Chapter 16 

    The Primary Ramification: What Evolutionary Sociology Entails

    Part A

               

           This final chapter gives the more detailed explanation and interpretation of the pieces that have been assembled so far, and adds some other, better known pieces whose significance in this discussion will now be explained as we go. My promise was that at the end of this argument, or, more accurately, collection of arguments, we would be able to assemble a strong case for theism, i.e. belief in God. We're almost there. We shall begin this last chapter by revisiting a vexing problem in Philosophy mentioned in an earlier chapter, a problem that is three hundred years old. The answer to this vexing problem drives home our first main point on the final stretch of the road to the theistic conclusion.  

               

 photo representing popular image of scientists

       Many scientists claim that their branch of human knowledge, unlike all of the ones that came before the rise of Science, does not have any basic assumptions at its foundation and that it is instead built from the ground up on merely observing reality, hypothesizing, doing research, and then doing more hypothesizing, research, etc. Science, under this view, has no need of unprovable foundational assumptions in the way that, say, Philosophy or Theology do. Science is founded only on hard fact, they claim. But in this claim, as has been pointed out by several philosophers, notably Nicholas Maxwell, those scientists are wrong. (1.)

               

           Over the last four hundred years or so, the scientific way of thinking, Bacon’s “new instrument” (Novum Organum) has made possible the amazing progress in human knowledge and technology that today we almost automatically associate with Science. But in the meantime, its basic method, at least for philosophers, has come in for some deep analysis and criticism.

               

 cover of early copy of "Novum Organum" 

      The heart of the matter, then, is the inductive method that is normally attributed to Science. The way in which scientists can come upon a phenomenon that they cannot explain using any of the models that they currently have, then devise a new theory that tries to explain the phenomenon, then test the theory by doing experiments in the material world, then keep going back and forth from theory to experiment, adjusting and refining – this is the way of gaining knowledge that is called the "scientific method". It has led us to so many powerful new insights and technologies. It really was an amazing breakthrough when Francis Bacon – whether we credit him with originating it or merely expressing what many were already thinking – saw and explained what he called his “new instrument”. We owe him more than more than all could pay.

           But as David Hume famously proved, the logic that this method is built on is flawed. Any natural law that we try to state as a way of describing our observations of reality is a gamble, one that seems to summarize large areas of our past experiences, but a gamble nonetheless. A natural law is a (gambling) scientist's way of asserting what he thinks is very likely to happen in specific future circumstances. But every natural law that we may propose is taking for granted a deep first assumption about the real world. That assumption is that events in the future will keep steadily following the patterns that we have been able to spot in the flows of events in the past. Our problem is that we haven't been to the future. We simply can't ever know whether this assumption is true.

           If Science, with its rigorous logic, nevertheless, is still open to making mistakes, can any important ones be cited? Many, actually. A shocking example for scientists themselves was the "mistake" in Newtonian physics. Newton's models of how gravity and acceleration worked were excellent, but they weren't telling the whole story of what is going on in the real world. After two centuries of taking Newton's models and equations as gospel, physicists were stunned by the experiment done by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley in 1887. It essentially showed that Newton's laws were not adequate to explain what was really going on. Einstein's thinking on this experiment is what led him to the Theory of Relativity. But Michelson and Morley's showing that Newton (and Science) were not infallible began the process.   

               

           From the personal standpoint, I have always believed, I still believe, and I am confident that I always will believe, that the universe is consistent, that it runs by laws which - even though we don't understand all of them very well yet - will be the same in 2525 as they are now. I believe that this universe is one system, run by one set of natural laws, forever and ever amen. Relativity theory described how the stars moved in the year 100,000,000 B.C. exactly as accurately as it describes the stars’ movements now. In that era, living things reproduced and changed by the process that we call "evolution" just as reliably as living things do now. I believe that, for living things, genetic variation and natural selection also are constants.

     But I can’t prove beyond any doubt that the universe runs by one consistent set of laws; I can only choose to take a Bayesian kind of gamble and decide to gamble on the foundational belief that the universe runs according to natural laws and that the laws are eternal; I prefer this belief as a starting point over any alternative beliefs that see the universe as being run under laws that are always changing in unpredictable ways. That seems a smart preference to me. There are elements of unpredictability to reality, but they can be understood via statistical models. A Bayesian view of that unpredictability enables me to see the events of the universe not as random and chaotic, but as stochastic, coherent, and open for manipulation. 

    Even in sub-atomic, quantum uncertainty, there are patterns in real events, patterns which can be described not by laws of one-to-one cause and effect, but by laws of probability, laws that I can come to understand and then use to guide my actions when I want to intervene in the flows of events around me and alter them so as to improve the odds that they will flow in directions that favor the greater well being of me, my family, and my species. 

Therefore, the kind of scientific worldview that I choose is not a deterministic one. Quantum theory, the earlier Newtonian mechanics, offers a scientific worldview that contains room for human free will and effective human actions. I choose to believe in this conceptual system because under it, more freely chosen acts – among them the activities of Science itself – are rational things to do. In a deterministic view of the universe, trying to act rationally and responsibly is a silly waste of time.    

  Under the older foundational belief, namely superstition, pursuing knowledge in the way called "Science" would make even less sense than it does under determinism. Logically speaking, if I adhere to an anti-scientific view, I should prefer drugged or “mystical” states as being better routes by which to exert whatever influence I could over my own consciousness and over the entities in the universe and the forces driving them. In a belief system that begins from a superstitious picture of the universe, Science again has to be judged to be a pointless waste of time. Under such a worldview, that time could be better spent communing with, and propitiating, the surly, volatile, incomprehensible gods who run this place.

    But we have found at least some of the laws of the universe and stated them in practical ways, ways that guide us to act more effectively in the world and thus to improve our lives. Furthermore, we have plenty of evidence to show that tribes in the past, who spent their energies in propitiating the gods and not in pursuing real-world knowledge, lived miserable lives. Therefore, I choose to gamble on Science and the scientific view of the world, because, when I weigh my options and consider their past performances, it looks like the best one.

   There is even evidence which tells us that the superstitious tribes of the past knew of the inductive method and gained knowledge by it. (2.) (3.) (4.) They turned to their gods when they couldn’t figure out how some natural process worked. But one of the big effects of Science has been to gradually dispel more and more superstitions as better insights into the workings of physical reality are acquired. In fact, most people today, at least in the West, concede almost automatically that superstitions do need to be dispelled. Plagues aren’t caused by evil spirits, and they don’t go away if we burn a dead pig. But if we control the rats, we can control the plague. Livestock carefully and selectively bred keep giving more milk or wool or meat for generations.  

   My model of cultural evolution further showed me why it is that some superstitious beliefs hang on for generations before they are dispelled. But in the end, as old thinkers are replaced by more enlightened ones, the method of human learning, whether it is individual or tribal, is an inductive one. We get ideas about the material world and we test them. With giant ones like worldviews or moral systems, we sometimes test them over generations and what we learn is absorbed by the whole tribe over generations, rather than cognized by any one individual. But our knowledge keeps growing, as it must if we are to survive. We are the only concept-driven species that we have, at least so far, encountered. The knowledge/culture-building way of surviving is the human way. Our other assets (speed, strength, camouflage) are trivial by comparison. We live by learning or we die.



Nicholas Maxwell, modern philosopher 

               

   It is also worth mentioning here that as we think about how Science and its methods work, we realize, as Nicholas Maxwell has stressed many times, that it contains one more implicit assumption. This second implicit assumption is that human minds can figure out the laws of this difficult and confusing - but not impossible or chaotic - place. But all the evidence of the history of Science, and of humanity more generally, suggests that we can figure those laws out. We're pretty smart. Therefore, I choose to gamble again, this time on the power of human minds, sometimes alone, sometimes in cooperation with other human minds, to see through the layers of irrelevant, trivial events and to spot the patterns that underlie their larger movements. Then we can gradually arrive at models and natural law statements that really do explain the world and so we can gradually come to master the knowledge that empowers us to design – and engage in – focused, strategic actions, to get survival-helping results.

               

    Again, the majority of the citizens of the West see this choice-gamble as the only rational one to take. The alternative to believing in the power of human minds, individually or in cooperating groups, to figure out the laws that underlie reality is to abandon reason in favor of beliefs founded on something other than observable, replicable, material facts. Also once again, we have the evidence of centuries of human history to look back on. All of the evidence that we have about what life was like for the superstitious, cowed tribes of the past suggests that their lives were – as Hobbes puts it – extremely nasty, brutish, and short. People who were willing to think, analyze, experiment, and learn made this society that we enjoy; even the vast majority cynics who claim to despise modernity won’t go two days without a shower.  

     Notes 

    1.Maxwell, Nicholas; "Is Science Neurotic?"; World Scientific Publishing; 2004 

2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_early_cultures

3.http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~mmagouli/defmyth.htm#Functionalism

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnee_mythology