Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Blinded by Science



Since the 6th of this month saw the anniversary of the use of the A-bomb on Hiroshima, and today is the anniversary of the use of the A-bomb on Nagasaki, and since, also, I have for some time intended to post here a much-needed critique of science, I have decided to declare this anti-science week. I intend, work and circumstances permitting, to post on my blog this week, a number of entries giving my reasons for why I think we must re-evaluate the authority that science has in the intellectual arena.



Let me start with a small explanation related to the events of early August, 1945.

The use of the A-bomb, was, I believe, a scientific experiment. On Sunday, the BBC screened a documentary on the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and one Dr Hida, who was near Hiroshima at the time, and treatd the casualties thereof, expressed just such an opinion. Japan was in a bad way at the time. No one had eaten white rice for months. The country could not hold out much longer. The militarists then in power in Japan, are, of course, not blameles. But they also provided America with a convenient excuse to do what they most wanted - to test the effects of the A-bomb on a densely populated city.



This is the very foundation of science - experiment. This kind of experiment is made possible because, according to science, all life is a purely chemical phenomenon. There is no soul. The experiment of Hiroshima, therefore, is essentially no different to mixing chemicals in a lab and seeing what happens. People are only objects to be used in the pursuit of knowledge and power. In science, morality has no foundation, and becomes untenable, since the foundation of morality must be the concept of the soul, which alone makes possible compassion.



On the abovementioned documentary, various people who took part in the mission to destroy Hiroshima were interviewed. None of them expressed any remorse. One went so far as to say that he had a job to do, that he did it well, and that he was happy with that. Just following orders, eh? Heard that before somewhere. It is science and its repressive rationalism that allows such a loss of compassion.

To quote William Burroughs, "No job too dirty for a fucking scientist."

The way that science neutralises compassion can also be seen on the Japanese side, in the events that took place at the secret research station, Unit 731. Here, many experiments, supposedly for the development of biological warfare techniques, were carried out upon thousands of POWs of all nationalities. When the Japanese surrendered, "[t]he US allowed these scientists to go unprosecuted in exchange for their experimentation data."

These events are chronicled in the film, Men Behind the Sun.

How do scientists get away with such exploitation? By convincing YOU that you have no soul. To quote Burroughs once more, "Convince them they've got no soul. It's more humane that way."

I mentioned the fact that I have been meaning to post a critique of science for some time. This began by chance when I posted a comment on someone's blog some time back. I post that comment in its entirety here:

Hello M,

I was going post a comment on what I believe without having any proof of its truth. Unfortunately, I've had very little time to go into such depth, and my eyes are still playing up a bit. But I will try and state it all simply. Most of the people who answered that Edge question are scientists. Science, in my view, is actually dangerous, because of its claims to objectivity. I'll try to break this down simply.

There's a quote at the beginning of a book by Burroughs from a character called Hassan I Sabbah (not sure if I've spelt that right). The quote runs: "Nothing is True. Everything is permitted." Burroughs explains the significance of this quote by saying that it is important not to beleve that anything can be true. What you have to do is take a look at who wants you to believe what, who is controlling the illusions that in turn control our lives, and then ask yourself what their motives are.

My impression is this, most scientists are the type of people who, at school, did not like subjects such as English literature and so on, because there was no 'right answer'. They did not understand how you could possibly grade something or know what to do in such circumstances. In the science subjects there were always right or wrong answers. It was easy for them to be right, and they liked being right. They liked the power this gave them, sensing in it a means of controlling life and their environment. What I'm saying here is, objectivity is a means to power in science. In other words, behind so-called objectivity is ambition.

In order to maintain the power that objectivity gives them, scientists need to see everything in terms of right or wrong, what can be proved or can't be. This means that they have to focus exclusively on the quantitive aspects of existence and ignore the qualitative. In fact, to ensure that their power really lasts, they have to convince the whole world that there is no qualitative aspect to existence. This is why scientists are adamant that there is no soul. When they talk about there being no room for any soul in the body, they reveal precisely how primitive their own thought processes are, as if they are expecting a sheeted figure to rise up vaporously when they cut open a cadaver. The quantitative aspect corresponds with the mass of the body. The qualitative aspect corresponds with the form. Mass and form. That's why scientists are so fond of looking through microscopes, and breaking things down - reductively - to their smallest particles. It's in order to ignore the form, the higher pattern. Science has a bottom up, rather than top down approach to analysing things. Define everything by its smallest particles. If we look, for instance, at a poem, we can see that the qualitative aspect is the mass of the ink on paper, and the neurons that it engages in the brain. The qualitative aspect is, first of all, the shape - where, precisely, can you get a hold of the shape? - and also the meaning. Let's start with a small one:

Old pond
A frog leaps
Sound of water

Where is the meaning of this poem? If you cut it into small pieces, would you find the meaning? The answer is no, of course. Yet to deny that there is a meaning, however valuable you think that meaning is, is to deny the obvious. But this denial of the obvious is precisely what science does. It is a pernicious way of thinking that erodes compassion and is resposible for our rape of the planet.

Objecitivy is now the new dogma. It is airtight - as long as you deny all things qualitative, where the soul resides - because it breaks everything down into what can be proved and what cannot, and this is precisely the realm where science has a monopoly. Ask youself this, Do we really want to live in a world where science's authority has become absolutely beyond challenge? Because that is the world we are heading for rapidly. We are almost there now. If I say that fundamentalists are dangerous, few people, except fundamentalists, would disagree. If I say that scientists are dangerous, suddenly I am a heretic and a crackpot - why? Because science has got so far with its hegemony of objectivity, which it guards jealously through being esoteric, so that no lay-person is qualified to tell a scientist what to do. But hear this - scientists are fundamentalists, too. They are fundamentalists of materialism.

It is good in some ways that so many of them are ready to confess to having beliefs that they cannot prove. But if you read what they say, most of them suggest that they will be able to prove them, and that they intend to.

Science has been useful to us, but I think that until it admits that it is self-limiting, and that, in essence, life is bigger than science, it has to be viewed as megolomaniac.

As I mentioned in a recent post, fellow blogger Lokutus Prime read this comment and assumed that I advocated the elimination of science. If you read the comment carefully, you will find that I do not actually advocate such a thing. However,since writing that comment, my views have hardened just a little. Dr Prime responded with entries of his own, in his characteristic verse, and now tells me he is preparing a defence of science. I am looking forward to it.