THE triumph of science explains, more than any other single factor, the west's enormous lead over other civilisations in technology, innovation, living standards and military might. Yet since the 1920s, and more particularly since 1970, western misgivings about science have greatly increased. Attacks have come from left and right, from intellectuals and anti-intellectuals, from the media and angry protesters, from Bible-bashers and New Age gurus. Westerners appear to have lost faith in reason and science. Why has science for the past 600 years been virtually a western monopoly, and what explains its decline in standing today?
The answer to both questions is the same. Some time between the 13th and 15th centuries, Europe pulled well ahead of the rest of the world in science and technology, a lead consolidated in the following 200 years. Then in 1687, Isaac Newton - foreshadowed by Copernicus, Kepler and others - had his glorious insight that the universe is governed by a few physical, mechanical and mathematical laws. This instilled tremendous confidence that everything made sense, everything fitted together, and everything could be improved by science.
This was crucial. In medieval and early modern Europe, when science made its greatest strides, scholars believed that the secrets of the universe could be unravelled because they had been implanted by a reliable and all-powerful creator-God who had written nature's rules in a dependable way. In other words, the full emergence of science required belief in one all-powerful God, whose perfect creation awaited rational, scientific explanation. This condition was peculiar to Christianity. In other religions there is no consistently rational creator; the universe is inexplicable, unpredictable. Still, it took Christians more than a thousand years to invent modern science, the development of which was uniquely encouraged by Europe's economic expansion after 1000, driven by a network of free city states.
By 1900, the status of science had never been higher, but over the course of the 20th century it faced two huge challenges. One was internal to science, as the Newtonian universe broke down and advances in physics revealed a baffling and inscrutable universe, ruled by mystery, uncertainty and chance. Up to 1900, science had made the world easier to understand; thereafter it made it more difficult.
The other challenge was external: a much more critical view of science adopted by the rest of society. Science revealed a darker side. Suspicions arose that it was dehumanising and the tool of dictators. Then came the atom bomb. Since the 1960s, evidence has begun to pile up that science's triumphs are poisoning the planet.
The result is a widespread western, and especially American, descent into superstition. About 40 per cent of Americans believe that Genesis accurately describes the creation. There is an apparent belief in magic that has had no parallel since the Middle Ages. The growing anti-intellectualism has no western precedent at all. We are witnessing the elevation of emotion over reason, of personal conviction over hard thinking.
Does this loss of faith in science matter? Science seems impervious to attack. To a greater degree than ever, the world is being shaped by it. Scientific advance is unstoppable, constant and cumulative. There is no "alternative" science, no Buddhist science, no New Age science, no relativist science, no fundamentalist science. The funds for science keep coming, as does a ready supply of highly educated scientists.
”There is an apparent belief in magic that has had no parallel since the Middle Ages
But pause. Reflect on the inspirations for modern science: belief in God and belief in humanity, a rational world view, and optimism about humanity's place in the cosmos. Science, it seems, has disposed of much of what made it successful. It has eaten away at its thought-foundations: its contribution to human meaning, the human spirit and the non-material richness of civilisation has shrivelled.
Let's be clear: science will continue, driven by the search for profit and by humanity's ineradicable intellectual curiosity. There is little justification to abandon our trust in rationality and in science, for the best forms of civilisation depend utterly on them. But in losing the idea that science helps us all make sense of the world, the west has forfeited one of its main sources of optimism, success and commitment to a humane society.
Will science continue to lose its shine. Not necessarily. The notion that science deprives life of meaning is, after all, erroneous. Neither can science disprove the existence of God. What we may call the "lonely hypothesis" - that there is no rational and good God, and probably no God at all, that humankind is a speck of insignificance on the edge of a vast, pointless universe - has its own splendour, inspiration and self-justification. If nothing else will supply meaning in the universe, the existence and achievements of human intellect, creativity and love are quite enough.
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