially in the media, and the board rooms and governments of the world, where blindness seems almost to be felt to be a kind of ultimate virtue. And if you gouge out your eyes, you too can join those elite ranks.

I think of the title of the record album by Supertramp, which sits in my office as a constant reminder or our global state: Crisis? What Crisis?

(On the opposite wall sits the cover of Bob Marley’s Uprising, which also reminds me daily of what is necessary and urgently needed – though I scarcely need reminding; and nor should any other thinking person today.)

We need to cut through the fog, and the mental smog, so that we can see what stares us in the face. And we need to stop papering over our very real and extremely serious problems and crises with what are in essence, not only piece-meal and grossly inadequate responses, and solutions which are non-solutions, but solutions which are in fact responses that are embedded in exactly the same kind of dualistic, mechanistic thinking, and the same command and control, domination and submission, empire-based modes of utterly failed and crumbling systems of thought, behaviour and social models. The Titanic sinks, while we play children’s games on the upper decks, and pontificate loudly about how magnanimous and visionary we are in our messianic and literally fascist machinations, which we tell ourselves will save humanity and the Earth, but which are only guaranteed first to enslave us, and then to destroy us all, slowly but surely. We did not survive the last ice age, or the myriad other great challenges of our past, with dismal non-thinking and blind habits such as this. We can and must do better. We must clear the mental fog, and now.

Science and technology are valuable, if wisely used, but that is not at all our present norm. Analytical thinking, left-brain thinking and modes of seeing, and also reductionism, not as a world view, but as a set of investigative methodologies embedded within a broader set, are valuable, highly powerful, useful tools. But if they are unhinged and untethered from our broader and deeper human capacities, then we ourselves become unhinged, and they become a kind of prison, a form of tunnel vision, and ultimately, self-destruction. We need right-brain, whole systems and gestalt thinking and perceiving, a more holistic, integrative, and interconnected way of thinking and perceiving; and we also need imagination, creativity, adaptability, inspiration, empathy, compassion, and vision, to go along with and compliment, and ground, our more analytical and piecemeal modes of thought. If we fail to reconnect with that broader and deeper expanse of our being and humanity, then yes, we will simply die – not quickly, but slowly, and surely.

Humanity is now facing a constellation of deeply intertwined crises, which are together driving us rapidly towards a systems failure, and the collapse of our modern civilization. And I can assure you, the roots of the crisis go far deeper than our short-sighted and deeply unwise addiction to fossil fuels, or what faces sit in the governments of the world as the figure heads for the global corporate empire. The roots of our crises are in a four-fold alienation: we are alienated from one another, from nature, from our own labour and creative powers, and from our deeper selves. That alienation in turn is rooted in and caused by many things, including our mass digital addiction, the culture of chronic and perpetual distraction and escapism, voyeurism and consumerism, an economic and political power structure – and cultural/media power structure – which is deeply and profoundly alienating, as well as parasitic, exploitative, extractive and blinding, manipulative and divisive. But it is rooted most fundamentally, at its base, in an out-moded and dying paradigm or world view of mechanistic, dualistic materialism, which strips away all meaning and connectedness, and most of the joy of life, along with our ability to see things clearly, or to deal realistically with our own reality. The five challenges I have outlined here must be overcome, and they will be overcome. And if we are wise, or even simply intelligent, we will overcome them before they bring about the collapse of our so-called “civilization”.

Let the renaissance begin.

JTR,
January 21, 2021