Paul Feyerabend (1975)
Against Method Outline of an anarchistic
theory of knowledge
Science is an essentially anarchistic
enterprise:
theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian
and more likely to encourage progress
than
its law-and-order alternatives. This
is shown
both by an examination of historical
episodes
and by an abstract analysis of the
relation
between idea and action. The only principle
that does not inhibit progress is:
anything
goes. For example, we may use hypotheses
that contradict well-confirmed theories
and/or
well-established experimental results.
We
may advance science by proceeding counter-inductively.
The consistency condition which demands
that
new hypotheses agree with accepted
theories
is unreasonable because it preserves
the
older theory, and not the better theory.
Hypotheses contradicting well-confirmed
theories
give us evidence that cannot be obtained
in any other way. Proliferation of
theories
is beneficial for science, while uniformity
impairs its critical power. Uniformity
also
endangers the free development of the
individual.
There is no idea, however ancient and
absurd,
that is not capable of improving our
knowledge.
The whole history of thought is absorbed
into science and is used for improving
every
single theory. Nor is political interference
rejected. It may be needed to overcome
the
chauvinism of science that resists
alternatives
to the status quo. No theory ever agrees
with all the facts in its domain, yet
it
is not always the theory that is to
blame.
Facts are constituted by older ideologies,
and a clash between facts and theories
may
be proof of progress. It is also a
first
step in our attempts to find the principles
implicit in familiar observational
notions.
As an example of such an attempt I
examine
the tower argument which the Aristotelians
used to refute the motion of the earth.
The
argument involves natural interpretations
- ideas so closely connected with observations
that it needs a special effort to realise
their existence and to determine their
content.
Galileo identifies the natural interpretations
which are inconsistent with Copernicus
and
replaces them by others. The new natural
interpretations constitute a new and
highly
abstract observation language. They
are introduced
and concealed so that one falls to
notice
the change that has taken place (method
of
anamnesis). They contain the idea of
the
relativity of all motion and the law
of circular
inertia. Initial difficulties caused
by the
change are defused by ad hoc hypotheses,
which thus turn out occasionally to
have
a positive function; they give new
theories
a breathing space, and they indicate
the
direction of future research. In addition
to natural interpretations, Galileo
also
changes sensations that seem to endanger
Copernicus. He admits that there are
such
sensations, he praises Copernicus for
having
disregarded them, he claims to have
removed
them with the help of the telescope.
However,
he offers no theoretical reasons why
the
telescope should be expected to give
a true
picture of the sky. Nor does the initial
experience with the telescope provide
such
reasons. The first telescopic observations
of the sky are indistinct, indeterminate,
contradictory and in conflict with
what everyone
can see with his unaided eyes. And,
the only
theory that could have helped to separate
telescopic illusions from veridical
phenomena
was refuted by simple tests. On the
other
hand, there are some telescopic phenomena
which are plainly Copernican. Galileo
introduces
these phenomena as independent evidence
for
Copernicus while the situation is rather
that one refuted view - Copernicanism
- has
a certain similarity with phenomena
emerging
from another refuted view - the idea
that
telescopic phenomena are faithful images
of the sky. Galileo prevails because
of his
style and his clever techniques of
persuasion,
because he writes in Italian rather
than
in Latin, and because he appeals to
people
who are temperamentally opposed to
the old
ideas and the standards of learning
connected
with them. Such 'irrational' methods
of support
are needed because of the 'uneven development'
(Marx, Lenin) of different parts of
science.
Copernicanism and other essential ingredients
of modern science survived only because
reason
was frequently overruled in their past.
Galileo's
method works in other fields as well.
For
example, it can be used to eliminate
the
existing arguments against materialism,
and
to put an end to the philosophical
mind/body
problem (the corresponding scientific
problems
remain untouched, however). The results
obtained
so far suggest abolishing the distinction
between a context of discovery and
a context
of justification and disregarding the
related
distinction between observational terms
and
theoretical terms. Neither distinction
plays
a role in scientific practice. Attempts
to
enforce them would have disastrous
consequences.
Finally, the discussion in Chapters
6-13
shows that Popper's version of Mill's
pluralism
is not in agreement with scientific
practice
and would destroy science as we know
it.
Given science, reason cannot be universal
and unreason cannot be excluded. This
feature
of science calls for an anarchistic
epistemology.
The realisation that science is not
sacrosanct,
and that the debate between science
and myth
has ceased without having been won
by either
side, further strengthens the case
for anarchism.
Even the ingenious attempt of Lakatos
to
construct a methodology that (a) does
not
issue orders and yet (b) puts restrictions
upon our knowledge-increasing activities,
does not escape this conclusion. For
Lakatos'
philosophy appears liberal only because
it
is an anarchism in disguise. And his
standards
which are abstracted from modern science
cannot be regarded as neutral arbiters
in
the issue between modern science and
Aristotelian
science, myth, magic, religion, etc.
Moreover,
these standards, which involve a comparison
of content classes, are not always
applicable.
The content classes of certain theories
are
incomparable in the sense that none
of the
usual logical relations (inclusion,
exclusion,
overlap) can be said to hold between
them.
This occurs when we compare myths with
science.
It also occurs in the most advanced,
most
general and therefore most mythological
parts
of science itself. Thus science is
much closer
to myth than a scientific philosophy
is prepared
to admit. It is one of the many forms
of
thought that have been developed by
man,
and not necessarily the best. It is
conspicuous,
noisy, and impudent, but it is inherently
superior only for those who have already
decided in favour of a certain ideology,
or who have accepted it without having
ever
examined its advantages and its limits.
And
as the accepting and rejecting of ideologies
should be left to the individual it
follows
that the separation of state and church
must
be supplemented by the separation of
state
and science, that most recent, most
aggressive,
and most dogmatic religious institution.
Such a separation may be our only chance
to achieve a humanity we are capable
of,
but have never fully realised.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The idea that science can, and should,
be
run according to fixed and universal
rules,
is both unrealistic and pernicious.
It is
unrealistic, for it takes too simple
a view
of the talents of man and of the circumstances
which encourage, or cause, their development.
And it is pernicious, for the attempt
to
enforce the rules is bound to increase
our
professional qualifications at the
expense
of our humanity. In addition, the idea
is
detrimental to science, for it neglects
the
complex physical and historical conditions
which influence scientific change.
It makes
our science less adaptable and more
dogmatic:
every methodological rule is associated
with
cosmological assumptions, so that using
the
rule we take it for granted that the
assumptions
are correct. Naive falsificationism
takes
it for granted that the laws of nature
are
manifest and not hidden beneath disturbances
of considerable magnitude. Empiricism
takes
it for -ranted that sense experience
is a
better mirror of the world than pure
thought.
Praise of argument takes it for granted
that
the artifices of Reason give better
results
than the unchecked play of our emotions.
Such assumptions may be perfectly plausible
and even true. Still, one should occasionally
put them to a test. Putting them to
a test
means that we stop using the methodology
associated with them, start doing science
in a different way and see what happens.
Case studies such as those reported
in the
preceding chapters show that such tests
occur
all the time, and that they speak against
the universal validity of any rule.
All methodologies
have their limitations and the only
'rule'
that survives is 'anything goes'.
The change of perspective brought about
by
these discoveries leads once more to
the
long-forgotten problem of the excellence
of science. It leads to it for the
first
time in modern history, for modern
science
overpowered its opponents, it did not
convince
them. Science took over by force, not
by
argument (this is especially true of
the
former colonies where science and the
religion
of brotherly love were introduced as
a matter
of course, and without consulting,
or arguing
with, the inhabitants). Today we realise
that rationalism, being bound to science,
cannot give us any assistance in the
issue
between science and myth and we also
know,
from inquiries of an entirely different
kind,
that myths are vastly better than rationalists
have dared to admit.' Thus we are now
forced
to raise the question of the excellence
of
science. An examination then reveals
that
science and myth overlap in many ways,
that
the differences we think we perceive
are
often local phenomena which may turn
into
similarities elsewhere and that fundamental
discrepancies are results of different
aims
rather than of different methods trying
to
reach one and the same 'rational' end
(such
as, for example, 'progress', or increase
of content, or 'growth').
To show the surprising similarities
of myth
and science, I shall briefly discuss
an interesting
paper by Robin Horton, entitled 'African
Traditional Thought and Western Science'.'
Horton examines African mythology and
discovers
the following features: the quest for
theory
is a quest for unity underlying apparent
complexity. The theory places things
in a
causal context that is wider than the
causal
context provided by common sense: both
science
and myth cap common sense with a theoretical
superstructure. There are theories
of different
degrees of abstraction and they are
used
in accordance with the different requirements
of explanation that arise. Theory construction
consists in breaking up objects of
common
sense and in reuniting the elements
in a
different way. Theoretical models start
from
analogy but they gradually move away
from
the pattern on which the analogy was
based.
And so on.
These features, which emerge from case
studies
no less careful and detailed than those
of
Lakatos, refute the assumption that
science
and myth obey different principles
of formation
(Cassirer), that myth proceeds without
reflection
(Dardel), or speculation (Frankfort,
occasionally).
Nor can we accept the idea, found in
Malinowski
but also in classical scholars such
as Harrison
and Cornford, that myth has an essentially
pragmatic function or is based on ritual.
Myth is much closer to science than
one would
expect from a philosophical discussion.
It
is closer to science than even Horton
himself
is prepared to admit.
To see this, consider some of the differences
Horton emphasises. According to Horton,
the
central ideas of a myth are regarded
as sacred.
There is anxiety about threats to them.
One
'almost never finds a confession of
ignorance
and events 'which seriously defy the
established
lines of classification in the culture
where
they occur' evoke a 'taboo reaction'
.4 Basic
beliefs are protected by this reaction
as
well as by the device of 'secondary
elaborations"
which, in our terms, arc series of
ad hoc
hypotheses. Science, on the other hand,
is
characterised by an essential scepticism;
'when failures start to come thick
and fast,
defence of the theory switches inexorably
to attack on it'.' This is possible
because
of the 'openness' of the scientific
enterprise,
because of the pluralism of ideas it
contains
and also because whatever defies or
fails
to fit into the established category
system
is not something horrifying, to be
isolated
or expelled. On the contrary, it is
an intriguing
'phenomenon' - a starting-point and
a challenge
for the invention of new classifications
and new theories. We can see that Horton
has read his Popper well. A field study
of
science itself shows a very different
picture.
Such a study reveals that, while some
scientists
may proceed as described, the great
majority
follow a different path. Scepticism
is at
a minimum; it is directed against the
view
of the opposition and against minor
ramifications
of one's own basic ideas, never against
the
basic ideas themselves. Attacking the
basic
ideas evokes taboo reactions which
are no
weaker than are the taboo reactions
in so-called
"primitive societies." Basic
beliefs
are protected by this reaction as well
as
by secondary elaborations, as we have
seen,
and whatever fails to fit into the
established
category system or is said to be incompatible
with this system is either viewed as
something
quite horrifying or, more frequently,
it
is simply declared to be non-existent.
Nor
is science prepared to make 'a theoretical
pluralism the foundation of research.
Newton
reigned for more than 150 years, Einstein
briefly introduced a more liberal point
of
view only to be succeeded by the Copenhagen
Interpretation. The similarities between
science and myth are indeed astonishing.
But the fields are even more closely
related.
The massive dogmatism I have described
is
not just a fact, it has also a most
important
function. Science would be impossible
without
it." 'Primitive' thinkers showed
greater
insight into the nature of knowledge
than
their 'enlightened' philosophical rivals.
It is, therefore, necessary to re-examine
our attitude towards myth, religion,
magic,
witchcraft and towards all those ideas
which
rationalists would like to see forever
removed
from the surface of the earth (without
having
so much as looked at them - a typical
taboo
reaction).
There is another reason why such a
re-examination
is urgently required. The rise of modern
science coincides with the suppression
of
non-Western tribes by Western invaders.
The
tribes are not only physically suppressed,
they also lose their intellectual independence
and are forced to adopt the bloodthirsty
religion of brotherly love - Christianity.
The most intelligent members get an
extra
bonus: they are introduced into the
mysteries
of Western Rationalism and its peak
- Western
Science. Occasionally this leads to
an almost
unbearable tension with tradition (Haiti).
In most cases the tradition disappears
without
the trace of an argument, one sim ply
becomes
a slave both in body and in mind. Today
this
development is gradually reversed -
with
great reluctance, to be sure, but it
is reversed.
Freedom is regained, old traditions
are rediscovered,
both among the minorities in Western
countries
and among large populations in non-Western
continents. But science still reigns
supreme.
It reigns supreme because its practitioners
are unable to understand, and unwilling
to
condone, different ideologies, because
they
have the power to enforce their wishes,
and
because they use this power ' just
as their
ancestors used their power to force
Christianity
on the peoples they encountered during
their
conquests. Thus, while an American
can now
choose the religion he likes, he is
still
not permitted to demand that his children
learn magic rather than science at
school.
There is a separation between state
and church,
there is no separation between state
and
science.
And yet science has no greater authority
than any other form of life. Its aims
are
certainly not more important than are
the
aims that guide the lives in a religious
community or in a tribe that is united
by
a myth. At any rate, they have no business
restricting the lives, the thoughts,
the
education of the members of a free
society
where everyone should have a chance
to make
up his own mind and to live in accordance
with the social beliefs he finds most
acceptable.
The separation between state and church
must
therefore be complemented by the separation
between state and science.
We need not fear that such a separation
will
lead to a breakdown of technology.
There
will always be people who prefer being
scientists
to being the masters of their fate
and who
gladly submit to the meanest kind of
(intellectual
and institutional) slavery provided
they
are paid well and provided also there
are
some people around who examine their
work
and sing their praise. Greece developed
and
progressed because it could rely on
the services
of unwilling slaves. We shall develop
and
progress with the help of the numerous
willing
slaves in universities and laboratories
who
provide us with pills, gas, electricity,
atom bombs, frozen dinners and, occasionally,
with a few interesting fairy-tales.
We shall
treat these slaves well, we shall even
listen
to them, for they have occasionally
some
interesting stories to tell, but we
shall
not permit them to impose their ideology
on our children in the guise of 'progressive'
theories of education. We shall not
permit
them to teach the fancies of science
as if
they were the only factual statements
in
existence. This separation of science
and
state may be our only chance to overcome
the hectic barbarism of our scientific-technical
age and to achieve a humanity we are
capable
of, but have never fully realised.
Let us,
therefore, in conclusion review the
arguments
that can be adduced for such a procedure.
The image of 20th-century science in
the
minds of scientists and laymen is determined
by technological miracles such as colour
television, the moon shots, the infra-red
oven, as well as by a somewhat vague
but
still quite influential rumour, or
fairy-tale,
concerning the manner in which these
miracles
are produced.
According to the fairy-tale the success
of
science is the result of a subtle,
but carefully
balanced combination of inventiveness
and
control. Scientists have ideas. And
they
have special methods for improving
ideas.
The theories of science have passed
the test
of method. They give a better account
of
the world than ideas which have not
passed
the test.
The fairy-tale explains why modern
society
treats science in a special way and
why it
grants it privileges not enjoyed by
other
institutions.
Ideally, the modern state is ideologically
neutral. Religion, myth, prejudices
do have
an influence, but only in a roundabout
way,
through the medium of politically influential
parties. Ideological principles may
enter
the governmental structure, but only
via
a majority vote, and after a lengthy
discussion
of possible consequences. In our schools
the main religions are taught as historical
phenomena. They are taught as parts
of the
truth only if the parents insist on
a more
direct mode of instruction. It is up
to them
to decide about the religious education
of
their children. The financial support
of
ideologies does not exceed the financial
support granted to parties and to private
groups. State and ideology, state and
church,
state and myth, are carefully separated.
State and science, however, work closely
to-ether. Immense sums are spent on
the improvement
of scientific ideas. Bastard subjects
such
as the philosophy of science which
have not
a single discovery to their credit
profit
from the boom of the sciences. Even
human
relations are dealt with in a scientific
manner, as is shown by education programmes,
proposals for prison reform, army training,
and so on. Almost all scientific subjects
are compulsory subjects in our schools.
While
the parents of a six-year-old child
can decide
to have him instructed in the rudiments
of
Protestantism, or in the rudiments
of the
Jewish faith, or to omit religious
instruction
altogether, they do not have a similar
freedom
in the case of the sciences. Physics,
astronomy,
history must be learned. They cannot
be replaced
by magic, astrology, or by a study
of legends.
Nor is one content with a merely historical
presentation of physical (astronomical,
historical,
etc.) facts and principles. One does
not
say: some people believe that the earth
moves
round the sun while others regard the
earth
as a hollow sphere that contains the
sun,
the planets, the fixed stars. One says:
the
earth moves round the sun - everything
else
is sheer idiocy.
Finally, the manner in which we accept
or
reject scientific ideas is radically
different
from democratic decision procedures.
We accept
scientific laws and scientific facts,
we
teach them in our schools, we make
them the
basis of important political decisions,
but
without ever having subjected them
to a vote.
Scientists do not subject them to a
vote
- or at least this is what they say
- and
laymen certainly do not subject them
to a
vote. Concrete proposals are occasionally
discussed, and a vote is suggested.
But the
procedure is not extended to general
theories
and scientific facts. Modern society
is 'Copernican'
not because Copernicanism has been
put on
a ballot, subjected to a democratic
debate
and then voted in with a simple majority;
it is 'Copernican' because the scientists
are Copernicans and because one accepts
their
cosmology as uncritically as one once
accepted
the cosmology of bishops and cardinals.
Even bold and revolutionary thinkers
bow
to the judgement of science. Kropotkin
wants
to break up all existing institutions
- but
he does not touch science. Ibsen goes
very
far in unmasking the conditions of
contemporary
humanity - but he still retains science
as
a measure of the truth. Evans-Pritchard,
Lévi-Strauss and others have recognised
that
'Western Thought', far from being a
lonely
peak of human development, is troubled
by
problems not found in other ideologies
-
but they exclude science from their
relativisation
of all forms of thought. Even for them
science
is a neutral structure containing positive
knowledge that is independent of culture,
ideology, prejudice.
The reason for this special treatment
of
science is, of course, our little fairy-tale:
if science has found a method that
turns
ideologically contaminated ideas into
true
and useful theories, then it is indeed
not
mere ideology, but an objective measure
of
all ideologies. It is then not subjected
to the demand for a separation between
state
and ideology.
But the fairy-tale is false, as we
have seen.
There is no special method that guarantees
success or makes it probable. Scientists
do not solve problems because they
possess
a magic wand - methodology, or a theory
of
rationality - but because they have
studied
a problem for a long time, because
they know
the situation fairly well, because
they are
not too dumb (though that is rather
doubtful
nowadays when almost anyone can become
a
scientist), and because the excesses
of one
scientific school are almost always
balanced
by the excesses of some other school.
(Besides,
scientists only rarely solve their
problems,
they make lots of mistakes, and many
of their
solutions are quite useless.) Basically
there.
is hardly any difference between the
process
that leads to the announcement of a
new scientific
law and the process preceding passage
of
a new law in society: one informs either
all citizens or those immediately concerned,
one collects 'facts' and prejudices,
one
discusses the matter, and one finally
votes.
But while a democracy makes some effort
to
explain the process so that everyone
can
understand it, scientists either conceal
it, or bend it, to make it fit their
sectarian
interests.
No scientist will admit that voting
plays
a role in his subject. Facts, logic,
and
methodology alone decide - this is
what the
fairy-tale tells us. But how do facts
decide?
What is their function in the advancement
of knowledge? We cannot derive our
theories
from them. We cannot give a negative
criterion
by saying, for example, that good theories
are theories which can be refuted,
but which
are not yet contradicted by any fact.
A principle
of falsification that removes theories
because
they do not fit the facts would have
to remove
the whole of science (or it would have
to
admit that large parts of science are
irrefutable).
The hint that a good theory explains
more
than its rivals is not very realistic
either.
True: new theories often predict new
things
- but almost always at the expense
of things
already known. Turning to logic we
realise
that even the simplest demands are
not satisfied
in scientific practice, and could not
be
satisfied, because of the complexity
of the
material. The ideas which scientists
use
to present the known and to advance
into
the unknown are only rarely in agreement
with the strict injunctions of logic
or pure
mathematics and the attempt to make
them
conform would rob science of the elasticity
without which progress cannot be achieved.
We see: facts alone are not strong
enough
for making us accept, or reject, scientific
theories, the range they leave to thought
is too wide; logic and methodology
eliminate
too much, they are too narrow. In between
these two extremes lies the ever-changing
domain of human ideas and wishes. And
a more
detailed analysis of successful moves
in
the game of science ('successful' from
the
point of view of the scientists themselves)
shows indeed that there is a wide range
of
freedom that demands a multiplicity
of ideas
and permits the application of democratic
procedures (ballot-discussion-vote)
but that
is actually closed by power politics
and
propaganda. This is where the fairy-tale
of a special method assumes its decisive
function. It conceals the freedom of
decision
which creative scientists and the general
public have even inside the most rigid
and
the most advanced parts of science
by a recitation
of 'objective' criteria and it thus
protects
the big-shots (Nobel Prize winners;
heads
of laboratories, of organisations such
as
the AMA, of special schools; 'educators';
etc.) from the masses (laymen; experts
in
non-scientific fields; experts in other
fields
of science): only those citizens count
who
were subjected to the pressures of
scientific
institutions (they have undergone a
long
process of education), who succumbed
to these
pressures (they have passed their examinations),
and who are now firmly convinced of
the truth
of the fairy-tale. This is how scientists
have deceived themselves and everyone
else
about their business, but without any
real
disadvantage: they have more money,
more
authority, more sex appeal than they
deserve,
and the most stupid procedures and
the most
laughable results in their domain are
surrounded
with an aura of excellence. It is time
to
cut them down in size, and to give
them a
more modest position in society.
This advice, which only few of our
well-conditioned
contemporaries are prepared to accept,
seems
to clash with certain simple and widely-known
facts.
Is it not a fact that a learned physician
is better equipped to diagnose and
to cure
an illness than a layman or the medicine-man
of a primitive society? Is it not a
fact
that epidemics and dangerous individual
diseases
have disappeared only with the beginning
of modern medicine? Must we not admit
that
technology has made tremendous advances
since
the rise of modern science? And are
not the
moon-shots a most impressive and undeniable
proof of its excellence? These are
some of
the questions which are thrown at the
impudent
wretch who dares to criticise the special
position of the sciences.
The questions reach their polemical
aim only
if one assumes that the results of
science
which no one will deny have arisen
without
any help from non-scientific elements,
and
that they cannot be improved by an
admixture
of such elements either. 'Unscientific'
procedures
such as the herbal lore of witches
and cunning
men, the astronomy of mystics, the
treatment
of the ill in primitive societies are
totally
without merit. Science alone gives
us a useful
astronomy, an effective medicine, a
trustworthy
technology. One must also ' assume
that science
owes its success to the correct method
and
not merely to a lucky accident. It
was not
a fortunate cosmological guess that
led to
progress, but the correct and cosmologically
neutral handling of data. These are
the assumptions
we must make to give the questions
the polemical
force they are supposed to have. Not
a single
one of them stands up to closer examination.
Modern astronomy started with the attempt
of Copernicus to adapt the old ideas
of Philolaos
to the needs of astronomical predictions.
Philolaos was not a precise scientist,
he
was a muddle-headed Pythagorean, as
we have
seen, and the consequences of his doctrine
were called 'incredibly ridiculous'
by a
professional astronomer such as Ptolemy.
Even Galileo, who had the much improved
Copernican
version of Philolaos before him, says:
'There
is no limit to my astonishment when
I reflect
that Aristarchus and Copernicus were
able
to make reason to conquer sense that,
in
defiance of the latter, the former
became
mistress of their belief' (Dialogue,
328).
'Sense' here refers to the experiences
which
Aristotle and others had used to show
that
the earth must be at rest. The 'reason'
which
Copernicus opposes to their arguments
is
the very mystical reason of Philolaos
combined
with an equally mystical faith ('mystical'
from the point of view of today's rationalists)
in the fundamental character of circular
motion. I have shown that modern astronomy
and modern dynamics could not have
advanced
without this unscientific use of antediluvian
ideas.
While astronomy profited from Pythagoreanism
and from the Platonic love for circles,
medicine
profited from herbalism, from the psychology,
the metaphysics, the physiology of
witches,
midwives, cunning men, wandering druggists.
It is well known that 16th- and 17th-century
medicine while theoretically hypertrophic
was quite helpless in the face of disease
(and stayed that way for a long time
after
the 'scientific revolution'). Innovators
such as Paracelsus fell back on the
earlier
ideas and improved medicine. Everywhere
science
is enriched by unscientific methods
and unscientific
results, while procedures which have
often
been regarded as essential parts of
science
are quietly suspended or circumvented.
The process is not restricted to the
early
history of modern science. It is not
merely
a consequence of the primitive state
of the
sciences of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Even today science can and does profit
from
an admixture of unscientific ingredients.
An example which was discussed above,
in
Chapter 4, is the revival of traditional
medicine in Communist China. When the
Communists
in the fifties forced hospitals and
medical
schools to teach the ideas and the
methods
contained in the Yellow Emperor's Textbook
of Internal Medicine and to use them
in the
treatment of patients, many Western
experts
(among them Eccles, one of the 'Popperian
Knights') were aghast and predicted
the downfall
of Chinese medicine. What happened
was the
exact opposite. Acupuncture, moxibustion,
pulse diagnosis have led to new insights,
new methods of treatment, new problems
both
for the Western and for the Chinese
physician.
And those who do not like to see the
state
meddling in scientific matters should
remember
the sizeable chauvinism of science:
for most
scientists the slogan 'freedom for
science'
means the freedom to indoctrinate not
only
those who have joined them, but the
rest
of society as well. Of course - not
every
mixture of scientific and non-scientific
elements is successful (example: Lysenko).
But science is not always successful
either.
If mixtures are to be avoided because
they
occasionally misfire, then pure science
(if there is such a thing) must be
avoided
as well. (It is not the interference
of the
state that is objectionable in the
Lysenko
case, but the totalitarian interference
that
kills the opponent instead of letting
him
go his own way.)
Combining this observation with the
insight
that science has no special method,
we arrive
at the result that the separation of
science
and non-science is not only artificial
but
also detrimental to the advancement
of knowledge.
If we want to understand nature, if
we want
to master our physical surroundings,
then
we must use all ideas, all methods,
and not
'just a small selection of them. The
assertion,
however, that there is no knowledge
outside
science - extra scientiam nulla salus
- is
nothing but another and most convenient
fairy-tale.
Primitive tribes have more detailed
classifications
of animals and plants than contemporary
scientific
zoology and botany, they know remedies
whose
effectiveness astounds physicians (while
the pharmaceutical industry already
smells
here a new source of income), they
have means
of influencing their fellow men which
science
for a long time regarded as non-existent
(Voodoo), they solve difficult problems
in
ways which are still not quite understood
(building of the pyramids; Polynesian
travels),
there existed a highly developed and
internationally
known astronomy in the old Stone Age,
this
astronomy was factually adequate as
well
as emotionally satisfying, it solved
both
physical and social problems (one cannot
say the same about modern astronomy)
and
it was tested in very simple and ingenious
ways (stone observatories in England
and
in the South Pacific; astronomical
schools
in Polynesia - for a more detailed
treatment
and references concerning all these
assertions
c. f. my Einführung in die Naturphilosophie).
There was the domestication of animals,
the
invention of rotating agriculture,
new types
of plants were bred and kept pure by
careful
avoidance of cross fertilisation, we
have
chemical inventions, we have a most
amazing
art that can compare with the best
achievements
of the present. True, there were no
collective
excursions to the moon, but single
individuals,
disregarding great dangers to their
soul
and their sanity, rose from sphere
to sphere
to sphere until they finally faced
God himself
in all His splendour while others changed
into animals and back into humans again.
At all times man approached his surroundings
w' h wide open senses and a fertile
intelligence,
at all times he made incredible discoveries,
at all times we can learn from his
ideas.
Modern science, on the other hand,
is not
at all as difficult and as perfect
as scientific
propaganda wants us to believe. A subject
such as medicine, or physics, or biology
appears difficult only because it is
taught
badly, because the standard instructions
are full of redundant material, and
because
they start too late in life. During
the war,
when the American Army needed physicians
within a very short time, it was suddenly
possible to reduce medical instruction
to
half a year (the corresponding instruction
manuals have disappeared long ago,
however.
Science may be simplified during the
war.
In peacetime the prestige of science
demands
greater complication.) And how often
does
it not happen that the proud and conceited
judgement of an expert is put in its
proper
place by a layman! Numerous inventors
built
'impossible' machines. Lawyers show
again
and again that an expert does not know
what
he is talking about. Scientists, especially
physicians, frequently come to different
results so that it is up to the relatives
of the sick person (or the inhabitants
of
a certain area) to decide by vote about
the
procedure to be adopted. How often
is science
improved, and turned into new directions
by non-scientific influences! it is
up to
us, it is up to the citizens of a free
society
to either accept the chauvinism of
science
without contradiction or to overcome
it by
the counterforce of public action.
Public
action was used against science by
the Communists
in China in the fifties, and it was
again
used,, under very different circumstances,
by some opponents of evolution in California
in the seventies. Let us follow their
example
and let us free society from the strangling
hold of an ideologically petrified
science
just as our ancestors freed us from
the strangling
hold of the One True Religion!
The way towards this aim is clear.
A science
that insists on possessing the only
correct
method and the only acceptable results
is
ideology and must be separated from
the state,
and especially from the process of
education.
One may teach it, but only to those
who have
decided to make this particular superstition
their own. On the other hand, a science
that
has dropped such totalitarian pretensions
is no longer independent and self-contained,
and it can be taught in many different
combinations
(myth and modern cosmology might be
one such
combination). Of course, every business
has
the right to demand that its practitioners
be prepared in a special way, and it
may
even demand acceptance of a certain
ideology
(I for one am against the thinning
out of
subjects so that they become more and
more
similar to each other; whoever does
not like
present-day Catholicism should leave
it and
become a Protestant, or an Atheist,
instead
of ruining it by such inane changes
as mass
in the vernacular). That is true of
physics,
just as it is true of religion, or
of prostitution.
But such special ideologies, such special
skills have no room in the process
of general
education that prepares a citizen for
his
role in society. A mature citizen is
not
a man who has been instructed in a
special
ideology, such as Puritanism, or critical
rationalism, and who now carries this
ideology
with him like a mental tumour, a mature
citizen
is a person who has learned how to
make up
his mind and who has then decided in
favour
of what he thinks suits him best. He
is a
person who has a certain mental toughness
(he does not fall for the first ideological
street singer he happens to meet) and
who
is therefore able consciously to choose
the
business that seems to be most attractive
to him rather than being swallowed
by it.
To prepare himself for his choice he
will
study the major ideologies as historical
phenomena, he will study science as
a historical
phenomenon and not as the one and only
sensible
way of approaching a problem. He will
study
it together with other fairy-tales
such as
the myths of 'primitive' societies
so that
he has the information needed for arriving
at a free decision. An essential part
of
a general education of this kind is
acquaintance
with the most outstanding propagandists
in
all fields, so that the pupil can build
up
his resistance against all propaganda,
including
the propaganda called 'argument'. It
is only
after such a hardening procedure that
he
will be called upon to make up his
mind on
the issue rationalism-irrationalism,
science-myth,
science-religion, and so on. His decision
in favour of science - assuming he
chooses
science - will then be much more 'rational'
than any decision in favour of science
is
today. At any rate - science and the
schools
will be just as carefully separated
as relig'
ion and the schools are separated today.
Scientists will of course participate
in
governmental decisions, for everyone
participates
in such decisions. But they will not
be given
overriding authority. It is the vote
of everyone
concerned that decides fundamental
issues
such as the teaching methods used,
or the
truth of basic beliefs such as the
theory
of evolution, or the quantum theory,
and
not the authority of big-shots hiding
behind
a non-existing methodology. There is
no need
to fear that such a way of arranging
society
will lead to undesirable results. Science
itself uses the method of ballot, discussion,
vote, thou-h without a clear grasp
of its
mechanism, and in a heavily biased
way. But
the rationality of our beliefs will
certainly
be considerably increased.
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